A Moderated Mediation Effect of Customer Satisfaction and Gender on the Relationship between Online Reviews and Intention to Reuse on a Fresh Food O2O Platform

This study investigates how online reviews influence intention to reuse fresh-food O2O platforms through customer satisfaction and examines whether gender moderates the direct effect of online reviews on reuse intention. Using convenience sampling, we surveyed consumers in Seoul and Gyeonggi who had prior experience with fresh-food services. An online questionnaire was administered from August 1-31, 2023; 300 responses were collected, and after excluding four careless cases, 296 valid responses were analyzed. Data were processed with SPSS 22.0 (frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability and correlation tests) and hypotheses were tested via linear regressions and Hayes’ PROCESS macro to assess moderated mediation. Results show that online reviews positively and significantly affect customer satisfaction; customer satisfaction, in turn, significantly increases intention to reuse; and online reviews also exert a positive direct effect on reuse intention. Moreover, customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between online reviews and reuse intention, and gender moderates the direct path from online reviews to reuse intention, with a stronger effect observed for females than for males. The study contributes by articulating, within a single framework, the mechanism linking online reviews, satisfaction, reuse intention and the boundary condition of gender in the fresh-food O2O context, offering actionable evidence for simultaneous management of review quantity/quality and gender-sensitive review/UX strategies.