A Trust Model for Consumer Internet Shopping

TLDR

E‑commerce success depends largely on consumers’ trust in unseen sellers, products, and unfamiliar electronic systems. The study proposes a theoretical model to examine four antecedents of consumer trust in Internet shopping: merchant trustworthiness, medium trustworthiness, infrastructural factors, and other contextual factors. The model posits that these antecedents are moderated by individual trust propensity, and the authors formulate hypotheses, outline a testing methodology, and empirically evaluate some of the hypotheses to demonstrate applicability. Merchant integrity strongly predicts consumer trust, with its effect moderated by the consumer’s trust propensity.

Abstract

E-commerce success, especially in the business-to-consumer area, is determined in part by whether consumers trust sellers and products they cannot see or touch, and electronic systems with which they have no previous experience. This paper describes a theoretical model for investigating the four main antecedent influences on consumer trust in Internet shopping, a major form of business-to-consumer e-commerce: trustworthiness of the Internet merchant, trustworthiness of the Internet as a shopping medium, infrastructural (contextual) factors (e.g., security, third-party certification), and other factors (e.g., company size, demographic variables). The antecedent variables are moderated by the individual consumer's degree of trust propensity, which reflects personality traits, culture, and experience. Based on the research model, a comprehensive set of hypotheses is formulated and a methodology for testing them is outlined. Some of the hypotheses are tested empirically to demonstrate the applicability of the theoretical model. The findings indicate that merchant integrity is a major positive determinant of consumer trust in Internet shopping, and that its effect is moderated by the individual consumer's trust propensity.