eWOM – consumer's tryst with trust and transitions – a qualitative study

The study highlights how online shoppers build, erode, or make trust superfluous in obtaining eWOM communications. Further, the study traces when, why and how online shoppers transition between offline word of mouth (WOM) and eWOM communications. The qualitative investigation involved collecting data by conducting four focus group discussions (FGD) and five in-depth interviews from online shoppers purchasing electronic gadgets using eWOM information. The initial coding was used to get an overview of entire datasets, and final coding was applied to categorise data into fewer category themes and subthemes. The findings of this study unveiled that online shoppers attributed trust to the quality of eWOM information, valence, and visualisation of product information. eWOM lost trust in online communications when they experienced fake reviews and ratings, incomplete reviews or information, or untrustworthy platforms. Further, eWOM users found trust to be superfluous if they were expert consumers, or when they purchased a well-established brand. Lastly, eWOM users transitioned to offline WOM to confirm, verify, build confidence in the entire decision journey of buying high-priced electronic consumer durables (ECD)s.