دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله شفافیت اطلاعات دریافتی در تجارت الکترونیک B2C (نشریه الزویر 2018)

شفافیت اطلاعات دریافتی در تجارت الکترونیک B2C: یک بررسی تجربی

Perceived information transparency in B2C e-commerce: An empirical investigation

Abstract

Consumers abandon their online purchases at an e-commerce website partly due to the lack of information transparency of the website. We identify the antecedents of consumers’ perceived information transparency of an e-commerce website and its effects on consumers’ online purchase intention. We collected data through a scenario-based survey conducted in a laboratory setting. We found that (1) product transparency, vendor transparency, and transaction transparency significantly influence perceived information transparency; (2) perceived information transparency significantly increases consumers’ online purchase intention; and (3) perceived risk partially mediates the effects of perceived information transparency on purchase intention.

1 Introduction

The rapid development of business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce has largely benefited consumers, such as facilitating their search for product information and improving the quality of their online purchase decisions [60, 61]. However, there is also evidence of deterrence to consumers’ purchase decisions because of the lack of necessary information. That is, the information provided by e-vendors does not always satisfy online consumers’ information needs. The information needed by consumers is sometimes not available, and in some instances, the required information is deliberately not provided by the e-vendors, leading to the issue of lack of information transparency. For example, some vendors failed to provide privacy policy regarding how they utilize the customer’s information collected. 1 Some online vendors of used cars are unwilling to disclose clear warranty policy about their products [19].

Anecdotal evidence indicates that the lack of information transparency is one of the top 10 factors that lead to consumers’ final abandonment of online purchases [2]. This partly explained why e-commerce sales in 2016 accounted for less than 9% of the total sales despite the rapid development of e-commerce in the U.S. [79]. In particular, consumers believe that in most B2C ecommerce websites, the information for making a purchase decision is insufficient, incomplete, or just plainly wrong, resulting in refusal to make a purchase. In a survey conducted by the E-Tailing Group and ARS Ecommerce Inc., 76% of subjects stated that they find information insufficient to make an online purchase and 72% of them complained that the incomplete product information makes them finally abandon an online purchase [67]. We cite a consumer’s feedback posted on Canon USA website (http://www.usa.canon.com/) as an example demonstrating the existence of lack of information transparency in the B2C e-commerce context:

“At the time I was shopping for the printer, almost no useful information at all was available on the Canon website about this printer. What took its place was a lot of marketing puffery. Over in the corner of one page, I did finally notice a button which downloads a dreaded PDF file, claiming to explain the product in detail (I didn’t even notice this button the first two times I visited the site, and I was looking carefully. It’s hard to imagine all the other users were able to find it…)” [2]

Prior research also indicates that consumers are increasingly being plagued by such a lack of information transparency in online transactions [32, 94]. In the B2C e-commerce context, information transparency is defined as the extent to which website information is available and accessible to consumers [32, 94]. Although information transparency has been recognized as a key factor affecting consumers’ purchase behaviors in e-commerce, the underlying mechanism by which information transparency influences consumers’ purchase intention is still unknown, and thus, no practical guidance is available to e-vendors to improve the transparency of their websites to attract consumers and increase the purchase from their sites. We, therefore, aim to investigate and answer the following two research questions:

1. What types of information on a B2C e-commerce website influences consumers’ perceived transparency towards the website?

2. How does consumers’ perceived information transparency towards a B2C e-commerce website influence their intention to purchase from the website?

To investigate the research questions, we use the consumer service life cycle (CSLC) framework. The framework delineates consumers’ information needs across the stages of the purchasing process from first learning about a product, then acquiring it by taking ownership, and finally disposing it or replacing it [9, 10, 52]. It provides a guideline for assessing the types of information that would reduce the inconsistency between vendors’ provided information and consumers’ information needs, thus improving consumers’ perceived transparency of a B2C e commerce website.

The remainder of this study proceeds as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature and provides a theoretical foundation for the study. Section 3 develops the hypotheses. Section 4 describes our methodology. Section 5 reports our data analysis and results. Finally, Section 5 discusses the findings, identifies the limitations, and highlights the implications of this study.