DETERMINANTS OF ONLINE REVIEW CREDIBILITY AND ITS IMPACT ON CONSUMERS' PURCHASE INTENTION; MEDIATING EFFECT OF REVIEW CREDIBILITY

Abstract

Purpose Today consumers are increasingly relying on the online reviews when deciding to make a purchase but the credibility ofthe reviews are also a question mark. The purpose the study is to examine the antecedents ofonline review credibility while review credibility is a mediator and then its impact on consumer purchase intention and to provide empirical evidence in this area. Methodology & Design The study focuses to collect data from the people who are the members of Facebook group named The SWOT’s Guide to Karachi’s Restaurants, Cafes, Dhabas, HBFE & Takeouts. Convenience sampling technique is used for this study and Google docs’ questionnaires were circulated to collect data, 230 respondents participated in the research but only 162 were the members ofThe SWOT’s Guide to Karachi’s Restaurants, Cafes, Dhabas, HBFE & Takeouts group. Findings The findings ofthe study indicates that antecedents which are established on the basis ofthe quality of argument like accuracy and timeliness along with the peripheral cues including Review consistency and Website Reputation shows a significant impact on credibility of a review and then further influencing the consumer purchase intention while Product/ Service rating shows a significant impact direct on the purchase intention. Limitations As we know there is always a room for improvement, in this study the limitation was that the data was only collected from a Facebook group named The SWOT’s Guide to Karachi’s Restaurants, Cafes, Dhabas, HBFE & Takeouts. The application of this research would be limited. The other constraint was time, as it was limited so some ofthe areas ofthe research are left unexamined. Recommendations To broaden the implication ofresearch findings future researches should collect data from the respondents of different online review platforms and from a larger group of people so the empirical findings will have a larger and comprehensive implications.