Consumers trust in online shopping: The case of Singapore

Abstract

The emergences of the Internet and World Wide Web have changed the way businesses ply their trades. Many organizations now have established an online presence, particularly businesses that provide products or services directly to consumers, the so-called business-to-consumer (B2C) e-business. Trust is an important component for the continued viability and success of online businesses, as unlike traditional businesses, consumers do not have physical contact with the products to evaluate their suitability and quality. In this paper, we adopt the trust model constructed by Lee and Turban [7] to study how the drivers of trust in B2C e-commerce would affect the level of trust consumers have in online shopping in Singapore. We will also investigate if there are any moderating effects due to consumer' trust propensity on the relationship between each trust driver and consumer trust in online shopping. Our results show that most of the trust drivers identified by Lee and Turban have a positive effect on the level of trust on online shopping and trust propensity also has a moderating effect on the relationship between the trust drivers and consumers' trust in online shopping.