Moderating effect of website types in the relationship between trust and consumers’ intention to use online shopping

Abstract

Doing business in the virtual environment, trust is considered as an essential condition for the willingness of consumers to make a transaction with Internet seller. Many earlier empirical studies explored that website characteristic (web design, web quality, e-vendor reputation and etc.) is also considered as a significant factor affecting consumers’ trust and their decision to make a purchasing on the Internet. It is shown that Web quality not only has a positive impact on consumer beliefs of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, but also affects consumer perception of E-vendor’s image and prestige. The main objective of this study is to examine the role of website types as a moderating factor in the relationships between consumers’ trust and their intention to use online shopping. By using Amos 20.0 with the Maximum Likelihood estimate technique for analyzing data collected via 597 online shoppers, the results indicated that there is a moderating effect of website types in the relationship between trust and consumers’ intention to shop via the Internet (that is, there are differences of the role of trust and its influence on consumers’ intention to use online shopping among domestic website buying group, foreign website buying group and both of websites buying one as well). Findings of this study have importantly contributed on the theoretical as well as practical perspectives. Also, this study has pointed some implications for manager and researcher in the future.