Influences of Reference Group on Users’ Purchase Intentions in Network Communities: From the Perspective of Trial Purchase and Upgrade Purchase

Shuiping Ding, Jie Lin and Zhenyu Zhang
Additional contact information
Shuiping Ding: School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Jie Lin: School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Zhenyu Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 24, 1-18

Abstract: Reference group is an important factor influencing users’ purchase in the network communities. The reference group’s influences involve informative influence and normative influence, and users’ purchases are divided into the trial purchase and upgrade purchase. In different purchases, users have different product information, consumer experience, and purchase attitudes, making different responses to the reference group. Thus, a research model of reference groups’ influences on users’ purchase intentions from the perspective of trial purchase and upgrade purchase is constructed. The model and hypotheses are tested by analyzing 349 valid questionnaires. The results indicate that both informative and normative influences have significant positive effects on users’ trial purchase intentions. Informative influence has a significant positive effect on users’ upgrade intentions, while the normative influence on users’ upgrade purchase intentions is not significant. Both informative influence and normative influence have significant positive effects on trust in the product. Trust in the product has a significant positive effect on trial purchase intentions, but its effect on upgrade purchase intentions is not significant. Purchase involvement positively regulates the relationship between informative influence and trial purchase intentions and negatively regulates the relationship between informative influence and upgrade purchase intentions. The results further enrich the theoretical system of users’ purchase behaviors in a virtual environment. The research can also have important implications for network communities wishing to improve online marketing.

Keywords: reference group; informative influence; normative influence; trial purchase; upgrade purchase (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/24/10619/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/24/10619/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:24:p:10619-:d:464807

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().