ONLINE TRUST

Online Trust

Internet Marketing

Thesis statement

Trust is a focal factor towards the establishment of loyalty and a long term relationship with customers. You are required to critically evaluate a business to consumer retailer's website (http://www.zappos.com/) and identify the main drivers of online trust according to your experience (testing) of the website.

Introduction

'Trust' is a much researched factor due to the increasing importance of e-businesses in today's world. In order to be successful, it is extremely essential to ensure that your customers trust your brand. Creating trust leads to long term benefit for the organization; it reduces the cost of finding prospective customers and thus the cost of conducting the transaction (Bandali, N, 2011, p.n.d). Due to the increase in numbers of online customers, many businesses now feel the importance of developing a trustworthy online identity to tap into the emerging market. According to one research by the Organization of Economic Cooperation-operation and Development, UK has the largest online shopping population; almost 60% prefer online shopping. (Telegraph, 2012)

One research by Goodwin highlights in its research that trust is one factor that enables smooth running of an organization. The main reason why consumers are still hesitant in shopping online is their lack of trust in exchanging personal information and money on the website. Many are unwilling to disclose personal information on websites. In order to establish trust online brands need to ensure ways to make the consumer feel protected about their privacy related concerns.

Trust can be defined as the 'consumers' confidence in the service provider's integrity and his belief that the service or product will meet the promised criteria' (Akin & Singh, 2005, p.n.d). In recent times, the expectations of consumers about a product or service have risen. Now they have a multitude of information available at a click. Any brand that is able to respond to customer's queries fastest is the one that wins in the end. Apart from that, e-commerce businesses need to practice relationship management actively to ensure that as most users who visit the website become users.

Discussion

In order to establish trust a number of factors need to be kept in mind. Dayal et. Al (Mckinsey Quarterly, 2012). identifies 6 core categories in his 'trust pyramid'. At the base of the pyramid, are three categories that form the foundation for the rest of the pyramid. These are; state of the art security, merchant legitimacy and order fulfillment. (Yuan, G. 2005, pp. 284).

In order to build trust; many online businesses have to do a lot more to move up the pyramid. As can be seen in the diagram above tone, customer control and consumer collaboration lead the consumer towards a trustworthy relationship with the organization.

State of the art security: Websites should use the most dependable technology to establish security and the same should be communicated to customers in layman language. This will establish consumer trust in the website. (Dayal et. al. 2001, p.n.d) Recent internet scams have made many consumers fearful that their personal information may be ...