Article Preview
Top1. Introduction
The continuous participation of users in online comments can help the e-commerce platforms to dig deeply into users' opinions and realize the accurate recommendation of products. (Chatterjee, 2001) first put forward the concept of user comment when studying whether consumers would refer to the buyers’ comments when they purchase products. (Litvin, Ronald, & Bing, 2008) considered that user comments were information exchanges between consumers based on the Internet for a certain product or service. (Cui, Lui, & Guo, 2012) believed that user comments were an important means for online consumers to spread word of mouth on products and an important way for potential consumers to obtain product information. From the perspective of content, (Park & Kim, 2008) pointed out that user comments were a form of electronic word of mouth, which were positive or negative comments of consumers on products. This study defines online comments as information about purchased products or services published by consumers through the online comment system of e-commerce platforms. The motivation of consumers to post online comments includes two aspects: the motivation of comment posting and the factors influencing comment posting.
User comments are a crucial source for online users to obtain product information and a critical part of the e-commerce process. The continuous participation of users maintains common interests of consumers, merchants, and shopping platforms. User comments can help reduce the users’ decision-making uncertainty, enable consumers to make better shopping choices, and offer references for merchants to obtain product feedback and enhance product quality, as well as after-sales service management(K. J & A, 2013). The continuous user comments provide a basis for e-commerce platforms to deeply mine user opinions to obtain accurate product recommendation(Cao, Yu, Zhang, & Hu, 2017). The amount of user comment information and the number of comment replies exert a positive impact on the number of votes of comment usefulness(Jiang Wu & Liu, 2017). Moreover, research on the influencing factors of comment behavior with quantitative research is of great practical significance to public opinion(Yi, Yang, & Yan, 2018). How to effectively inspire users to make real and effective comments, thereby enabling e-commerce platforms to improve the comment function, enhance service quality, and shape core competitiveness, has become a hot topic in the field of e-commerce platform research.
The research conclusions primarily focused on the impact of the comment system on user comments. Reportedly, the perceptions of usefulness, entertainment, and usability of online comment systems are major factors affecting user trust and purchase intention(Elwalda, Lu, & Ali, 2016). Based on the technology acceptance model and social exchange theory, (Li, 2017)assessed the motivation of users making comments from three aspects of technology, society, and user psychology; the findings suggested that the reputation, reciprocity, and economic reward motivations exerted a significant promotion effect on users’ commenting willingness. In addition, the study reported that technical acceptance is a key factor affecting users’ commenting willingness. Through observation and experience of online ethnography(Y. Zhu, Li, & Li, 2017), revealed that factors like helpfulness, reciprocity, and emotional expression are major motivations for users to make comments. Despite comprehensive research on the factors affecting user comments, little effort has been made to conduct an empirical study combining user psychology with platforms.
User comments have become an important basis for users to make online shopping decisions. Most users are more likely to browse other people's comments on products or services, and fewer users are likely to comment on their own. Therefore, for the sustainable development of e-commerce enterprises, it is of great practical significance to discuss the factors that affect the willingness of users to make comments and give targeted incentives.
Online trading, between the seller and the buyer with a wide range of information asymmetry, e-commerce online comments system provides a new way to solve this problem, the different types of e-commerce platform (such as C2C, B2C, O2O) have developed commodity comment system, and constantly perfect the comment system function and user experience, in order to promote the behavior of users to participate in the comment. The healthy development of e-commerce is inseparable from the continuous participation of users. This study takes the consumers in the B2C e-commerce platform as the research object, and discusses the factors influencing the continuous participation of users in comments from the perspective of consumers' behavioral motivation.