Consumer Perception of Electronic Commerce – Incorporating Trust and Risk with the Technology Acceptance Model

Abstract

The rapid growth in internet technology and the innovations in smart devices has had its impact on how businesses used to operate a decade ago to how consumers followed traditional shopping behavior when goods or services was required. The rise in internet users presents the opportunity of Electronic Commerce, the idea of providing and accessing goods and services using internet, such as selling goods and services, performing financial transactions and even booking an appointment. The two leading theories - perceived ease of use and usefulness have been employed in numerous information systems research studies to help understand consumer behavior in e-commerce environments. As the acceptance of e-commerce in Fiji is relatively low, this paper integrates the findings of previous researches with the perceived trust and perceived risk of consumers to provide a comprehensive framework of online shopping behavior based on the Technology Acceptance Model. To gain an in-depth understanding of consumers’ acceptance of e-commerce an online questionnaire was used with questions which focused on these disciplines. The outcome of which verified that there were correlations between trust, perceived risk, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and usage of e-commerce. Through the use of this research, businesses in Fiji may incorporate features as per user expectations and have a good background before venturing into e-commerce.