Effect of instant messenger use on purchase decision of consumers

The uncertainty caused by the separation of information flow and product flow is an important obstacle to e-commerce development. An increasing number of e-commerce sites have chosen to embed an instant messenger (e.g., Wangwang) as a communication tool between buyers and sellers in a webpage to reduce this uncertainty. On the basis of the theory that communication helps to reduce uncertainty, we attempt to explore the relationship between the use of an instant messenger and the purchase decision of consumers. We use a logit regression model to analyze the secondary data collected from a seller on Taobao, and the following findings are determined: (1) Customers who use Wangwang tend to purchase. (2) The more quickly and more frequently sellers reply to questions and communicate about contents related to product quality, the more likely customers are to make purchase decisions.