Factors shaping E-trust and purchasing intentions in Pakistan's online market: A structural equation modeling analysis

Abstract

The fast expansion of online shopping has changed the buying habit of consumers; nonetheless, the issue of trust in online shopping platforms has been a major challenge especially in emerging economies. The study proposed was to investigate the determinants of consumer trust in online shopping and the impact that such determinants have on online purchase behavior in Pakistan. The quantitative and cross-sectional design was used to collect the data of 302 consumers with a prior experience of online shopping using a structured questionnaire. The relationships between perceived security, privacy protection, the quality of the site, perceived risk, the reputation of the vendors, consumer trust as well as online purchase behavior were analyzed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). According to the findings, consumer trust significantly depends on perceived security, privacy protection, the quality of the web site, and reputation of the vendor, whereas perceived risk has a hefty negative impact on consumer trust. The online purchase behavior was found to be strongly positively related to consumer trust. The mediation analysis also showed that consumer trust partly mediates the associations between determinants of trust and online purchasing behavior. The structural model had a high explanatory power as it had a significant percentage of variance in consumer trust and online purchase behavior. This paper is significant to the literature on e-commerce since it shows empirical data on Pakistan, which is a developing digital market and consumer trust is a key factor in online buying behavior. The results can be used by online retailers and policy makers as a guideline as they can see the need of enhancing security, privacy protection, the quality of the websites and the reputation of vendors to increase consumer trust and encourage long-term expansion of online shopping.