Perceived security and World Wide Web purchase intention

TLDR

Concerns about security may limit the growth of web‑based commerce by arousing shoppers’ worries about the safety of their sensitive information. This study creates a scale to measure perceived web security. The authors developed the scale using two samples and applied it in a causal model to examine how beliefs about web shopping influence purchase intention. The scale shows favorable psychometric properties, and the causal analysis indicates that perceived security has a stronger influence on web purchase intention than ease and utility.

Abstract

While Web‐based consumer activity is poised on the brink of dramatic growth, concerns about security have the potential to limit this growth by arousing shopper’s concerns about the Web‐based channel. One key aspect to consumer participation in Web commerce may be the extent to which they perceive risk to their sensitive information. This study describes the creation of a scale to measure perceived Web security. We apply the scale in a causal model to investigate the relative impact of beliefs about Web shopping on intent to purchase products using the World Wide Web. Data from two samples is used to develop the scale and to perform the causal analysis. Our findings indicate the favorable psychometric properties of the scale, and the causal analysis from our sample indicates that security is a greater influence on intent to purchase using the Web than is the ease and utility of purchasing products.