The Impact of Website Design Effectiveness on Customer's Trusting Beliefs About a Pure Internet Retailer: A Conceptual Study

The growth of Business-to-Consumer e-commerce has been slower than expected due to the fundamental lack of faith between pure Internet retailers (retailers conducting business exclusively over the Internet) and eshoppers. Recognizing the importance of trust in e-relationships, extensive research has been done in this area. An analysis of the past research reveals that unlike brick and mortar firms that generate customer trust primarily through the personal interface between customers and retailers, pure Internet retailers (PIRs) are forced to look at alternative avenues to generate trust. One of the significant avenues available to PIRs is their website. In order for the website to take up the critical role of a trust generator, adequate attention needs to be paid to its design. However, little research has focused on the relationship between website design and customer trust. This paper aims at developing a conceptual framework that explains the impact of different website design factors on the customer’s trusting beliefs about the PIR. Website design factors have been categorized as hygiene, motivation, motivation-hygiene, and de-motivation factors based on an analogical use of dual factor theory of motivation and the two-factor theory of website design. The trusting belief construct has been studied as operational benevolence, operational competence, and operational integrity. The proposed conceptual model will benefit both PIRs and researchers. PIRs need to realize that website design factors play a significant role in enhancing the customer’s trusting beliefs. Since there is no pre-determined set of website design factors that can generate customer’s trusting beliefs in every situation, the PIRs need to analyze the needs/beliefs of their customers and choose a set of factors that will build and maintain their trustworthiness image. This study will provide a basic framework that will assist PIRs in developing websites that focus on winning the target customers’ trust. The academic community can benefit from the conceptual framework as it provides a foundation for future research in this area.