According to statistics, the total amount of online purchasing reached tens of billions. In recent years, group-buying becomes very popular and it means to purchase stuff through a group of consumers together in order to share risks and lower the price. Many studies indicated on-line shoppers tended to experience risk perceptions so as to decrease their purchasing intention. On the other hand, many studies indicated the factor of word-of-mouth communication also had a significant influence on on-line purchasing. The current research is to explore the relationship of word-of-mouth communication, risk perception and on consumers’ group-buying intent.
The research questions of this research are: (1) Do demographics make any significant difference of consumers’ intent on group-buying? (2) Are risk perceptions related to consumers’ intent on group-buying? (3) Is word-of-mouth communication related to consumers’ intent on group-buying? (4) Is consumers’ intent on group-buying predictable by risk perceptions and word-of-mouth communication?
According to the statistics, “age” made significant differences on consumers’ group buying intent. By way of correlation analysis, “time”, “social”, and “privacy” of the risk-perception construct as well as “dependency” and “decision influence” of the word-of-mouth communication construct were related with consumers’ group-buying intent. According to the regression analysis, it was found that consumer’s group-buying intent was predictable by risk perceptions and word-of-mouth communication.
