Fostering consumer trust and purchase intention in B2C e-commerce

Abstract

Regardless of the popularity of B2C e-commerce, trust is a main barrier impeding success of online shopping. In fact, a lack of trust discourages consumers from making purchases over the Internet. Previous research was set out to address this issue; however, the findings were benefited by academia rather than by e-vendors, and this becomes the gap in this topic. This research was aimed to develop guideline to foster consumer trust and purchase intention to shop online for e-vendors. It was achieved by using mixed methods: quantitative and qualitative studies. In the quantitative study, an online survey was created as an instrument for capturing attitude of consumers related to trust in B2C e-commerce in a global scale. The survey data was then collated and analysed with structural equation modelling (SEM). The findings from the quantitative study were subsequently confirmed with the qualitative study, which was accomplished by conducting focus group analysis. Interpretive analysis was used to analyse the data captured from the focus groups. Also, new findings were identified in this study to further enhance consumer trust. By comparing the findings from both quantitative and qualitative studies, contribution of this research is to enable e-vendors to foster trust in B2C e-commerce based on three aspects: e-vendor's elements, affiliating parties and e-vendor's record. For e-vendor's elements, this research identifies that privacy should be provided to consumers; secure transactions, secure servers and sophisticated authentication systems should be supported; e-commerce websites should be well-designed; consumers' request should be honoured; privacy statements, trusted seals and return policies should be made available on e-commerce websites; online communities should be incorporated; proof of real business should be easily identified; and, e-vendors should establish good communication with their potential customers. For affiliating parties, this research finds that e-vendors should associate with financial intermediaries and trusted third parties to further gain trust from consumers. Finally, for e-vendor's record, this researc h reveals that e-vendors should maintain good relationships with their customers in order to build good business records that potentially encourage more consumers to make purchases with them. In addition, the contribution to the body of knowledge from this research is a new direction of how to address trust issues in B2C e-commerce, which can be further explored in the future.

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