This study investigates the structural influence of Korean influencers’ (K-Influencers) characteristics—specifically expertise and similarity—on Chinese consumers’ trust and purchase intention within the rapidly evolving cross-border e-commerce market. To achieve this, an online survey was conducted with 228 Chinese consumers who have purchased Korean products through K-influencers, and the data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The empirical results demonstrate that both ‘expertise,’ reflecting the influencer's product knowledge and proficiency, and ‘similarity,’ representing the psychological homophily felt by consumers, have significant positive impacts on trust. Notably, in the context of cross-border shopping where uncertainties regarding product authenticity and quality persist, expertise was found to be a more powerful antecedent of trust than similarity. Furthermore, the established trust was confirmed to play a crucial mediating role in driving purchase intention. These findings practically suggest that for Korean companies to effectively target Chinese consumers, they must prioritize building trust by objective professional information delivery through K-influencers while simultaneously implementing similarity-based marketing strategies to foster psychological connection. This study provides theoretical and practical insights for establishing effective marketing strategies to enhance purchase conversion in the cross-border e-commerce environment.
Seog-Soo Kim (2026) studied this question.