Chapter 2 – Literature Review

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Background Lack of trust has always been identified as one of the most formidable barriers to people engaging in e-commerce use. This involves transactions in which both financial and personal information is submitted to unknown merchants by the Internet. Trust was often cited as the main reason why many customers are still sceptical about some online vendors (Nefti et al., 2005). Naturally, it is not easy to gain people‟s trust as this particular trust is not an object that can be created and controlled easily. The future of e-commerce is, at best, tenuous without a general climate of online trust. Keen (1997), argues that the lack of trust amongst Internet users is the most significant long-term barrier for e-commerce. Understanding the nature of trust is a major issue for both Internet researchers and practitioners as Internet shopping is a relatively new phenomenon with enormous potential (Shan et al., 2007).