The Effect of WeChat Official Accounts on Chinese Consumers' Purchase Intentions

• Main Author: Wu, Meng (Author)
• Other Authors: Xu, Yingzi (Contributor)
• Format: Others
• Published: Auckland University of Technology, 2019-05-14T22:19:56Z.
• Subjects: WeChat Official Account (WOA); Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM); Social capital; Consumer purchase intentions; Consumer behaviours; Dissertation
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 WeChat Official Account (WOA) is an innovative platform built upon WeChat, a mobile social networking tool designed primarily for online communication. WOAs offer a formal way for companies to interact with their customers through WeChat and have been leveraged as a marketing apparatus by multinational enterprises to communicate and interact with Chinese consumers by utilising the platform's multimodality. Multimodality on WeChat is manifested in the integration of texts, images and video clips - all of which shape WOA into a unique platform unlike any other. Scholarly studies on WeChat marketing have recently proliferated, yet research that specifically looks at WOA as a marketing communication platform is lacking. To fill this research gap, the objective of this study was to establish a conceptual framework that addresses electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and its influence on consumer purchase intentions and behaviours in the context of WOAs. Extrapolated from this conceptual framework, five propositions are proposed to demonstrate WOA consumer behaviour dynamics, especially with regard to consumers' purchase intentions. Keywords: WeChat Official Account (WOA); electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM); social capital; consumer purchase intentions; consumer behaviours