As part of the online product and service selection and purchase process, many consumers consult and rely on online product reviews. In order to persuade potential customers to buy their products, many organizations and businesses post deceptive product reviews of their own products on their own or third-party websites to their advantage. This creates consumer suspicion about the authenticity and veracity of online product reviews. To better understand how consumers’ experiences of having been deceived by deceptive online product reviews in the past and the density of deception characteristics in an online product review influence their level of suspicion about the review and, ultimately, their intention to buy the product, we conduct a 3 × 3 vignette study. Our results indicate that deceptive characteristics in online product reviews and prior encounters with deception in online marketplaces increase consumer suspicion. Furthermore, we show that preference for a specific product decreases consumer suspicion about reviews of that product. Lastly, we demonstrate that consumer suspicion towards a product decreases purchase intention.

作为在线产品和服务选择和购买过程的一部分，许多消费者会咨询并依赖在线产品评论。为了说服潜在客户购买他们的产品，许多组织和企业会在自己的网站或第三方网站上发布对自己产品的欺骗性产品评论，以从中获利。这让消费者怀疑在线产品评论的真实性和准确性。为了更好地了解消费者过去被欺骗性在线产品评论欺骗的经历以及在线产品评论中欺骗特征的密度如何影响他们对评论的怀疑程度，并最终影响他们购买产品的意愿，我们进行 3 × 3 小插图研究。我们的结果表明，在线产品评论中的欺骗性特征和之前在在线市场中遇到的欺骗行为会增加消费者的怀疑。此外，我们表明，对特定产品的偏好会降低消费者对该产品评论的怀疑。最后，我们证明消费者对产品的怀疑会降低购买意愿。