THE IMPACTS OF HOST PHOTOS ON CONSUMER PURCHASE PROBABILITY IN P2P SHORT-TERM RENTAL PLATFORM: MEDIATING EFFECT OF INITIAL TRUST

Abstract

In recent years, the shared housing rental platform(hereafter, the short-term rental platform), designed toserve the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) market, has flourished andreceived extensive attention from the business communityand academia. However, few studies have focused on theeffect of hosts’ personal information on consumer purchasebehavior. This article selects the host’s photo as an entrypoint because of its important position in the site interfaceand builds a conceptual framework among host photo,reputation, initial trust, and consumer purchase probabilitybased on Face Processing Theory. Three-hundred valid,scenario-based questionnaires were used for hypothesestesting. Results show that photo-based social impression perception and reputation both help consumers form initialtrust, which ultimately affects consumer purchaseprobability； photo-based perceived social impression hasa greater impact on initial trust and purchase probabilitythan does reputation. Results will provide some guidancefor the marketing management of sharing platformorganizations.