THE INFLUENCE OF PERCEIVED USEFULNESS AND PERCEIVED EASE OF USE OF ONLINE CONSUMER REVIEWS ON TRUST AND PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG STUDENTS

Abstract

The influence of online consumer reviews (OCRs) on purchase intention has recently gained considerable attention, in both academic and business communities. Consumers freely and easily express their opinions and give comments online about any products or services, helped by the technology that is available today; this type of consumer review could have a significant influence on other consumers' purchase decision. This research aimed to understand the impact of OCRs on consumers' trust and intention. The Theory of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was applied in this research in order to investigate the effect of OCRs on consumers’ trust and purchase intention. A total of 210 responses from distributed questionnaire were obtained from students who already had online shopping experience before and lived in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The data was analyzed by using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis with the help of SPSS and AMOS. The findings from this research were consumers’ trust and their intention to shop online were significantly affected by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of OCRs. Clearly, those attributes of OCRs were linked to the development of the shopping environment, which consequently could affect sales.