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What Can Influence E-Loyalty?
Trust
Gefen (2000) explains trust as “willingness to engage in activitieswhere a person is exposed to risk without the ability to control the related behavior of others.”
Moorman et al. (1993) said that trust is “a willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one
has confidence.” Also, Morgan and Hunt state that trust is “confidence in the exchange partner’s
reliability and integrity.” Meanwhile, Dayal et al. (2001) explained trust by using a trust pyramid
composed of six components: state-of-the art security, merchant legitimacy, fulfillment, customer
control, tone and ambience, and consumer collaboration.Many studies tried to explain trust in its own ways. Most of them emphasize confidence and
reliability (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999) with reducing uncertainty and complexity (Gefen, 2000).
Thus, trust can be defined as willingness to engage in activities with confidence and reliability
by reducing uncertainty and complexity. In Internet markets, trust is closely related with
e-loyalty (Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Gwinner
et al., 1998).
Switching Cost
Switching costs are understood as costs of changing services including time, monetary andpsychological costs (Dick and Basu, 1994; Sengupta et al., 1997). Because of switching costs, a
customer who is not satisfied may stay as a loyal customer (Gronhaug and Gilly, 1991). Ping (1993)
revealed that customers who perceive that switching costs are high and that alternatives are
difficult to find tend to be loyal. Switching costs include loss of benefits from existing service
providers (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991). If customers find alternatives and perceive that benefits
from new service providers excel switching costs, they may take the alternative. Thus, the
relationship between e-loyalty and switching cost is positive. If customers perceive that switching
costs are high, they are more likely to be “loyal” customers.
