Trustworthiness, security and the decision to buy on electronic platforms : validity studies of a scale

Abstract

The digitization of the economy is creating difficulties for traditional companies, jeopardizing the survival of the most resistant to change. With e-commerce platforms, small and micro-businesses can open new channels of communication with consumers, paying attention to some psychological factors that influence the decision to buy online: the perception of security, reputation, trust, appearance and design websites. The purpose of this article is to assess the importance of these factors in the decision to purchase online, using a questionnaire administered online (GoogleForms) to a Portuguese convenience sample (n = 163). The results reveal differences based on sex and consumers’ previous experience in carrying out online transactions, as well as significant associations between some of the dimensions of the online trust scale of Sevim and Hall (2014) and the use of e-commerce platforms. In the conclusions, some proposals for conceptual clarification are presented and the psychometric properties of the scale used are discussed.