Exploring the impact of customer reviews, website quality, perceived service quality, and product assortment on online purchase intention: The mediating role of trust

Online retailers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) face various challenges in acquiring and maintaining potential customers. This could be attributed to the intense competition in electronic commerce and lack of trust among several customers regarding the confidentiality of their personal information and product authenticity. In relation to that, examining the factors that influence online trust and purchase intention has become essential. The prime purpose of this study was to examine whether perceived service quality, customer reviews, product assortment, and website quality significantly influence online purchase intention. It also aimed to verify if trust mediates the relationships among them. The data was gathered from several customers of online retailers in the UAE via an online survey. To confirm the proposed hypotheses and make inferences, all responses were analyzed based on structural equation modeling approach using PLS-SEM. It was shown that trust positively influences online purchase intention. The results also demonstrated that trust and online purchase intention are positively affected by perceived service quality, customer reviews, product assortment, and website quality. Finally, the results confirmed that trust has a mediating effect among the aforementioned factors and online purchase intention. Given that there have been very few previous studies on these variables in the Middle East, the present research contributes to the literature by examining their impact on online purchase intention with empirical data from the retail sector in the UAE.