Enhancing trust in online business relationships of South Africa: A web interface signalling perspective

Technology mediation in online shopping results in information asymmetries which may impede customers' ability to assess products and make well informed purchase decisions. Using signalling theory, this study proposes and tests a model on the influence of a stores' website on customers' ongoing trust in online retail stores and repurchase intentions. Data were collected from a sample of 201 online shoppers from Gauteng, South Africa. The findings show that website informativeness, retailer related website interaction, customer related website interaction and website security are important factors that help influence customers' trust in online stores and that trust in turn exert significant influence on repurchase intentions. Website informativeness and website security were also found to have a significant direct influence on customer repurchase intentions although this influence is partially mediated by customers' levels of trust in an online store. The findings support the notion that the online store environment is an important source of signals to consumers and that these signals have influence on trust in an online store. The findings point to the need for managers of online stores to pay attention to levels of customer trust in their stores as trust has positive influence on customers' repurchase intentions. In working on building trust, managers need to among other factors, examine their websites for levels of informativeness, and security. They also need to ensure that their online stores are associated with high levels of human interaction.