The trust developed through one’s sense of security provided by guarantees, safety nets, or other impersonal structures.
Published in Chapter:
Trust in Electronic Commerce: Definitions, Sources, and Effects
Hongwei Du (California State University East Bay, USA), Albert Lederer (University of Kentucky, USA), and Jiming Wu (California State University East Bay, USA)
Copyright: © 2010
|Pages: 10
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-611-7.ch007
Abstract
In the past two decades, electronic commerce has been growing rapidly due to the increasing popularization of personal computers, expanding penetration of broadband, and continuing development of the Internet and World Wide Web. According to eMarketer (2009), an e-business and online market research company, the total U.S. e-commerce sales (excluding travel) will grow from $127.7 billion in 2007 to $182.5 billion in 2010. The firm also estimates that the number of online shoppers in U.S. will increase from 131.1 million—nearly four-fifths of Internet users—by the year 2007, to 148.7 million by the year 2010. The growth of e-commerce relies not only on the great convenience of conducting transactions over the Internet but also on consumers’ willingness to trust an online merchant. This view is consistent with that advanced by Holsapple and Wu (2008): non-face-to-face, Internet-based transactions require an element of trust; in other words, trust is a foundation of e-commerce.