Initial trust and intentions to buy: The effect of vendor-specific guarantees, customer reviews and the role of online shopping experience
Name:
Publisher version
View Source
Access full-text PDFOpen Access
View Source
Check access options
Check access options
Publication type
Vlerick strategic journal articlePublication Year
2018Journal
Electronic Commerce Research and ApplicationsPublication Volume
27Publication Issue
Jan-FebPublication Begin page
23Publication End page
38
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This study experimentally investigates the effects of vendor-specific guarantees and customer reviews (1) on the formation of initial consumers’ trust—separating institutional and competence trust—and (2) on first-time consumers’ intentions to buy. In addition, we examine how differing levels of online shopping experience moderate the relationship between trust and consumers’ intentions to buy. The empirical results of the study reveal the relative effectiveness of the two vendor mechanisms, with vendor-specific guarantees having a more positive effect on institutional trust and customer reviews on competence trust. While our results also show that initial trust is a central concept in explaining consumers’ intentions to buy, we find that this relationship is more pronounced for competence trust in case when consumers are more experienced with online shopping. Meanwhile, institutional trust seems a necessary prerequisite for both experienced and inexperienced online shoppers to actually buy from an unfamiliar vendor. Our study provides important managerial implications that are of interest to online vendors, especially for newly established or unknown web-based businesses.Keyword
B-to-C e-Commerce, Business-to-Consumer Electronic-Commerce, Information Systems, E-commerceKnowledge Domain/Industry
Digital Transformationae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.elerap.2017.11.002