The Moderating Role of Perceived Effectiveness of Third-Party Control on Trust and Online Purchasing Intentions

This study proposes a research model to understand the moderating role of customers’ perceived effectiveness of third-party control in the e-commerce environment on (1) the trust building process and (2) the effect of trust on customers’ online purchasing intention. The model was tested using a sample of 383 online consumers collected in New Zealand. The results show that perceived effectiveness of third-party control moderates the effect of trust in predicting online purchasing intention. Furthermore, the results differentiated the mediating effects of trust between online vendor-specific factors (i.e., perceived website quality, capability of order fulfillment, and reputation) and purchasing intention, such that trust does not mediate when perceived effectiveness of third-party control is low. Academic and practical implications and future research are also discussed