Supporting the purchase decisions of consumers

Abstract

Purpose Online product ratings play an important role in the decision-making process of consumers, which are not only sources of information used by consumers to understand the function and quality of a product or service but also sources of information used to find desirable products. The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision-based method for supporting the purchase decisions of consumers based on not only the online product ratings but also the actual product attributes. Design/methodology/approach First, two types of utility values are designed to measure the preference of the consumer based on either online ratings or actual product attributes. Then, the traditional TOPSIS method is adopted to achieve a comprehensive value by integrating the two types of utility values so that all of the alternative products can be ranked. Further, a product selection support system prototype is designed and developed to support the purchase decisions of consumers. Findings To help consumers select desirable products efficiently, it is necessary to develop a product selection method based on the online ratings of alternative products and consumer expectations. Practical implications The research shows that the proposed method can not only support consumers’ purchase decisions based on a large number of online product ratings but also help manufacturers to find out consumers’ demands or requirements on products so as to facilitate the design of new products or the improvement of products. On the basis of the proposed method, the developed system prototype is helpful for consumers to select desirable products. Originality/value To support the purchase decisions of consumers, a new decision-based method for selecting desirable online products is proposed.

Managing Marketing Decision-Making with Sentiment Analysis: An Evaluation of the Main Product Features Using Text Data Mining

“…Each review included a star score in the range [1,5] and a comment given by the user. They had the following structure, shown with the following sample: { "reviewerID": "A6FGO4TBZ3QFZ", "asin": "3998899561", "reviewerName": " .…”

“…Particularly, brand management can be one area of interest, as online reviews might have an influence on brand image and brand positioning, including design decisions. In the same line, Fan et al [5] argued that this type of analysis might help manufacturers not only to find out what consumer demands or requirements are, but also to facilitate the design of new products and the improvement of products already available on the market.…”

An Emotionally Intuitive Fuzzy TODIM Methodology for Decision Making Based on Online Reviews: Insights from Movie Rankings

“…Recent academic endeavors have harnessed multi-attribute decision making (MADM) methodologies for online product categorization. For instance, Fan et al [11] derived a comparative superiority degree for various alternatives using the distribution percentages of specific features across distinct commodities, employing the PROMETHEE II (Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment of Evaluations) method for comprehensive evaluation. In another study, Fan et al [12] leveraged user ratings from online reviews to formulate two utility functions, with the subsequent application of the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) method for holistic evaluation and ranking.…”

“…Some product ranking methods based on online reviews only take into account the positive and negative affective tendencies of online reviews, ignoring the fact that the affective tendencies in the reviews can be neutral, i.e., ambiguous information, which can lead to a loss of information in the decision making process. Established models like TOPSIS and PROMETHEE II, premised on the notion of the decision maker's absolute rationality, disregard the psychological intricacies underpinning the decision making process [11,12]. The TODIM method is appropriate for illustrating the psychological behavior of consumers during the product prioritization process [15,16].…”

The Role of Brand Image Mediate the Influence of Price Fairness on Purchase Decisions for Local Fashion Brand Products

“…Maintaining or seizing existing market share requires a brand to differentiate goods or services produced or manufactured by other similar companies. Brand image can also be interpreted as consumers' thoughts and feelings about the brand (Fan et al, 2018) Ahmed (2016), "Brands must have distinctive characteristics and it is this characteristic that distinguishes one product from another even though it is similar, the conditions of increasingly fierce business competition today, companies need to utilize their resources optimally, including trying to create or carry out engineering that can affect consumer perceptions, for example through brand image." Sulhaini et al (2020), "The choice of products that are increasingly making many consumers can determine their choice of a product in this case is clothing that has a good brand image in the community itself and makes these consumers buy and loyal to the product.…”