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Internet marketing has become a pivotal tool to sell products and services (Allbusiness 2010). Maintaining good relationships with stakeholders is believed to play a key role in successful business strategy (Mayer and Tomilson 2009). Hence, with the growth of internet marketing, the mechanism to achieve success and surpassing competitors for long term success is to build consumer “Trust” (Angriawan and Thakur 2008, Keitch 2009). Angriawan and Thakur (2008) weighted that, website usability, expected performance of the product, online security and privacy constitute 70% of the online trust. According to Kim and Bensabat (2010), the most important goal of internet marketing is to create customer “trust” A survey conducted on the online buyers found that consumers consider online trust as one of the top factors when they select their online vendors (Jiang, Jones and Javie 2008). Hence online trust is one of the most important inevitable concerns in the e-commerce.

According to Kim and Bensabat (2010) trust is defined as “beliefs regarding the ability, integrity, and benevolence of the online merchant”. Morgan and Hunt (1994) believe trust is developed when a party gains confidence in an exchanging party believing in its reliability and integrity. Culture differences influence the degree of trust sort e.g. Americans are more inclined towards risk taking and trust than Japan.

There are several reasons why trust online is not easily acquired. Hanai and Oguchi's (2009) definition of ‘perceived risk,’ explains how it is the risk that consumers subjectively perceive of products; classifying it into financial risk, functional risk, physical risks, psychological risks and social risks.


Explaining how customers tend to search for more information when price is relatively high and how under high levels of trust, customers are willing to pay a higher price premium to a store for an expensive product than for an inexpensive product (Kim and Benrasat 2010). Consequently consumers are fearful of online shopping for branded products (a product belonging to a high-class) of its uncertainty and unreliability (Hanai and Oguchi 2009).

Several online shops are currently confronted with the difficulty of transmitting trust warranting properties; properties that induce trust, to the consumers. Unlike online shops, real shops win trust by responding to consumers’ problems and worries immediately and properly, whereas time and spatial discrepancies are encountered on online transaction (Hanai and Oguchi 2009). These limitations include the inability for customers to feel the product and the ease of immediate customer service.

Martin and Camerero’s (2008) study suggests that security amongst all has the strongest influence on consumer trust. They believe that service quality, refund and warranty directly influence consumers’ trust where as the website characteristics have an indirect influence. Moreover they found out that past online shopping experience is the main determinant of online trust. Research reveals that consumer satisfaction with an online shop is by how it enhances purchasing and browsing behaviour and selection, web design and maintenance are also important factors.

Trust formation in a mediated transaction is important and it occurs when the customer’s intention to buy a product matches the shops intention to sell. This is reflected by the information transmitted by the shop whereby reliability is expected and which could initiate purchase (Hanai and Oguchi 2009). There is a lot of criticism on the Trust-assuring arguments that are displayed or provided on a store’s Web site arguing that these may come from different sources, as non objective viewpoints.

The research results suggest that a third party’s assurance was more effective in increasing the likelihood of a purchase than a store’s self-proclaimed assurance, on the other hand, a store’s self-proclaimed assurance were more effective than having no assurance (Nöteberg, Christiaanse and Wallage 2003).

There is the exception of those individuals who do not have to rely only on an independent third-party source to form high trust beliefs about the store. When customers purchase a high-price product, they seem to form trusting beliefs by scrutinizing argument content rather than by depending on heuristic cues (e.g., an independent party’s opinion) (Kim and Benbasat 2010). Although recent researchers emphasising the role of word of mouth in trust formation (Hanai and Oguchi 2009), Mayer et al.’s model for the feedback circle suggests that the outcomes of trusting the trustee will determine if a positive relationship or if a negative the relationship will formed (Mayer and Tomilson 2009).

One of the ways to increase consumer trust online is to provide trust-assuring arguments, which are “statements of a claim and its supporting statements used in an Internet store to address trust-related concerns” (Kim and Benbasat 2006). As proposed by Keitch (2009), in order to overcome these challenges, marketers will have to build two essential components into their campaign, which are charm (“the deployment of novelty”) and reassurance. Trust assurance can be provided by self proclamation e.g. ‘safe shopping our security guarantee’ or assurance, e.g. Hacker Safe. Examples of internet marketers who provide such assurances are Ebay.com and Amazon.com (Kim and Bensabat 2010). Third party assurances also referred to as Trustmarks such as TRUSTe and BBBOnLine create a positive influence and have more credibility than a consumers report magazine (Kim and Bensabat 2010)

Utilising Toulmin’s model of argumentation to make online trust-assuring arguments persuasive could be useful for online businesses.


It was found that trust-assuring arguments that included claim plus data and backing (hereafter claim-data-backing) effectively increased consumers’ trusting beliefs, while trust-assuring arguments that consisted of claim only (hereafter claim-only) did not increase consumers’ trusting beliefs. Claim is a conclusion of an argument, data are grounds of a claim, and backings are reasons one should accept (Kim and Benbasat 2010).

There are several ways of reducing distrust online. Consumers engage in information search; seek, collect and examine this information, because of products perceived risks. Thus online businesses are encouraged to supply specific and useful information e.g. payment and return information, in order to heighten reliability (Hanai and Oguchi 2009). Indeed, shops have attempted to convey clear and trustworthy information like revealing affiliations with reliable organisations.

In light of these justifications digital marketers will have to restore their consumer trust as they have to face the challenge of competing in an increasingly crowded media space (Keitch 2010). Internet tracking is useful in addressing shortcomings and are especially important for any industry especially online business (Keitch 2009)

Researchers have suggested that trust forms a strong basis for building a prolonged close, supportive and industrious relationship (Mayer and Tomilson 2009). Researchers have suggested that third party certification logos should be displayed on websites because it has a direct positive impact of safe shopping in the consumers’ mind and builds up consumer trust towards the organization (Jiang, Jones and Javie 2008). Also, business organizations should deliver on quality online and offline in order to generate the consumers’ online trust.

As internet marketing continues to grow, trust also has to evolve because the predominant factor in internet marketing is trust (Kim and Bensabat 2010). Therefore, online marketers should increase the trust levels among customers to gain a competitive advantage.


REFERENCES

Allbusiness (2010) The impact of internet marketing [online] available from [15 March 2010]

Angriawan, A. and Thakur, R. (2008) ‘A Parsimonious Model of the Antecedents and Consequence of Online Trust: An Uncertainty Perspective’. Journal of Internet Commerce 7 (1), 74 – 94.

Ba, S. and Pavlou, P. A. (2002) 'Evidence of the effect of trust building technology in electronic markets: Price premiums and buyer behavior'. MIS Quarterly 26(3), 243–268

Hanain, T. and Oguchi, T (2009) ‘How Do Consumers Perceive The Reliability of Online Shops?’. Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 3(2), article 6

Jiang, P., Jones, D. B. and Javie, S.(2008) ‘How Third-Party Certification Programs Relate to Consumer Trust in Online Transactions: An Exploratory Study’. Psychology and Marketing 25 (9), 839 – 858.

Keitch, R. (2009) ‘Digital marketers need to reassure consumers to regain their trust’ New Media Age 1/3, 15.

Kim, D. and Benbasat, I. (2010) ‘Designs for Effective Implementation of Trust Assurances in Internet Stores’. Communications of ACM 53 (2), 121 – 126.

Kim, D. and Benbasat, I.(2006) 'The effects of trust-assuring arguments on consumer trust in Internet stores: Application of Toulmin’s model of argumentation'. Information Systems Research 17(3), 286–300.

Nöteberg, A., Christiaanse, E. and Wallage, P. (2003) 'Consumer trust in electronic channels'. e‑Service Journal 2(2) 46–67

Martín, S. S. and Camarero, C.(2008) ‘Consumer Trust to a Web Site: Moderating Effect of Attitudes toward Online Shopping’. Cyber Psychology and Behavior 11 (5), 549 – 554

Mayer, R. C. and Tomilson, E. C.(2009) ‘The Role of Casual Attribution Dimensions In Trust Repair’. Academy of Management Review 34 (1), 85 – 104.

Morgan, R. M. and Hunt, S. D.(1994) ‘The Commitment – Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing’. Journal of Marketing 58 (3), 20-38.