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

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Also when shopping?

Definitely the consumer behaviour of women and men tend to differ.

If you pay close attention, the best warehouses and supermarkets, try to split the couples (husband and wife) in the beginning of their shopping tour.

Why they try to split the couple (husband and wife)?
Because, it has been understood by consumer behavioural studies that women tend to buy much more stuff without the “pressure” of the husband.
Men tend to have an anxiety increase when they are shopping, their blood pressure increases, and they start pushing and speeding up the shopping tour.
Women tend to enjoy more the shopping experience, and tend to buy more stuff outside the shopping list.
But, women are not big spenders, they tend to be more cautious and tend to verify and compare the prices. While men tend to buy always the same brand without verifying if those prices have changed since their last buy.

How they split the couple?
Usually the warehouses locates the “sport, hi-tech and music stuff” near the entrances. Their goal is to get the men attention, and hopefully, split the couple, while men check the “new cool stuff”, women can go do their shopping tour without being bothered by their husbands.

What is the purpose?
Women although being more savvy in their shopping, they tend to buy more, because they pay more attention to opportunities, and buy more outside the shopping list.
But that only happens, if women are not “pressured” by their husbands during their shopping experience.

So, split the couple!

Naturally, this doesn’t happen to all men and women.
I am just talking about main trends.