Effects of electronic word-of-mouth on consumers’ purchase decision in catering industry

The emergence of Internet technology-based network economy has diversified information channels so that the selectable space for consumers is enlarged. In comparison with traditional promotion and advertisement, electronic word-of-mouth marketing, as a new style marketing presenting high transparency, broad influential regions, and obvious time effectiveness, is more easily accepted by consumers.By distributing and collecting questionnaires on site, 400 copies of questionnaires were distributed to the catering consumers in CHATEAU de CHINE, and 283 valid ones were retrieved, with the retrieval rate of 71%; each retrieved copy was regarded as a valid sample. The research results show significant positive effects of Electronic Word-of-Mouth on 1. Production Selection, 2. Brand Selection, 3. Location Selection, and 4. Number of Opportunity in Purchase Decision and 5. partial effects of demographic variables on the correlations between Electronic Word-of-Mouth and Purchase Decision.