Role of Experiential Trust in E-Shopping Behaviour: An Emerging Market Perspective

Abstract

Addressing the limited research on online shopping trust in the emerging e-market context, this study examined how online experience affects experiential trust, attitude, perceived risk, perceived usefulness, and purchase intention. Further, experiential trust was tested as a mediator between online experience and attitude, perceived risk, and perceived usefulness. A structured questionnaire was administered to collect data from 583 respondents. The proposed hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling using AMOS 23 and hierarchical regression analysis. The result indicates that online experience is significant in forming experiential trust. The findings also show that experiential trust plays an important role in influencing e-shoppers’ purchasing behavior. Furthermore, it has been found that online experience and experiential trust function as distinct predictors of perceived risk in online shopping behavior. This study provides new insights into online shopping behavior in emerging e-market scenarios. Practically, the findings suggest the strategic importance of generating experiential trust in the e-retailing context and indicate the utility of past online experiences.