Effects of Word-of-Mouth and Assurance on Trust in the Internet Shopping Mall Environments: The Moderation Effect of Ease of Product Evaluation

인터넷 쇼핑몰에서 구전과 보증이 신뢰에 미치는 영향 : 제품평가 용이성의 조절효과를 중심으로

Purchasing through Internet shopping mall has more uncertainty compared with offline shopping mall. Previous studies have presented that trust plays a role of reducing uncertainty and increasing purchasing intention. In this study, we suggest that third-party assurance and word-of-mouth contribute to the formation of trust. In addition, we also propose that ease of product evaluation plays moderating roles in the relationships between third-party assurance, word-of-mouth and trust. For this study, we collected sample data from two groups consisting of online shoppers purchasing the search goods and experience goods categorized by type of ease of product evaluation. Empirical results show that word-of-mouth and third-party assurance have different effects on trust in two groups. The third-party assurance has a stronger impact on trust in online shopping group of the search goods than in the experience goods, while word-of-mouth in the online community has a stronger impact on trust in online shopping group of the experience goods than in the search goods. We expect that this result will provide researchers and managers who are interested in trust formation factors in online shopping mall with useful theoretical and practical implications.