The effect of consumer comments shared in social media on purchasing behaviour and brand preference: example of e-commerce websites

Within the scope of this study, it is aimed to examine the effect of perception of consumers who live in Istanbul, follow online consumer comments about e-commerce websites in social media and are in or above 18-age towards online consumer comments shared in social media on purchasing behaviour and brand preference. Quantitative research technique was used in the study. Istanbul was selected as the research universe, and a survey was made on 401 respondents via using convenience sampling technique between 21st February 2023 and 17th May 2023. In prepared survey form, there are Personal Information Form with 6 questions, Online Consumer Comments Questionnaire generated by Abaeva (2020) after making literature review with 19 statements and 5 dimensions, Purchasing Behaviour Questionnaire developed by Tandon, Jabeen, Talwar, Sakashita and Dhir (2021) and adapted into Turkish by Taşlık-Çınarlı (2022) with 3 statements and one dimension, and Brand Preference Questionnaire developed by Wang (2010) and adapted into Turkish by Taşlık-Çınarlı (2022) with 3 statements and one dimension. To gather research data, Google Forms online survey platform was used. Data analysis was made by using SPSS-22 statistical analysis program. As the result of analyses made; it was found that there is significant, partial, positive and mid-level effect of perception of consumers who live in Istanbul, follow online consumer comments about e-commerce websites in social media and are in or above 18-age towards online consumer comments shared in social media on their purchasing behaviour, and significant, partial, positive and low-level effect on brand preference. Furthermore, it was found that research variables are significantly different according to some demographical characteristics, but there is no significant difference in any variable in terms of gender. Keywords: Social Media, Online Consumer Comments, Electronic Word-of-Mouth, Purchasing Behaviour, Brand Preference, E-Commerce Website