Trust vs. E-commerce - The end of a myth?

There is still a big gap between the number of Internet users and online shoppers and although trust is considered by many as a key factor in e-commerce, the knowledge about it was little.

This was a quantitative research with a deductive approach in which statistical procedures were applied to validate the hypotheses of the theoretical frame of reference, and the research questions of this study were:


(i) What is the socio-demographic profile of university students’ online shoppers?
. Men have greater intention to buy online and recommend it to others than women.
. Working students have higher intention to purchase on the Internet than individuals who only study, but regarding their intent to recommend it to others the difference is not statistically significant.
. Older students have more intention to buy online and recommend it to others.
. Experienced online buyers have more intention to buy online and recommend it to others than individuals with less experience in online shopping.


(ii) What is the impact of trust and social influence in the intention to buy online?
. It was observed that the adjusted model regarding "Intention to Buy Online" in result of the weight of “Trust” and "Social Influence" explains only 1% of the variability of the "Intention to Buy Online", and although the "Social Influence" has more weight compared to “Trust", the relationships of these variables with the "Intention to Buy Online" are not statistically significant.


(iii) What is the impact of trust and social influence in the intention to buy online in individuals who never bought online before?
. It was observed that this model adjusted to the "Intention to Buy Online" regarding the weight of “Trust” and "Social Influence" explains only 4% of the variability of the "Intention to Buy Online" of those individuals, and despite that the "Social Influence" also has more weight than “Trust", the relationships of these variables with the "Intention to Buy Online "are also not statistically significant.


Conclusion:
This study confirmed the theoretical framework regarding the socio-demographic profile of online shoppers, namely that the profile is not homogeneous, even having differences between age groups as suggested by Reibstein (2002), with men having higher intention to buy online than women, as indicated by Greenfield Online in 1999 (quoted by Chih-Chung & Chang, 2005) and that the previous experience of Internet shopping of the individual is an important factor to consider, as stated by Perea y Monsuwe, Dellaert & de Ruyter (2004).

Regarding the central question of my research - "What is the Impact of Trust in the Intention to Buy Online?" - Turns out to be surprisingly that has been observed that Trust impact is in fact low, even in individuals who never bought online before.

However, some caution is required in interpreting these results, to avoid the mistake of generalization or abusive interpretation. Firstly, even considering that the sample was intentional, it is necessary to remember that the findings of this study apply only to the universe of students of ISEG (Technical University of Lisbon).

We also found that the impact of Social Influence in the "Intention to Buy Online" is very low too, although it was noted that this impact was greater than the Trust impact. So, it is important to remember that if consumers choose not to consult recommendations, consumers will rely on their knowledge or previous experience on the service to make their buying decision (Senecal, Kalczynski & Nantel, 2005).



Note: This is a summary of my Master Thesis. If you wish to read the complete study or the details of the mentioned bibliographic references, please follow the link below:

Antunes, A. (2011). Impacto da Confiança na Intenção de Compra Online. (Master Dissertation). Technical University of Lisbon Repository, Portugal.
https://www.repository.utl.pt/bitstream/10400.5/4459/1/DM-ANLGA-2011.pdf