Understanding online purchase intentions: contributions from technology and trust perspectives

This paper explores factors that influence consumer's intentions to purchase online at an electronic commerce website. Specifically, we investigate online purchase intention using two different perspectives: a technology-oriented perspective and a trust-oriented perspective. We summarise and review the antecedents of online purchase intention that have been developed within these two perspectives. An empirical study in which the contributions of both perspectives are investigated is reported. We study the perceptions of 228 potential online shoppers regarding trust and technology and their attitudes and intentions to shop online at particular websites. In terms of relative contributions, we found that the trust-antecedent ‘perceived risk’ and the technology-antecedent ‘perceived ease-of-use’ directly influenced the attitude towards purchasing online.