Building a Trust Model in the Online Market Place

With the advancement of technology, online shopping is becoming a new forum for people who wish to purchase goods and products more conveniently. One of the major setbacks in doing this is the establishment of trust between sellers and buyers, which has proved to be difficult. How can trust be established online? What do organisations have to do in order to gain trust from its online consumers and making sure they will come back more regularly? First of all, we have to find out what consumers expect from online shopping and then how trust can be established accordingly. In this paper we consider all relevant factors that contribute to online shopping from consumer's point of view, and also examine what organisations should provide in terms of trust building. Furthermore, we propose a model of trust that can be utilised in developing an online virtual forum. (C) 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.