E-commerce firms are becoming increasingly popular across the world. Clients are gradually preferring to buy products via e-commerce platforms rather than brick and mortar establishments due to the accessibility and time savings. The goal of this article is to define various factors to see how consumer trust affects online purchase intentions for one of the most prominent e-commerce platforms. Because the e-commerce sector is becoming increasingly competitive, organizations must understand the impact of consumer trust on online purchase intent in order to maintain market share. Let us start with some factors that can influence online purchase intention toward online shopping:
- Trust
Online trust is a feeling of confidence and security about online transactions, as well as a belief that the online vendor can be trusted. Trust is the consequence of a customer’s conviction in the compassion and integrity of an online merchant. Consumers’ lack of trust, or lack of willingness to explore new technology and buying behaviors, can create a physiological barrier. As a result, the value of trust in an e-commerce platform is becoming increasingly apparent.
- Risk Perception
After the 1960s, perceived risk became a way of explaining customer behavior in the decision-making process. Perceived risk is a major factor in understanding consumer behavior because people are more driven to prevent mistakes than to maximize benefits in their purchases. Nowadays, perceived risk refers to certain types of products, as well as financial, social, physical, psychological, and performance metrics, as well as the time when customers do risky online transactions. Perceived risk is a consumer’s sense of the potential for ambiguity and bad outcomes from an electronic online transaction.
- Return Policy With A Guarantee
Not only product details, payment information, and the assurance of a trustworthy vendor can encourage clients to accept the reliability of e-commerce websites, but also policies for returning products and warranties presented on the website can encourage users to adopt the reliability of e-commerce websites.
The product’s return policy may be described as the ability to return an item after purchase within a particular time frame and receive a refund in cash or store credit under certain conditions. A guarantee product return policy is one approach to decrease consumer risk and unhappiness, but the store must avoid unduly lenient regulations owing to the high anticipation of higher return rates and costs.
- Website’s Perceived Image
The customer’s perceived image of a website is described as what comes to mind when he or she hears or sees the site’s name or logo. In an e-commerce website, perceived image is also linked to physical and behavioral characteristics such as design innovation, user-friendliness, and how informational the website is. The absence of tangibility or physical touch of an online store creates a favorable picture of the website, which is seen by customers to be a crucial problem in e-retailing.
- Security of Transactions
The most significant risk that each firm faces is the safety and security of transactions. Because there is no physical interaction between the customer and the seller in e-commerce, businesses are encouraged to focus on ensuring safe online transactions. Integrity, authentication, fraud protection, and consumer privacy are all requirements for transaction security.
- Database Security for Users
Customer database security is defined as an organization’s obligation to store and preserve the privacy and data of its customers. When buying on an e-commerce platform, the online shopper is concerned about database security since personal information can be readily accessed and exploited by the website’s administrator. Consumer database security is a critical aspect of security and privacy that makes a website more secure and reliable. By displaying third-party certificates, websites may increase the trust in database security.
Conclusion
Many studies have shown that customer trust has a beneficial impact on the propensity to buy products from online stores. Consumers’ confidence in an online business may be earned by offering promises and assurances regarding the quality of the goods or service, and online trust is a critical aspect of online commerce. Customers who trust a website are more likely to transact and buy from it. Thus it is important for online business owners to provide safety and privacy to the data of their customers as trust and satisfaction of customers are the main priority.
