Why do consumers trust online travel websites? Drivers and outcomes of consumer trust toward online travel websites

Egypt is currently one of the leading nations especially in the Middle East region with a well-established e-commerce environment and advanced IT infrastructure, but rapid growth of e-commerce will soon occur in other nations with similar consumption patterns. This study tests a model of antecedents (consumer experience, propensity to trust, reputation, perceived website size, ease of use, perceived usefulness, and website quality) and consequences of consumers’ trust toward online travel websites. Trust is expected to predict consumer attitude, perceived risk, and intention to purchase travel online. Data of 1,431 users of online travel websites were selected from the Supreme Council of Universities Database–Egypt (SCU) and analyzed through structural equation modeling. The findings show that all the aforementioned factors with the exception of consumer experience influence consumer trust toward online travel websites. Trust influences consumers’ attitude, perceived risk, and intention to purchase travel online

Determinants of consumers’ intentions to share knowledge and intentions to purchase on s-commerce sites: incorporating attitudes toward persuasion attempts into a social exchange model

This research explores s-commerce users’ intentions to purchase and to share knowledge by incorporating ‘attitudes toward persuasion attempts,’ ‘ease of use,’ and ‘perceived usefulness’ into a social exchange theory model. A survey using an on-site purposive sampling technique was used to recruit the respondents, and an interception technique was used to approach the consumers. A total of 471 Korean consumers participated in this research. Based on 471 Korean social-commerce users, our results reveal that social exchange belief factors and a site’s usability affect user satisfaction, which subsequently affects users’ intentions to purchase and to share knowledge. In addition, attitudes toward persuasion attempts moderate the effect of satisfaction on users’ purchase intentions. Keywords: social exchange theory, attitudes toward persuasion attempts, intention to share knowledge, social exchange belief

E-retailing ethics and its impact on customer satisfaction and repurchase intention: a cultural and commitment-trust theory perspective

Purpose: The theoretical understanding of online shopping behaviour has received much attention. Less focus has been given to online retailing ethics. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a comprehensive model of online retailing ethics. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a survey amongst a sample representative of universities across Egypt. In total, 310 questionnaire were collected and analysed using structure equation modelling using WarpPLS. Findings: The results indicate that the consumer perceptions of online retailing ethics (CPORE) as a second-order construct is composed of five constructs (security, privacy, non-deception, fulfilment/ reliability, and service recovery) and strongly predictive of online consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, the authors find a significant mediating effect of trust, and commitment on the relationship between CPORE and customer satisfaction. The results also show that individualism had moderate effects on the relationship between CPORE and customer satisfaction. Contrary to expectations, power distance had no significant effect. Research limitations/implications: Despite the contributions of this study some research limitations need acknowledgment. First, this study employed a convenience sample. The authors encourage future studies to use random sampling of general consumers. The ethics literature identifies some factors which influence ethical judgments of consumers (e.g. sex, age, and education). Such research could identify how each variable, individually and cooperatively, impacts consumer ethical evaluations of online retailing. The authors did not collect data from non-internet shoppers because the focus of this study was online consumers referring to their latest purchase online. It may be an interesting extension, however, to test this conceptual model for other populations like non-online consumers. Originality/value: This study developed and empirically tested a comprehensive model of CPORE with its multidimensional constructs and evaluated its impact on both consumer satisfaction and repurchase intention via trust and commitment

Modeling Shopping Cart Decisions

The most recent consumer propensity study by SAP indicates that online shopping cart abandonment is high and the associated reasons are complex. In order to examine this phenomenon, we construct online SCA decision as a discrete choice model (DCM) and capture consumer segments by a latent class model (LCM) in this research-in-progress (RIP) paper, grounded on the theories of product involvement, word of mouth, and consumer heterogeneity. We will apply the clickstream dataset from 78,746 consumers at a large Chinese online platform to verify the proposed models in future study. The objective of this research project is to scrutinize the heterogeneous impacts of product involvement and online reviews on shopping cart decision-making in view of individual-level sequential behavior and the associated products in the form of stock-keeping-unit items. We conclude this RIP paper with the discussion of potential theoretical contributions and managerial implications

Essays on multichannel marketing

Multichannel marketing is the practice of simultaneously offering information, goods, services, and support to customers through two or more synchronized channels. In this dissertation, I develop an integrated framework of multichannel marketing and develop models to assist managers in their marketing resource allocation decisions. In the first essay of the dissertation, I investigate the factors that drive customers multichannel shopping behavior and identify its consequences for retailers. In the second essay, I build on this work and develop a model that enables firms to optimize their allocation of marketing resources across different customer-channel segments. In the first essay, I develop a framework comprising the factors that drive consumers’ channel choice, the consequences of channel choice, and their implications for managing channel equity. The results show that customer-channel choice is driven in a nonlinear fashion by a customer demographic variable such as age and is also influenced by consumer shopping traits such as number of categories bought and the duration of relationship with a retailer. I show that by controlling for the moderating effects of channel-category associations, the influence of customers’ demographics and shopping traits on their channel choices can vary significantly across product categories. Importantly, the results show that multichannel shoppers buy more often, buy more items, and spend considerably more than single channel shoppers. The channel equity of multichannel customers is nearly twice that of the closest single channel customers (online or offline). In the second essay, I propose a model for optimal allocation of marketing efforts across multiple customer-channel segments. I first develop a set of models for consumer response to marketing efforts for each channel-customer segment. This set comprises four models, the first for purchase frequency, the second for purchase quantity, the third for product return behavior, and the fourth for contribution margin of purchase. The results show that customers’ responses to firm marketing efforts vary significantly across the customer-channel segments. They also suggest that marketing efforts influence purchase frequency, purchase quantity and monetary value in different ways. The resource allocation results show that profits can be substantially improved by reallocating marketing efforts across the different customer-channel segments

Two Esays on Trust in Supply Chain Management

In this dissertation, I propose that trust is an important yet under-studied concept in supply chain relationships both upstream in a Business-To-Business (B2B) context and downstream in a Business-To-Consumer (B2C) context. In the first essay, I investigate the evolution of trust in buyer-supplier relationships in a VMI setting. Supply chain management literature is rich in pointing to the benefits generated by collaborative supply chain arrangements, however recently the dark side of these collaborative relationships has been reported as well. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to bring in a new dimension - "length of the relationship" to these research models. Using survey data collected from distributors that use VMI, we find that longer relationships are associated with lower levels of distributor trust in the manufacturer. This erosion of trust over time is fully mediated by the distributors' experience of psychological contract violation. Our findings demonstrate that good inventory performance may not be sufficient to maintain trust in VMI relationships, but regular communication between parties, as well as nonverbal documented agreements, may also be needed to maintain trust. In the second part of the dissertation, I study the effectiveness of third-party trust seals that have emerged as a prominent mechanism to enhance trust in B2C online markets. Despite their common use by practitioners, systematic research studies of the effectiveness of trust signals are scarce. Exploiting a unique dataset of over a quarter million transactions across 493 online retailers, this study empirically measures the value and effectiveness of trust seals on the likelihood of purchase by shoppers. The dataset is collected from a randomized field experiment by a large trust seal provider, which enables us to infer the causal impacts of the presence of a trust seal. It is found that the presence of the online trust seal increases the odds of completion of purchase. I further find that online trust seals serve as partial substitutes for both shopper experience and seller size, which makes the seal more useful for first time visitors at a web site and also for smaller online retailers. Interestingly, the effect of the number of trust seals is subject to diminishing marginal returns, such that the presence of additional seals does not necessarily increase cart completion rates

Factors influencing consumer's intention towards e-grocery shopping: An extended technology acceptance model approach

The e-grocery industry in Indonesia is multiplying and is expected to become one of the most important markets in the world. Massive amount of funding for e-grocery start-ups, the high desire of Indonesian consumers to buy grocery products online, and COVID19 are increasing the growth of e-grocery services in Indonesia. Although the desire to use e-grocery services in Indonesia is high, data shows that e-grocery adoption is still far below other e-commerce product categories such as fashion and electronics. Previous research and surveys also show that consumers will return to shopping for wholesale products offline and stop/reduce the use of e-grocery after the COVID19 pandemic. Therefore, this research is interested in examining the factors that can increase the adoption of e-grocery in Indonesia. Quantitative research was conducted using the purposive sampling method and obtained 135 respondents who have ever used e-grocery service/shopping in the JABODETABEK area. Data were analyzed using PLS-SEM (Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Model). The results of this study indicate that perceived risk has a negative effect on Trust. Social Influence, Perceived Usefulness, and Perceived Ease of Use have a positive effect on Trust. Social Influence and Perceived Ease of Use have a positive effect on Perceived Usefulness. However, it turns out that Trust in this study was not proven to affect the intention to use e-grocery services/shopping for grocery products online

The Differences of Students Traits in Computer Science Program with the Perception of Using Laptops for Studying in Chengdu, Sichuan, China

With a sample size of 475 respondents, this study examined how students' disparities in computer science qualities affect their perceptions of using laptops for learning in a computer science program in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. A questionnaire was used as the research instrument. Conduct statistical analysis of variance on the data (Multivariate Analysis of Variance: MANOVA). Perceived ease of use (X̅) = 4.141, perceived usefulness (X̅) = 4.181, trust (X̅) = 4.147, and behavioral intention (X̅) = 4.166 were all high average scores. Meanwhile, at the 0.05 level of significance, gender, age, subjects in computer science courses, and types of laptop manufacturers have no statistically significant difference on perceived ease of use, perceived utility, trust, or behavioral intention. Thus, students use laptops in their study environments, and it was discovered that students' perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, trust, and behavioral intention to use laptops for studying in computer science courses are generally positive, as the average score is higher, with no significant difference between student characteristics in gender, age, subjects in computer science courses, and types of laptop manufacturers

Persepsi kemudahan, manfaat, harga dan kualitas produk terhadap keputusan belanja: peran moderasi kepercayaan pelanggan

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived price and product quality on shopping decisions with customer trust as a moderating variable. The sample is 120 consumers of the Cumart digital application in the North Jakarta area. Data were analyzed using PLS-SEM. The research findings show that there is no significant effect of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived price on shopping decisions, but product quality and customer trust have an effect on shopping decisions. Customer trust is not able to moderate perceptions of ease of use, usefulness, price, and product quality on shopping decisions. Further research is still needed regarding perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived price, which can be related to customer satisfaction with using online-based shopping applications.Tujuan penelitian ini untuk menganalisis pengaruh dari persepsi kemudahan, manfaat, harga dan kualitas produk terhadap keputusan belanja, dimoderasi kepercayaan pelanggan. Sampel sebanyak 120 konsumen aplikasi digital Cumart yang ada di wilayah Jakarta Utara. Data dianalisis menggunakan PLS-SEM. Temuan penelitian menunjukkan terdapat pengaruh tidak signifikan persepsi kemudahan, persepsi manfaat, dan persepsi harga terhadap keputusan belanja, namun kualitas produk dan dan kepercayaan pelanggan berpengaruh terhadap keputusan belanja. Kepercayaan pelanggan tidak mampu memoderasi persepsi kemudahan, maanfaat, harga, dan kualitas produk terhadap keputusan belanja. Penelitian lanjutan masih diperlukan untuk terkait persepsi kemudahan, persepsi manfaat, dan persepsi harga, bisa dikaitkan dengan kepuasaan pelanggan untuk menggunakan aplikasi berbelanja berbasis online