 Consumer trust in B2C e-Commerce and the importance of social presence: experiments in e-Products and e-ServicesDavid Gefen and Detmar W. Straub Omega, 2004, vol. 32, issue 6, 407-424 Abstract: Reducing social uncertainty--understanding, predicting, and controlling the behavior of other people--is a central motivating force of human behavior. When rules and customs are not sufficient, people rely on trust and familiarity as primary mechanisms to reduce social uncertainty. The relative paucity of regulations and customs on the Internet makes consumer familiarity and trust especially important in the case of e-Commerce. Yet the lack of an interpersonal exchange and the one-time nature of the typical business transaction on the Internet make this kind of consumer trust unique, because trust relates to other people and is nourished through interactions with them. This study validates a four-dimensional scale of trust in the context of e-Products and revalidates it in the context of e-Services. The study then shows the influence of social presence on these dimensions of this trust, especially benevolence, and its ultimate contribution to online purchase intentions. Keywords: Trust; World; Wide; Web; Electronic; commerce; Trust; scales; Predictability; Ability; Integrity; Benevolence; Familiarity; Disposition; to; trust; Social; presence (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jomega:v:32:y:2004:i:6:p:407-424 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Omega is currently edited by B. Lev More articles in Omega from Elsevier |
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