Underlying Factors Influencing Consumers’ Trust and Loyalty in E-commerce

Customer loyalty and trust are the key factors for long-term profitability and growth for organizations. Regardless of the rapid growth and popularity of the e-commerce, still companies face difficulties in gaining customer loyalty and trust ( Eid, 2011 ). Therefore, the aim of this study is to underlie the factors that gauge e-customer’s trust and e-customer loyalty in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) domain. The data were drawn via 5-point Likert scale adapted questionnaire from 328 respondents who had an experience of e-commerce, who were of working class, and were residing in major urban cities of Pakistan, that is, Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied to test the hypotheses. The findings suggested that website user interface quality, information quality, awareness of e-commerce, and perceived privacy are significant predictors of e-customer trust (ECT) and in turn e-loyalty, whereas perceived security risk was found to have insignificant impact on ECT. This article contributes to enhance the determinants that have an influence in gaining customer trust and loyalty and provides interesting perspective of Pakistani consumers. The findings of the study are beneficial for the e-commerce industry in enhancing ECT and e-loyalty and help them in promoting their business online.