Gefen (2000) explains trust as “willingness to engage in activities where 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 costs are understood as costs of changing services including time, monetary and psychological 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.