The Impacts of Host Photos on Consumer Purchase Probability in P2P Short-Term Rental Platform: Mediating Effect of Initial Trust

In recent years, the shared housing rental platform (hereafter, the short-term rental platform), designed to serve the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) market, has flourished and received extensive attention from the business community and academia. However, few studies have focused on the effect of hosts’ personal information on consumer purchase behavior. This article selects the host’s photo as an entry point because of its important position in the site interface and builds a conceptual framework among host photo, reputation, initial trust, and consumer purchase probability based on Face Processing Theory. Three-hundred valid, scenario-based questionnaires were used for hypotheses testing. Results show that photo-based social impression perception and reputation both help consumers form initial trust, which ultimately affects consumer purchase probability； photo-based perceived social impression has a greater impact on initial trust and purchase probability than does reputation. Results will provide some guidance for the marketing management of sharing platform organizations.