Consumer Behavior in Online Risky Purchase Decisions: Exploring Trustworthiness Across Culture

There is very little research about how consumers of different races trust online marketing information from businesses or government when making expensive purchase decisions such as cancer treatment medicine. In this article, a large cross-cultural sample was surveyed to evaluate trust belief levels for common online information sources when making risky purchase decisions. Trust belief levels of online information sources were significantly different across ethnicity and gender when making risky decision. Females across all ethnicities held higher trust beliefs for online information sources, and Asian females in particular had the highest trust beliefs for online data from library research to health care providers. Trust belief levels were lower for online social media and bank/financial institution online information sources for risky purchase decisions. These findings can be used by leaders, political authorities, and consumer behavior marketing managers to segment consumers by demographic characteristics.