Psychological antecedents of institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing

Whereas many research studies have focused on website features triggering consumer trust in eretailing, 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.