A Comparison of Online Trust Building Factors between Potential Customers and Repeat Customers

TLDR

Internet vendors experience more clicks but struggle to convert them into purchases, largely because trust deficits hinder online transactions. The study seeks to understand how trust is created and evolves in e‑commerce and to compare trust‑building factors between potential and repeat customers. The authors classify trust into potential‑customer and repeat‑customer categories and compare the effects of shared antecedents on trust in each group. They find that antecedents differ between potential and repeat customers, with customer satisfaction having a stronger effect on repeat customers, and discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

Abstract

While vendors on the Internet may have enjoyed an increase in the number of clicks on their Web sites, they have also faced disappointments in converting these clicks into purchases. Lack of trust is identified as one of the greatest barriers inhibiting Internet transactions. Thus, it is essential to understand how trust is created and how it evolves in the Electronic Commerce (EC) context throughout a customer's purchase experience with an Internet store. As the first step in studying the dynamics of online trust building, this research aims to compare online trust-building factors between potential customers and repeat customers. For this purpose, we classify trust in an Internet store into potential customer trust and repeat customer trust, depending on the customer's purchase experience with the store. We find that trust building differs between potential customers and repeat customers in terms of antecedents. We also compare the effects of shared antecedents on trust between potential customers and repeat customers. We find that customer satisfaction has a stronger effect on trust building for repeat customers than other antecedents. We discuss the theoretical reasons for the differences and the implications of our research.