Online Review Characteristics and Trust: A Cross‐Country Examination

Interaction Effects between Online Reviews and Product Characteristics on Consumer’s Trust

ABSTRACT Objective: the present study analyzes the relationship between online reviews and consumer trust in online stores, considering the conjoint effects of the characteristics of online reviews and product offers in the social commerce context. Methods: the study is characterized as a laboratory experiment that simulated the environment of an online store considering different scenarios, totaling 602 cases for analysis. Results: the results indicate that the relationship established between the consumer and the reviewers moderates the relationship between reviews and trust, suggesting that positive and negative reviews from friends and acquaintances affect the consumer’s trust more than those reviews made from strangers. However, this effect is not always significant, depending on the price offered. Still, the type of the product moderates the effect of the online reviews on trust when the store displays higher prices than the competition. In such cases, the impact of reviews on trust is more intense in high-value product advertisements. Conclusions: the study can help managers and website developers create more appropriate processes and strategic alternatives in the social commerce context, based on a better understanding of the relationships among the variables studied in this research.

Consumer Trust in Food and the Food System: A Critical Review

Increased focus towards food safety and quality is reshaping food purchasing decisions around the world. Although some food attributes are visible, many of the attributes that consumers seek and are willing to pay a price premium for are not. Consequently, consumers rely on trusted cues and information to help them verify the food quality and credence attributes they seek. In this study, we synthesise the findings from previous research to generate a framework illustrating the key trust influencing factors that are beyond visual and brand-related cues. Our framework identifies that consumer trust in food and the food system is established through the assurances related to individual food products and the actors of the food system. Specifically, product assurance builds consumer trust through food packaging labels communicating food attribute claims, certifications, country or region of origin, and food traceability information. In addition, producers, processors, and retailers provide consumers with food safety and quality assurances, while government agencies, third-party institutions, advocacy groups, and the mass media may modify how labelling information and food operators are perceived by consumers. We hope our framework will guide future research efforts to test these trust factors in various consumer and market settings.

Enhanced hotel recommendation method addressing the deviation between overall rating and detailed criteria ratings on Tripadvisor.com

User rating information on multiple predefined aspects gathered by hotel recommendation systems generally shows a deviation between the overall rating and detailed criteria ratings. In this study, to address this deviation, we proposed a novel hotel recommendation method that clusters users with different preferences into different groups using the K-means algorithm. Moreover, we allocated weights to different criteria and obtained a comprehensive score. A case study on actual data from Tripadvisor.com showed that compared with three other models, our proposed model demonstrated a more impressive performance. This research can offer advantages to hotel service providers and customers in terms of decision making.