The Impact of Online Reviews Manipulation on Consumer Purchase Decision Based on The Perspective of Consumers’ Perception

Abstract

Consumers depend on online reviews to influences their purchase decisions. On account of that,many vendors and retailers try to manipulate online reviews to mislead potential consumers to take risky purchase decisions. Many scholars have conducted a lot of research on the impact of online product reviews on consumer behavior and sales. However, the existing work are mainly based on the premise of real product reviews, but few attentions have been paid of fake ones. Based on the recognition results of deceptive reviews, this article explores whether consumers be aware or perceive it when deceptive reviews are flooding the online review system, and further analyze what influence will be imposed on final purchase decision with different perception. The empirical analysis of the questionnaire survey show that in the context of two different perceptions of consumers, deceptive reviews have significant differences in the results of purchase decisions. In addition, research also shows that consumers’ persuasive knowledge plays a moderating role between perceived deception and purchase decision.