Initial Trust in Online Shopping: Empirical Insights into Influential Antecedents in Low-Trust Environment

摘要

Lack of trust in online vendors has been a primary reason why many web users choose not to shop online. Based on prior literature from developed countries, this study proposes an integrated model aiming to explain in a relatively low-trust environment what factors contribute to which dimensions of initial online trust and to consumers' initial online trust in online vendors. In this study, initial online trust is composed of two aspects: trusting beliefs and trusting intentions; trusting beliefs is conceptually clustered into three related yet distinct dimensions: ability, benevolence, and integrity. Predictors of initial online trust include perceived website quality, perceived corporate image, and perceived security. The model is empirically tested through a questionnaire-based field study conducted in China. The results indicate that perceived corporate image and perceived security significantly affect all three dimensions of trusting beliefs and hence they are significant antecedents of initial online trust, while no support is found for the hypothesized effect of perceived website quality on initial online trust. Meanwhile, among all three dimensions of trusting beliefs only integrity is found to be a significant antecedent of trusting intentions. The research provides insight into the development of initial online trust by consumers and the findings of this research are of potential benefit to online vendors who seek to engender consumer trust in their websites and subsequent increased revenues and profit levels.