Examining the Correlation Between Consumer Experiences with Deceptive Advertising and Perceived Platform Credibility and Purchase Intention in Online Shopping: The Case of the Philippines

Abstract

In today's digital era, consumers also depend on digital information and applications in their purchasing decisions. In the Philippines, various e-commerce platforms are widely used to purchase goods. However, due to the prevalence of AI technologies, a lot of misleading promotional content can also be found in the e-commerce hub. With this, this research investigates the deceptive advertisement that Filipino consumers usually encounter and how they influences the platform's credibility as well as the consumer's purchasing intention in online shopping sites. It aims to examine how consumer digital literacy and awareness affect their response to deceptive marketing. The result of this study is deemed beneficial for digital marketers in improving their marketing websites and competitively competing for trust in a skeptical digital market. The study investigates the relationship between deceptive practices and the purchasing intention of online consumers. The study applies non-parametric statistical analysis to determine the correlation between the factors using a descriptive correlational approach. Although the result reveals that there are few direct correlations between various deceptive advertising approaches and the purchasing intention of the consumer, platform credibility was observed to play a crucial role in consumers' purchasing decisions. Among the four dimensions considered in the study, transparency was found to have the highest correlation with consumer purchasing intention. These reveal that consumer attitudes are leaning towards a growing preference for authentic and transparent brands. Moreover, it emphasizes that ethical behavior is not only a sustainable means to gain consumer expectations, but the credibility of the platforms that implement stricter regulations on advertisers can serve as an advantageous approach in gaining consumer trust.