Psychological antecedents of institutionbased consumer trust in e-retailing

Whereas many research studies have focused on website features triggering consumer trust in e-retailing, so far no study has attempted to identify all psychological antecedents of trust, i.e. what exactly “happens ” in the consumer’s mind before or while the person decides to trust e-retailing. In contrast to other papers on the antecedents of trusting beliefs in specific e-retailing stores, this paper will identify the antecedents of institution-based trust in e-retailing, i.e. trust people have in e-retailing in general. Personality, perception, attitude, experience and knowledge were hypothesized to influence institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing. According to the results of this study, perception based factors are the main determinants of consumer trust in e-retailing. Consumers do behave, after all, rational