Factors that enhance customer trust in e-commerce Web sites: An examination of e-commerce success metrics using Internet audience rating

As electronic commerce develops, its success critically depends on establishing, maintaining, and managing customer trust in e-commerce Web sites. The goal of this dissertation is to identify critical success factors that enhance customer trust in e-commerce Web sites and examine those factors in relation to the e-commerce success metrics using an Internet audience measurement tool. This study shows that a considerable number of functional factors, infrastructure factors, security factors, and organizational factors in Web design have significant positive impact on the success of e-commerce Web sites. In other words, it is worthwhile for organizations to use their resources by concentrating on critical success factor for customer trust in all four categories, functional, organizational, security, and infrastructure, not by expending a large amount of effort on minor design elements. The problem of trust was studied in the context of e-commerce Web site design. A four round Delphi study was conducted to address this problem. The Delphi study output was used to create a survey instrument, which employed a taxonomy of success factors that enhance customer trust in e-commerce Web sites. The data collected were correlated against Internet usage success metrics data provided by a well-known Internet Audience Rating Institution. Finally, a list of success factors for customer trust in e-commerce Web site was developed and tested for various hypotheses. The analysis and the solution proposed in this study could help information systems (IS) professionals to avoid many Web design failures and create successful Web sites efficiently using the identified factors that enhance customer trust in e-commerce.