Online Trust between Inexperienced Consumers and Experienced Consumers: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Trust is critical for the growth of e-commerce. For consumers with or without experience, this study examines the influencing factors on online initial trust and ongoing trust by conducting an empirical test involving 800 participants with Structure Equation Modeling (SEM). The results suggest the effects of perceived information quality on initial trust is significant, but its effect on ongoing trust is not; perceived system quality influences ongoing trust significantly but doesn’t on initial trust; perceived reputation and institution-based trust antecedents (situational normality and structure assurance) have significant effects on both initial and ongoing trust. Limitation and future research are further discussed.