The Effect of Perceived Ethical Performance of Shopping Websites on Consumer Trust

Trust is a key factor to the success of electronic commerce (EC). Websites facilitate enterprises selling online but also generate many problems, especially ethical issues that make customers hard to trust the sites. This study aims at investigating the effect of shopping websites' perceived ethical performance on consumer trust. Through an experimental study of the simulated shopping website, the result shows that consumers will trust the website if they feel the site keeps a good EC ethical performance such as practicing the privacy policies and stating it explicitly, describing products or services in an appropriate way. This finding suggests EC vendors have a better understanding of the relationship between website ethics and consumer trust. It may also encourage EC vendors to enhance their websites' ethical performance so they could gain trust from customers.