Relationship between Trust and E-Commerce Adoption-A Study of Potential Moderators

In developing countries like Thailand or most of the ASEAN member countries, e-commerce is still developing as new marketing channel for shopping. Therefore knowing more about the factors influencing the adoption of this virtual shopping channel among Asian online consumers is interesting. Previous studies revealed that lack of trust is the major factor affecting the low growth rate of e-commerce trade in Asian regions. Though we have adequate studies showing the positive relationship between trust and online adoption, very few talks about the factors moderating this relationship. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the potential variables which may affect, modify or change the relationship between online trust and user’s intention to shop online. The study investigate the effects of three observable variables such as gender, income and previous computer experience on trust and online shopping intention. The data for this study is collected from 400 business management students of a leading university in Thailand. The results show that gender and age are not significant in influencing the relationship between trust and intention to use e-commerce. However, prior computer and online experience is found to be a significant moderator. Trust is found to be strongly influencing the intention to use e-commerce among the respondents with less internet experience compared to those with more than 4 years of online shopping experience.