Understanding the Relationship of Trust and Risk in Online Shopping

This study explores the relationships between online shopping, perceived risk, and trust in an online vendor. Various models have been proposed and studied in previous literature. This study looked at three models: Through, Joint, and Plus to explain how these three constructs relate. An online study with 173 consumers was conducted and focused on perceived risk and consumer trust in the online vendor. Two types of trust, predictability and integrity, were included. A principal components factor analysis led to two four types of risk - privacy, time, social, and lost resource risk - all four were included in the analysis. Structural Equation Modeling was used to assess all four conceptual models. The results show that the Through Model, in which risk leads to trust and trust impacts shopping, is the best fit from an empirical perspective. An association was found between two types of risk - privacy and time - and predictability. Trust, more specifically predictability was found to positively impact purchase and browsing an online website. Conversely, integrity does not add to predictability in the context of online shoppin