Mechanisms of consumers' trust development in reviewers' supplementary reviews: a reviewer-reader similarity perspective

The literature on online reviews tends to focus on initial consumer postings and reviews, but supplementary online reviews posted by the same reviewer remain an unexplored area in marketing in general and hospitality in particular. To address this gap in the research, this study offers a research model that examines the effects of reviewers' attributes on consumer trust and positive behavioral outcomes, using hotel attributes performance as a moderator. Using responses from 414 hospitality consumers in China, our findings reveal that reviewers whose supplementary reviews use similar identities to those of their initial review, review similar firms, and use similar websites gain consumers' trust. Hotel attributes performance has a strong positive moderating effect on the relationship between reviewers' attributes and consumers' trust, and the trust engendered in this way creates the psychological comfort that leads to positive behavioral outcomes. Implications for theory and practice are discussed along with suggestions for future research.