Making a first impression as a start-up: Strategies to overcome low initial trust perceptions in digital innovation adoption
Konya-Baumbach, E., Schuhmacher, M. C., Kuester, S., & Kuharev, V. (2019). Making a first impression as a start-up: Strategies to overcome low initial trust perceptions in digital innovation adoption. International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Plain-English take: Customer ratings, benefit communication, and revenue model were effective design signals for increasing adoption of digital innovations by improving initial trust. Revenue model also affected privacy concerns, which mediated its relationship with initial trust; the publisher discussion reports that positive-rating quantity itself did not significantly affect initial trust/adoption in one test. Founder-use interpretation: Use this as a question to test in your own product context, not as a universal benchmark. The article’s discussion notes that negative ratings were not tested, alternative revenue models such as freemium/subscription/advertising remain for future work, and additional mediators/moderators may exist. Simulated digital-innovation presentations and mostly European samples limit direct evidence about long-run real-product usage.
Question: Making a first impression as a start-up: Strategies to overcome low initial trust perceptions in digital innovation adoption?
Design: Peer-reviewed empirical study or research synthesis. Digital-innovation launch scenarios including an augmented-reality city-guide app, a smart-insurance app, and an interior-design planner; publisher methods report final samples of 174, 90, 91, 173, and 200 across the experiments, using European online-panel participants and business-school students.
Customer ratings, benefit communication, and revenue model were effective design signals for increasing adoption of digital innovations by improving initial trust. Revenue model also affected privacy concerns, which mediated its relationship with initial trust; the publisher discussion reports that positive-rating quantity itself did not significantly affect initial trust/adoption in one test.