HOW INFLUENCERS WEAVE THE DIGITAL WEB OF PURCHASE INTENTION: TRUST, EXPERTISE, SIMILARITY AND ATTRACTION

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Influencer marketing has evolved from the Pre-internet era to the era of advanced technology and artificial intelligence (Dwivedi et. al 2021) from the perspective of the larger evolution of marketing. PURPOSE: This paper aims to investigate the impact of influencer credibility, i.e., trustworthiness, attractiveness, expertise, and Similarity, on consumer purchase intention. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: The data from 179 respondents were collected using a structured questionnaire through a convenient sampling method and gathered data were analysed through (CFA) Confirmatory factor analysis and Structure Equation Modelling using SPSS Amos version 23. FINDINGS: The Result demonstrated that attractiveness, expertise, and similarity have a significant positive correlation with intent to purchase. H1 (Attractiveness), H3(expertise), and H4(similarity) were accepted. On the other hand, trustworthiness did not have a significant positive correlation with the intent to purchase. Therefore, H2(trustworthiness) was not supported. The trustworthiness did not impact the purchase intention, and H2 was rejected