What Makes a Review Credible? Heuristic and Systematic Factors for the Credibility of Online Reviews

In the digital transformation era, online reviews have become an important source of information for decisions about purchases. Research shows that online reviews influence users’ behaviors and product sales. However, questions remain about how and why users assess the credibility of online reviews for different products/services on different websites. Using semi-structured interviews as a way of understanding how users assess the credibility of online reviews, we propose a comprehensive credibility analysis model for online reviews. The proposed model extends a model we previously proposed; and uses the Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM) as a theoretical lens, which helps us to understand different features that impact the credibility of online reviews. Our findings reveal several factors which impact the credibility of online reviews that have not been identified in the previous literature.