Trust in E-Commerce From the Cultural Perspective: A Systematic Literature Review

Introduction

Electronic commerce (e-commerce), which is described as the acquiring and selling of goods, services, and ideas via the use of communication technology, most notably the Internet, has become a critical component of modern enterprises, especially in the COVID-19 era (Bhatti et al., 2020; Shahzad, Hassan, Abdullah, Hussain & Fareed, 2020). The coronavirus pandemic has impacted global e-commerce and consumer behavior. Due to the virus's containment, millions of people stayed home in early 2020, making digital channels the preferred shopping choice. In 2019, it was discovered that 1.92 billion people used the internet to shop (Statista, 2022). For common things like food, apparel, but also retail technology, demand was extremely high in June 2020, reaching a record 22 billion monthly visits. It is expected that the number of people who purchase online will increase at a rapid rate around the world (Wang, Dang, Nguyen & Le, 2020).

It is asserted that the expansion of e-commerce has caused persistent and profound changes in the way that individual’s shop. Even in countries where online shopping is already widespread, it is predicted that e-commerce will continue to grow. According to the Europe E-commerce Europe report, North America and Asia dominate the world e-commerce trade. In addition, it is seen that there is a serious interest in e-commerce in eastern European countries (E-commerce Europe, 2022). In that sense, as a critical enabler of successful e-commerce, the importance of developing, establishing, and maintaining trust between consumers and sellers is increasingly becoming acknowledged in both the academic and practitioner domains. Trust in e-commerce has been widely investigated in previous literature (Kolsaker & Payne, 2002; Corbitt, Thanasankit & Yi, 2003; Chen & Dhillion, 2003Salam, Iyer, Palvia & Singh, 2005; Palvia, 2009; Abyad, 2017; Teo & Liu, 2017; Hallikainen & Laukkanen, 2018; Sullivan & Kim, 2018; Mumu, Saona, Mamun & Azad, 2021). Trust can be described as confidence in the trade partner's reliability and honesty. Concerns regarding an online store's trustworthiness are among the most critical variables distinguishing online purchasers from non-buyers (Hallikainen & Laukkanen, 2018). Since an online purchaser's decision is so complicated and intelligent, trust must be considered in the decision-making process (Constantinides, 2004; Lăzăroiu et al., 2020). When people shop online, privacy and security concerns might be paramount. Because consumers' views of privacy and security, as well as the quality of information, are significant predictors of trust, firms should be concerned about these variables in order to improve transaction volume (Kim, Ferrin & Rao, 2008).