Publication Date
2024
Abstract
Trust is an important component of any purchasing situation. In an online setting, trust becomes even more important as buyer and seller are not able to directly interact with one another. Compounding the situation is the fact that the consumer cannot directly experience the product under consideration. Organizations have attempted to address this shortcoming by allowing third parties to offer reviews of the product in question. This paper addresses how consumers process these product reviews.
By rooting this paper in trust and uncertainty reduction theory, a testable model was developed. The model was tested, and in general, more helpful reviews, lower intra-review variability, and an onymous review leads to a greater probability of trusting a reviewer. However, these general findings need to be interpreted though the lens of several significant interactions. The paper concludes with prescriptions for practitioners and several avenues for future research.
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