to fill this gap in the literature by narrowing the focus of the subject specifically to initial trust of an e-commerce website, a specific aspect of trust which has been investigated by {{91 McKnight, D.H. 1998; 61 Koufaris,M. 2004; 99 McKnight, D.H. 2004}}. In order to this we will use create our own, non-real e-commerce to ensure that there is no existing customer interactions with the website {{107 Suh, J.C. 2006}}. This will allow the study to focus specifically on social presence’s impact formation of initial trust online.
{{56 Harris,L.C. 2004}} also suggests that different e-commerce product categories have significantly different effects the formation of trust online; therefore we will focus our research on a single market (the online book market).
The study will aim to answer the following research question: What is the impact of social presence on the formation of initial trust of a website in an e-commerce environment? The study has one objective:
To determine the effect of social presence on a consumer’s initial trust of an e-commerce website.
The study aims to provide a better understanding of the role of social presence in building initial trust amongst e-commerce consumers, and assess the potential of social presence as a trust building tool.
This paper contains four parts. The first is a literature review which discusses the background of the online book market, social presence, initial online trust, perceived risk, customer loyalty and other variables. This is followed by the research question and objectives, description of methodology and project timeline respectively.
1文献综述— LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 网上书店市场—The online book market
The online book market has been traditionally dominated by international book retailers such as Barnes and Nobel and Amazon.com {{109 Mellahi, K. 2000}}. The internet provides a platform of greater efficiency and reach for these retailers compared to physical stores, although this consequently has led to the need for an increased understanding of marketing these products to online consumers, particularly regarding the consumers trust of e-commerce {{110 Latcovich, S. 2001; 71 Wang,F. 2008; 66 Ribbink,D. 2004}}.
This market is also relevant in the South African context, with physical bookstores such as Atlas and Juta having ventured into an online market for book retailing to compete with local companies such as Kalahari.net, as well as international competitors in the above mentioned Barnes and Nobel and Amazon.com {{109 Mellahi, K. 2000; 104 Otter, A. 2011}}. Research indicates that Amazon.com falls within the highest 1% of trusted brands in the world and is rated the most trusted brand in the United States of America, since then {{106 Millward Brown 2010; 105 Millward Brown 2011}}. However, in a South African context Amazon.com has not been able to take hold of the South African market, particularly due to the firms’ lack of trust and logistical costs within the country {{104 Otter, A.}}. This offers
