The Power of User-Generated Content in eCommerce Marketing: Impact on Customer Decisions and Brand Trust

Abstract

User-generated content (UGC) has emerged as a transformative force in eCommerce marketing, offering consumers authentic, peer-created insight into products and brands that traditional advertising often cannot replicate. This paper examines the influence of UGC — in the form of customer reviews, unboxing videos, influencer posts, and customer photographs — on consumer decision-making and brand trust within the Indian eCommerce ecosystem. Adopting a descriptive, cross-sectional, quantitative research design, primary data were gathered from 103 Indian online shoppers through a structured Google Forms questionnaire distributed across Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Pune. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation, a Chi-square test of independence, and a one-way ANOVA. The findings indicate that a large majority of respondents are influenced by UGC while shopping online, that UGC is perceived as substantially more trustworthy than brand-generated content, and that visual formats such as customer photographs and unboxing videos are the most persuasive content types. Hypothesis testing revealed no statistically significant association between age group and preferred UGC platform (χ² = 13.25, p = .583) and no significant difference in perceived authenticity across UGC engagement-frequency groups (F = 0.321, p = .864), suggesting that content quality — rather than mere exposure or age — drives perceived authenticity. The study concludes with managerial implications for eCommerce brands and marketers, along with directions for future research on UGC formats, emerging technologies, cross-cultural variation, and under-represented consumer segments.