The Effects of Online Reviews on Purchasing Decision among LGBT

Authors

  • Lim Siau Ping
  • Nazliwati Mohamad

Abstract

Online reviews have become one of the important factors that can affect customers’ purchase decision. Despite the fact that this research is mature and many studies related to this issue have been done, none of the studies choose lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) in Malaysia as the sample of research.  Hence, the aim of this paper is to discuss the effects of online reviews, characteristic of online reviews, and characteristic of online reviewers on purchase decision among LGBT. This study applied a survey research method using a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire which is distributed to respondents who are selected using snowball sampling method. In snowball sampling method, a few subjects are identified and, these subjects then nominate another person with the same trait as them. The researcher then observed the nominated subjects and it this process continued until the sufficient numbers of subjects are obtained. Findings of this study showed that existence of online reviews and characteristic of online reviews can affect purchase decision among LGBT. However, characteristic of online reviewers did not affect the purchase decision among LGBT. Even though homosexual has not been legalized in Malaysia, this research bring values to those company who have selected LGBT as their target market, as they can encourage customers to give review after purchase since the importance of online reviews and its characteristic towards purchase decision have been confirmed.

Downloads

Published

2020-04-16

Issue

Section

Articles