Data has shown that globally, 81% of internet users have ever searched for products online and 74% of internet users have purchased products online. Social media is becoming an important part of online business. With internet, traditional word-of-mouth has transformed into electronic word-of-mouth. In Indonesia itself, consumer reviews are ranked top 3 as primary channel for brand research. One of the most popular social medias in 2020 is TikTok with total of 800 million users worldwide and 30.7 million users in Indonesia. On TikTok, beauty category is one of the most popular content categories with. In Indonesia, cosmetics industry has been reported to have 15.2% growth in 2020. The growing number indicates that the competition is more intense, so it is important to create innovate marketing strategies by taking the advantage of e-WOM phenomenon to grow interests, looking at the popularity of Somethinc on TikTok.
This research aims to study further the influence of e-WOM on TikTok towards purchase intention of Somethinc by predicting the purchase intention. To understand the influence of e-WOM, information adoption model is used as it is common in e-WOM studies. Information quantity variable is added to information adoption model. The findings in this research are hoped to help Somethinc improve their marketing strategies and help MSMEs in beauty industry grow their business with e-WOM and TikTok.
Data was collected from 403 respondents by filling in Google Form questionnaire with several criterion, such as Indonesian TikTok users who search for skincare product reference, know or have seen Somethinc brand on TikTok, follow or not follow Somethinc. To process the data, the method is using PLS-SEM with SmartPLS to predict purchase intention of Somethinc.
It was found that information adoption positively and significantly influences purchase intention. The model was able to predict purchase intention of Somethinc by 21.1%. Specific indirect effects towards purchase intention were also found in the structural model. Sequentially from the most influential are information usefulness, information quantity, information credibility, and information quality.
As the business sector and social media platform are quite specified and the majority of the respondents are women, the findings cannot be generalized to other business sector, other social media platform, and other gender. For future research, it is suggested to consider adding other factors that can enhance the prediction power of information adoption model. Future research can also use the current model in other business sectors or other social media platforms.