Trust, Risk and Alternative Website Quality in B-Buyer Acceptance of Cross-Border E-Commerce

Abstract

Cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) has become an imperative mode for global trade. Research on cross-border e-commerce historically focuses mainly on the customer's behavior intention to purchase on a CBEC platform. However, B-buyers are more important compared with C-buyers for CBEC platforms. This is because B-buyers can contribute more gross merchandise volume (GMV) in a CBEC platform, and thus more margin for the firm. The authors apply trust transfer theory, perceived risk, and alternative website quality to study repurchase intention, focusing on B-buyers. The results show that perceived risk, trust in provider, and trust in the website affect repurchase intention significantly, where trust in website is found to be the most important factor. In addition, the authors found that the dimensions of perceived risk in CBEC context can be classified as the following: customer duties risk, confiscation risk, delivery risk, financial risk, and privacy risk. The contributions of the study are addressed lastly.