The antecedents and consequences of trust in online-purchase decisions

The primary research objective of this study rests on presenting and validating a model for the antecedents and consequences of consumer trust in the context of online purchase decision-making by means of simulation and survey methods. For this purpose, the study seeks to validate the correlation and causal relationships among the model's elements involving antecedents to trust (transactional security, web-site properties, search functionality, and personal variables), consequences (purchase intention), and mediating variable (web-site awareness). Based on the findings of a controlled simulation study involving 122 college students, are the following major results: (1) web-site trust showed a significant response to site properties including the image-related variables such as company awareness and company reputation, while satisfaction significantly responded to navigation functionality; (2) personal variables such as familiarity with e-commerce and prior satisfaction with e-commerce were found to have high correlation with web-site satisfaction as well as trust; (3) web-site trust, web-site satisfaction, and web-site awareness all influenced the online-purchase intention, and (4) web-site trust and web-site satisfaction had a high correlation. The findings of this study suggest a new approach to understanding and identifying the antecedents and consequences of web-site trust whose importance is increasing in the study of Internet commerce. Also, the study findings provide the Internet marketers with the managerial implications to establish effective online marketing strategy.