TAM and Consumer's Initial Trust in Online Stores— An Empirical Examination in China

摘要

With the fast development of E-commerce in China, problems of Internet technology and logistics have gradually been solved. Subsequently, consumers' distrust in online stores becomes the main factor impeding their acceptance of online shopping. Initial trust is the focus of this research because most of Internet users in China (more than 80%) had no experience of online shopping. Although TAM has been studied in many researches, it is seldom tested in the context of initial trust and in developing countries such as China. The model integrates TAM with initial trust to explain online shopping behaviors of Chinese consumers. Data were collected through questionnaire and subsequently analyzed with SEM software: Lisrel8.54. Results show that one component of TAM—perceived usefulness has the maximum impact on initial trust, which in turn significantly influences consumer's online shopping intention.