How Do Influencers Moderate Purchase Motives? An Application of S-O-R Model to Assess the Effects of Reviewers’ Rating on Online Purchase

Abstract This study investigates the effects of reviewers’ comments and rating scores on online buyers purchase motives, employing the ‘stimuli–organism–response’ (S-O-R) framework. The study considers three stimuli, that is, review rating, security and privacy and review content, that impacted consumers’ emotions (organism) toward online buying (response). In total, 400 responses are collected from millennial online buyers using a survey method with a structured research instrument, and structural equation modeling is applied to analyze empirical results. The result reveals that when people have high level of satisfaction and trustworthiness with the online review rating, content and security policy, their online purchase motives are stronger. Moreover, the study also examines the influencers’ role in purchase motives as moderators and reveals that influencers are important determinants in the purchase motive through online purchases. Thus, the results of this study encourage online marketers to focus on customer reviews and rating scores, ultimately designing the consumer organism that leads to online purchases.