A Model of Customers' Trust in E-Businesses: Micro-Level Inter-Party Trust Formation

Trust is one of the key success factors for many online retailers and therefore many researchers have examined the topic both conceptually and empirically. Reviewing the previous studies, we found two possible improvements in the study of trust. First, we propose a more comprehensive, parsimonious, and practical conceptualization of trust, especially business-to-customer e-commerce trust. This model of trust explicitly includes key concepts that are ignored, but are deemed to be important, in the conceptualization of trust (e.g., confidence and affect). Second, this conceptualization of trust is used in a comprehensive model of customers' trust in e-businesses. This model includes, in a more comprehensive and parsimonious way, key factors that are likely to affect customers' trust in an e-business. Furthermore, we believe that the model is useful in understanding the trust development process.