Web Systems Design and Online Consumer Behavior [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Introduction

Business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce is by now a
well-established part of the retail market, both in the US as well as abroad. However, our
understanding of the factors that affect transactions between online companies and customers is
still limited. For example, the number of Web users is still growing and has so far surpassed the
500 million mark (NUA Surveys, 2002). However, only about 15% of those users make purchases online
(Taylor Nelson Sofres, 2002). There are many reasons why such a large percentage of Web users
choose not to make online purchases but the primary reason concerns trust. More specifically, most
Web users simply do not trust specific online companies, or the Web in general, enough to make
purchases online (Hoffman et al., 1999). It has been documented that trust in the Web-based vendor
is one of the critical factors of success in online commerce (Torkzadeh & Dhillon, 2002).
Therefore, online companies face the daunting task of inspiring trust in customers who may only
experience them through the Web.

The virtual nature of the Web medium presents new challenges to online companies. Customers
no longer interact with salespeople or have a direct physical experience with the store and its
products. Instead, their experience is mediated through the Web, a twodimensional graphical display
without any face-to-face interaction with human representatives of the company and without physical
interaction with the company’s products and stores. Off-line research shows that the development of
trust most often depends on direct physical experiences with the company’s store and its
salespeople (Doney & Cannon, 1997). It is less clear how online customers develop feelings of
trust towards the Web-based companies they visit. However, current research in online consumer
behavior and specifically on the development of online customer trust provides some guidelines in
this area.

Trust has been the topic of research in various fields including psychology and marketing.
There have been multiple attempts to define the concept of trust by researchers from various
disciplines and backgrounds resulting in multiple overlapping definitions of trust (Luhmann, 1979;
Kumar et al., 1995; Mayer et al., 1995; Fung & Lee, 1999; Menon et al., 1999; Stewart, 1999;
Gefen, 2002; Koufaris & Hampton-Sosa, 2003a). A review of the vast literature on trust
indicates a group of core concepts around which the definition of trust is built. One such concept
is uncertainty. The trusting party must experience uncertainty about a potential or existing
relationship. That relationship can be personal, social, business, or of any other type. This
uncertainty causes the trusting party to experience a perception of risk (Doney & Canon, 1997;
Kee & Knox, 1970; Mayer et al., 1995). In turn, this perception of risk is usually based upon
the trusting party’s beliefs regarding the ability, integrity, and benevolence of the trustee
(Mayer et al., 1995):

• 
  

  Ability concerns the skills and competencies of the trustee in a specific context, related to
  the trusting party.



• 
  

  Integrity implies that the trustee follows moral and ethical principles that are acceptable
  to the trusting party.



• 
  

  Benevolence concerns the degree to which the trustee has goodwill towards the trusting
  party.

Depending on how the trusting party perceives these three characteristics, he or she will
display a certain willingness to depend or rely upon the trustee in the expectation of a certain
beneficial outcome, or will believe that the trustee will not act opportunistically (Jarvenpaa et
al., 2000). It is that willingness to depend or rely on a third party based on beliefs about that
party that is the central core of most definitions of trust (Jarvenpaa et al., 2000; Gefen, 2002;
Gefen et al., 2003; Koufaris & Hampton-Sosa, 2003a).

Customer trust online presents the same challenge as all aspects of online consumer behavior:
the dual nature of the online consumer. Customers of Web-based companies are simultaneously both
customers and Web users. In order to understand how they feel, think, and act, one must consider
them both as traditional customers as well as end-users of a system (Koufaris et al., 2002).
Therefore, when we consider how online customers develop trust in Web-based companies, we must look
beyond the traditional marketing/ psychology models of customer trust and combine them with models
of end-user behavior.

Overall, customer trust online depends on the following sets of factors:

1. 
   

   Perceptions about the company itself



2. 
   

   Perceptions about the company’s Web site



3. 
   

   Perceptions about the Web in general



4. 
   

   Individual customer/user characteristics