The sharing economy holds promise for the way we consume, work, and interact. However, consuming in the sharing economy is not without risk, as institutional trust measures (e.g. contracts, regulations, guarantees) are often absent. Trust between sellers and buyers is therefore crucial to complete transactions successfully. From a buyer ́s perspective, a seller ́s profile is an important source of information for judging trustworthiness, because it contains multiple trust cues such as a reputation score, a profile picture, and a textual self-description. The effect of a seller’s self-description on perceived trustworthiness is still poorly understood. We examine how the linguistic features of a seller’s self-description predict perceived trustworthiness. To determine the perceived trustworthiness of 259 profiles, 189 real buyers on a Dutch sharing platform rated their trustworthiness. The results show that profiles were perceived as more trustworthy if they contained more words (which could be an indicator of uncertainty reduction), more words related to cooking (indicator of expertise), and more words related to positive emotions (indicator of enthusiasm). Also, a profile’s perceived trustworthiness score correlated positively with the seller’s actual sales performance. These findings indicate that a seller’s self-description is a relevant signal to buyers, eventhough it is cheap talk (i.e. easy to produce). The results can guide sellers on how to self-present themselves on sharing platforms and inform platform owners on how to design their platform so that it enhances trust between platform users.
Existing studies offer very limited insight into how sellers may reduce consumers' perceived risk in order to make consumer-to-consumer electronic marketplaces more successful. Contrary to these studies, the empirical investigation reported in this article acknowledges the role of sellers in enabling these computer-mediated transaction platforms. The study focuses on how information provided by sellersabout themselves (i.e., seller information) and about their products (i.e., product information) can function as risk reduction signals and how these affect a buyer's inclination to purchase. Combining signaling theory with perceived risk theory, the authors present a research model that they test using structural equation modeling with data collected in two different electronic marketplaces, includingeBay.nl. The results indicate that while product and seller information are indeed important risk reduction signals, and as such can play an important role in stimulating purchasing, the risk reduction potential of these forms of information differs across the studied risk types. This article discusses these findings and explains how they contribute to signaling theory and perceived risk theory. Based on the findings, several practical implications for sellers active in electronic marketplaces and for the intermediaries operating these transaction systems are described.
ABSTRACT: Local homebuyers in the Groningen earthquake regionIr. Hieke T. van der KloetHanze University of Applied Sciences GroningenResearch Centre for Built Environment NoorderRuimteh.t.van.der.kloet@pl.hanze.nl0031-50-595-2015The earthquakes after the natural gas extraction in the Groningen region of the Netherlands have a significant impact on the housing market and sustainability of the communities in this region. Since the strongest earthquake around the community of Huizinge in August 2012, with an magnitude of 3.6 on the Richter scale, it became clear there is a relation between natural gas extraction and earthquakes due to soil subsidence. As a consequence houses in the region get damaged and after research it gets obvious housing prices decline and the region will become unattractive to potential buyers of houses, damaged or not. Therefore the Dutch Petroleum Company (NAM) since April 29th 2014 offers a compensation for the loss of the housing price before and after the earthquake of Huizinge to property owners who want to sell their home. They only get the compensation after a sales deal and only if they agree with the proposed compensation. Since the compensation for the decrease in house prices has been introduced, the number of participants of the regulation is lacking behind the actual sales of houses. Our study aims to contribute to the research on the consequences of earthquakes by natural gas mining on the real estate market in the northern part of the Netherlands, especially the Groningen region. First of all we want to declare why relatively a large part of the property owners (about 60% until 2015) don’t request for the compensation regulation. Our second question concerns the buyers of the (damaged) houses in the earthquake area. Why would they buy a home in a region full of risks? Who are these buyers? We use a mixed-method approach for data collection which leads to an analysis of a unique dataset on notarial deeds of house sales in nine municipalities in the Groningen earthquake region according to The Land Registry of the Netherlands during the period 2013 until the end of 2015 as well as discovering common patterns of interview results with residents and experts. First results show that the majority of the homebuyers originate from the local earthquake area in the Province of Groningen. Reasons why property sellers after the house sale don’t opt for the compensation regulation concerns the complexity of the regulation, the used valuation model and the expected long control time afterwards.From the first results we conclude that the Groningen earthquake region still has its attractiveness for local residents and buyers. Otherwise the regulation for compensation doesn’t reach enough property sellers in the nine municipalities of the Groningen earthquake region. Advise to the Dutch government should be to generously compensate the residents of the Groningen earthquake regions for the loss of value of their dwellings, damaged or not. This will help to improve the regional development and attractiveness of areas that are effected by earthquakes.
