6. DISCUSSION
This study yields several unexpected findings. First, there is no discernible relationship between service content quality and website appeal, and supplementary analysis reveals that the effect of service content quality on website appeal is suppressed by product appeal. Second, trust is found to attenuate (rather than reinforce) the positive effect of product appeal on purchase intention. Due to the positive relationship between consumers’ familiarity with an e-commerce site and their trust in this site (Kim et al., 2008), the unexpected negative moderating effect of trust may be explained by the reduced tendency of experienced consumers with high trust in an e-commerce site (Gefen et al., 2003a) to carefully assess products listed on the site prior to purchase. In contrast, inexperienced consumers with low trust in an e-commerce site (Jarvenpaa et al., 2000) might rely on product-oriented functionalities to a greater extent in order to alleviate their concerns about product risk.
6.1 Implications for Theory and Practice
This study contributes to e-commerce research on three fronts. First, extending signaling theory, we draw on the concept of appeal from advertising literature to not only distinguish between product and website appeal in order to capture consumers’ positive interpretation of product- and service-related qualities signaled by e-commerce sites, but to also investigate the effects of both product and website appeal on online consumption. Compared to past studies that concentrate primarily on website appeal (Campbell et al., 2013; Tamimi and Sebastianelli, 2015; Wells et al., 2011), we demonstrate that the appeal of ecommerce sites is not founded solely on the availability of functionalities to aid consumers in product acquisition. Rather, consumers also take into account whether products offered on the site are appealing. Consequently, an alternate way of enhancing website appeal is to bolster the appeal of listed products over and beyond improving acquisition functionalities.
