Online Reviews- An effective way to reduce perceived consumer risks of online shopping

The study investigate the impact of online reviews on perceived risks of e-commerce users. Consumers constantly find ways to ease their search for best products while making online buying decision. Reviews by other consumers and product ratings serve as an important assurance mechanism for selecting unseen and untouched products of e-commerce. A number of studies have been done in the past to study the effect of online reviews on consumer decision making journey. This paper contributes in terms to literature and assessing the role of genuineness of online reviews in supporting purchase decision making. Product details, trust badges, website design are the mechanisms used by online sellers to assure consumers regarding security of data shared by online consumers. The origin of these methods is sellers and the tools used and devised by them. Hence, online reviews and product ratings are most widely used by consumers to explore all possible details about product features, specifications and prices. The information is helpful for consumers in making comparison between different propositions made by the consumers. The findings suggest strong causal relation between online reviews and perceived information security concerns of online consumers. The findings are based on the analysis of data with Smart PLS SEM method.