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This paper aims to explore online consumers’ perceptions of a trustworthy Web site. Specifically, it analyzes which Web site elements and features online buyers identify as online trust cues signaling e-vendor’s trustworthiness.

This study implemented a repertory grid technique to gain insight into the customers’ perceptions of Web site trustworthiness.

The most frequently identified online trust cues belong to the “Layout”, “Easy to Use” and “Sales” categories. This is in contrast with the traditional views that Web elements related to customers’ privacy and security are leading trust cues. In addition, online shoppers confirmed two trends in e-commerce: the role of social media in developing online trust to e-vendors is increasing and online shopping is associated with entertainment.

Rich data collected from 16 participants of this qualitative study present a challenge for generalizability. A caution should be taken in extending findings to the whole population of online shoppers.

This study proves that the repertory grid technique is a useful method for qualitative market research. This method helped to solicit a list of Web site elements and features that online consumers identified as online trust cues. As buyers refer to those cues when deciding to trust or not to trust an e-vendor with the private and confidential information, businesses could use these research findings in designing Web sites that signal trustworthiness to customers.

This study contributes to the research methodology as it extends the use of the repertory grid technique to the study of online trust cues and collection of data online. It is one of a few qualitative studies of online trust cues.

This study aims to address a novel information sharing phenomenon among many hospitality consumers, that is, sharing information during, rather than weeks after, a hospitality consumption experience. Specifically, this study tests if including a temporal contiguity cue in a review can significantly enhance the purchase intention of other consumers toward the reviewed business.

A 2 (personal sense of power) × 2 (temporal contiguity cue: manipulated to be absent vs present) quasi-experiment was conducted in this research. Floodlight analysis with the Johnson–Neyman technique was used to test the interaction effect. Hayes’ PROCESS procedure was used to test the mediation effects.

The study found that, for powerless consumers, temporal contiguity cue can effectively enhance the perceived trustworthiness of the review and purchase intention toward the reviewed business. Conversely, for powerful consumers, temporal contiguity cue can significantly reduce the perceived trustworthiness of the review and purchase intention toward the business. Mediation test further revealed evidence for the underlying psychological mechanism for these effects.

Revealing the mixed effects of a novel factor, temporal contiguity cue, on consumer responses toward online hospitality reviews, the current research contributes to the expanding stream of theoretical and managerial knowledge on online review management in social media platforms.

We investigate the joint impacts of three trust cues – content, sentiment and helpfulness votes – of online product reviews on the trust of reviews and attitude toward the product/service reviewed.

We performed three studies to test our research model, presenting participants with scenarios involving product reviews and prior users' helpful and unhelpful votes across experimental settings.

A high helpfulness ratio boosts users’ trust and influences behaviors in both positive and negative reviews. This effect is more pronounced in attribute-based reviews than emotion-based ones. Unlike the ratio effect, helpfulness magnitude significantly impacts only negative attribute-based reviews.

Future research should investigate voting systems in various online contexts, such as Facebook post likes, Twitter microblog thumb-ups and up-votes for article comments on platforms like The New York Times.

Our findings have significant implications for voting system-providers implementing information techniques on third-party review platforms, participatory sites emphasizing user-generated content and online retailers prioritizing product awareness and reputation.

This study addresses an identified need; that is, the helpfulness votes as an additional trust cue and the joint effects of three trust cues – content, sentiment and helpfulness votes – of online product reviews on the trust of customers in reviews and their consequential attitude toward the product/service reviewed.

The main aim of this study is to examine the effect of virtual store atmospheric factors on impulsive purchasing in the metaverse context.

Grounded in purposive sampling, 451 individuals with previous metaverse experience were recruited to accomplish the objectives of this research. Next, to identify both linear and nonlinear relationships, the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and artificial neural network (ANN) approaches.

The findings underscore the significance of the virtual store environment and online trust in shaping impulsive buying behaviors within the metaverse retailing setting. Theoretically, this study elucidates the impact of virtual store atmosphere and trust on impulsive buying within a metaverse retail setting.

From the findings of the study, because of the importance of virtual shop content, practitioners must address its role in impulse purchases via affective online trust. The study’s findings are likely to help retailers strategize and improve their virtual store presentations in the metaverse.

The discovery adds to the understanding of consumer behavior in the metaverse by probing the roles of virtual store atmosphere, online trust and impulsive buying.

Recent research suggests that more than two-thirds of people use online reviews to find a new primary care physician (PCP). However, it is unclear what role review content plays when a patient uses online reviews to decide about a new PCP. This paper aims to understand how a review's content, related to competence (communication and technical skills) and benevolence (fidelity and fairness), impacts patients’ trusting intentions to select a PCP. The authors build the model around information diagnosticity, construal level theory and valence asymmetries and use review helpfulness as a mediator and review valence as a moderator in this process.

The authors use two experimental studies to test their hypotheses and collect data through prolific.

The authors find that people have a harder time making inferences about the technical and communication skills of a PCP. Reviews about fidelity are perceived as more helpful and influential in building trust than reviews about fairness. Overall, reviews about the communication skills of a PCP have stronger effects on trusting intentions than other types of reviews. The authors also find that positive reviews are perceived as more helpful for the readers than negative reviews, but negative reviews have a stronger impact on patients' trust intentions than positive ones.

The authors identify how online reviews about a PCP’s competency and benevolence affect patients’ trusting intentions to choose the PCP. The implication of findings of this study for primary medical practice and physician review websites is discussed.

Many online review sites, such as TripAdivisor.com, encourage review posters to upload a profile photo to improve the perceived reliability of online reviews. This study aims to examine the roles of reviewer profile photos in the online review generation and consumption processes.

Data were collected via Amazon MTurk. Two experimental studies were conducted. Study 1 had a sample size of 106 respondents. In Study 1, this paper examined the role of a reviewer profile photo in the online review generation process. Study 2 had a sample size of 482 respondents. In Study 2, this paper examined the role of a reviewer profile photo in the online review consumption process under two different circumstances, namely, comprehensive and incomprehensive review text.

The findings show that reviewer profile photos play different roles when consumers generate online reviews versus when they consume reviews. In the review generation process, reviewers are more likely to upload a profile photo to improve the credibility of their reviews. On the other hand, in the review consumption process, reviewer profile photos do not contribute to an increase in the perceived review helpfulness.

If the readers have difficulty processing the review content, review profile photos play a critical role in determining perceived review helpfulness. This study provides both theoretical and managerial implications by indicating how reviewer profile photos play different roles in online review posting and consuming behavior.

This study aims to elicit the preferences of potential travelers for different property listings' attributes (online review number, positive valence rate of reviews and discount strategy) when selecting hotels and peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation sharing on online booking platforms.

A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted with 291 respondents with accommodation needs. They were asked to choose between pairs of listings.

The authors found that when booking accommodation online, complex discount strategies were not determinant both in selecting hotels and P2P accommodations. Positive valence rate of reviews has a higher impact on the selection of traditional hotels than P2P accommodations, while the number of online reviews has a higher impact on the selection of P2P accommodations than traditional hotels. The authors further discuss the effect of each attribute on online accommodation selection in terms of price ranges of the property listings.

The findings provide suggestions for platform operators and product/service providers to improve their marketing strategies and optimize their management efforts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies that investigate the role of property listings' attributes on the selections between hotels and P2P accommodations. The findings from this research study could be generalized to other online platforms and electronic commerce-related transactions.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) credibility. Further, the authors propose a comprehensive and integrated model on eWOM credibility.

The authors conducted a systematic review of the extant literature on marketing, sociology and psychology to identify the factors that affect eWOM credibility. Further, the authors developed themes and identified factors which lead to eWOM credibility.

Four factors were identified, i.e. content, communicator, context and consumer, which affect eWOM credibility. Several variables associated with these four factors were identified, which result in eWOM credibility. Further, the authors developed 22 propositions to explain the causal relationship between these variables and eWOM credibility.

The conceptual model needs empirical validation across various eWOM platforms, i.e. social networking websites, e-commerce websites, etc.

Managers and e-commerce vendors can use these inputs to develop specific design elements and assessment tools which can help consumers to identify credible eWOM messages. Credible eWOM messages, in turn, will increase the “trust” and “loyalty” of the customers on e-commerce vendors.

This paper provides a conclusive takeaway of eWOM credibility literature by integrating multiple perspectives and arguments from the extant literature. This study also presents an integrated model, which provides a theoretical framework for researchers to further examine the interaction effect of various variables, which results in eWOM credibility.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2020-0263

India’s retail sector is going through a significant transitional period with the internet as a new distribution channel becoming more common. Given the barriers to adoption, the purpose of this paper is to understand the role played by trusting beliefs when engaging with an online retailer. In the Indian market, online vending is expected to increase at a rate of 35 per cent per annum, and by understanding trusting beliefs retailers will be able to develop their market share by developing appropriate and/or innovative strategies.

The work is based on a sample of more than 200 internet customers in India. In understanding the data and the relationships that emerged from the modelling, the authors used a range of tools to analyse the data, including CFA and structural equation modelling. The authors also used descriptive statistics to provide a holistic overview of response profiles.

The study reveals that trusting beliefs are negatively influenced by an uncertainty avoidance culture and positively influenced by a firm’s image and a customer’s price awareness. Moreover, purchase intentions (PIs) are significantly enhanced by trusting beliefs in an online environment. Hence, it leads us to conclude that PIs can be augmented by facilitating and ensuring good quality service by placing special emphasis on timeliness, accuracy and conditions of the order, security and privacy paradigms, aftersales services, etc.

As can be seen, the internet is an emergent tool for retailers in India. By understanding trusting beliefs, retailers will be able to better understand customers’ behaviour and thus design management strategies accordingly. Although this is likely to take more than a decade, as internet retailing becomes embedded it may have a detrimental effect on the historical channel to market, thus altering the country’s retail landscape which is currently dominated by small retailers.

The work’s findings are insightful for those seeking to maximize the opportunities presented by the internet as a channel to market. The works shows how the channel is influenced and thus how it can be managed. In making the contribution the authors provide guidance in terms of operational activity to engage with potential customers.

This paper examines trusting beliefs when using the internet as a channel to market and in doing so it makes a new contribution because it establishes links with culture and other factors. For the research venue the authors use a developing market and therefore the findings are applicable to markets with similar characteristics.

By delineating electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) into numerical rating and opinionated review, the purpose of this paper is to advance a research model that articulates how the provision of e-WOM can aid in alleviating consumers’ distrust of online service providers, a key determinant in the former’s adoption of the latter. The authors also endeavor to uncover the role gender plays in moderating the aforementioned relationship between e-WOM and distrust.

The research model was validated via a field survey administered on 115 college students and faculty members, who had been exposed to a custom-developed online restaurant review website. SmartPLS 2.0.M3 was employed to verify both the measurement and structural properties of the research model.

Distrust reduces male consumers’ perceptions of usefulness and ease of use toward an online service provider while increasing their adoption intention. For their female counterparts, distrust reduces both perceived ease of use and adoption intention for an online service provider. Additionally, for male consumers, only opinionated review aids in alleviating distrust. Conversely, both numerical rating and opinionated review aid in alleviating the distrust of female consumers. Moreover, in contrast to their female counterparts, male consumers are less susceptible to the influence of cognitive dissonance between numerical rating and opinionated review.

This study integrates distrust with the technology acceptance model (TAM) in an attempt to gain a deeper appreciation of technology acceptance behavior. Furthermore, this study builds on the confirmation bias theory to delineate e-WOM into numerical rating and opinionated review in order to better explicate variations in how males and females react to these two distinct forms of e-WOM. Consistent with the cognitive dissonance theory, the distinction between numerical rating and opinionated review enables further exploration of the impact of cognitive dissonance between these two forms of e-WOM on male and female consumers’ distrust of online service providers. Finally, this study unveils contrasting conflict resolution strategies adopted by male and female consumers to cope with cognitive dissonance in e-WOM.

Findings from this study yield prescriptions for practitioners in terms of how e-WOM can be harnessed to alleviate consumers’ distrust of online service provider. Whereas it is crucial for online service providers to draw on opinionated review to reduce distrust for male consumers, numerical rating should be emphasized for female consumers. This study also sensitizes practitioners to the drawback of providing both numerical rating and opinionated review at the same time due to the potential for cognitive dissonance.

This study is the first to: position distrust within the well-accepted TAM in order to enrich the understanding of technology acceptance behavior; testify to the importance of delineating between numerical rating and opinionated review due to the possibility of cognitive dissonance between these two distinct forms of e-WOM, as well as; uncover contrasting conflict resolution strategies adopted by male and female consumers to cope with cognitive dissonance in accordance with the confirmation bias theory.