Objective - Nowadays, people became conscious of their outward appearance and use make-up and skincare to enhance their appearance. The trends in personal care are influenced by the advancement of social media. People use social media to share their opinion, thoughts, and experience about personal care. This study is purposed to analyze aspects such as homophily, authority, and interestingness towards purchase intention as independent aspects with EWOM credibility and source of trustworthiness as a mediating variable.

Methodology/Technique - This study uses purposive sampling with 485 respondent samples from Indonesia and uses a method of scaling and structural equation model to see the relationship between variables.

Findings & Novelty- The result of this research implies that homophily, authority, and interestingness has a significant effect on the source of trustworthiness. Furthermore, authority and source of trustworthiness has a significant impact on EWOM credibility. EWOM credibility is having a substantial impact on purchase intention. It is also found that homophily, authority, and interestingness strengthen EWOM credibility through a source of trustworthiness. This finding concludes that the source of trustworthiness works to strengthen independent aspects of EWOM credibility rather than depending on EWOM credibility itself.

Type of Paper - Empirical.

Keywords: Homophily; Authority; Interestingness; Purchase Intention; Source of Trustworthiness; EWOM credibility; Personal care.

JEL Classification: M31, M39.

URI: http://gatrenterprise.com/GATRJournals/GJBSSR/vol7.3_1.html

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35609/gjbssr.2019.7.3(1)

Pages 166 – 177