Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
for and shipped with only one click. Higher levels
of trust allow users to take advantage of ease of
use options. Trusting that personal information
will be secure and used appropriately may also
make online shopping more useful. Recommen-
dations based on prior purchases, being able to
save items in a shopping cart and even saving
your measurements via a virtual model, like at
LandsEnd.com, may make it faster and more
convenient for users to get to the products that
they are interested in.
Our respondents ranged in age from 52 to 87.
This is a large age range and it is likely that there
would be significant differences in usage and
attitudes within this age group. Age has a direct
affect on two dimensions of electronic commerce
participation. Older respondents were less likely
to have made a purchase online and participate in
electronic commerce transactions less often. Age
also has an indirect affect through ease of use.
Older respondents had more negative attitudes
concerning ease of use. Older computer users
have reported difficulties using the mouse and
reading small print online (Licht, 1999; Opalinski,
2001). Practitioners need to be cognizant of this
when designing Web sites. Age did not have a
significant impact on usefulness. The impact of
age on usefulness is not necessarily surprising
but is disconcerting since online shopping could
be of most use to the elderly. Clearly this segment
of the population needs to be made more aware
of this channel. Surprisingly, age did not have a
significant impact on trust. Again, contrary to
common perception, the elderly do not appear to
be any more concerned with security and privacy
in online transactions.
pants in this study were from affluent areas and
were highly educated. Thirty-four percent of the
respondents reported earning at least a bachelors
degree. Clearly, the sample does not represent a
cross section of older American consumers. The
respondents are likely at the higher end of the
socioeconomic scale. Since income is an impor-
tant determinant of Internet usage (Bucy, 2000)
and online shopping (Eastman, 2004) electronic
commerce participation is probably higher for this
sample than for this age group in general. Future
research should reexamine the proposed model
with a larger and broader sample.
The operationalization of ease of use and trust
should be examined. The ease of use items in this
study addressed the ease of buying online, not nec-
essarily of using the Internet. Online transactions
virtually require the use of the mouse. Research
has found that older users have more difficulty with
mouse control (Riviere & Thakor, 1996; Walker,
Philbin, & Fisk, 1997) and tasks, such as clicking
and double clicking (Smith, Sharit, & Czaja, 1999).
Given that older adults have less manual dexterity
and more vision difficulties, this measure could
be broadened to include ease of use issues such
as link placement, font size and navigation with
the mouse versus the keyboard.
As others have done (Liu et al., 2005), this
research operationalized trust by assessing the
confidence people had with the security and
confidentiality of personal and financial infor-
mation. Since the design of this study, numerous
researchers (Grabner-Kraeuter, 2002; Mukherjee
& Nath, 2003; Strader & Ramaswami, 2002;
Torkzadeh & Dhillon, 2002) have attempted to
examine and operationalize the issue of trust in
online transactions. Gefen and Straub (2002)
propose that trust is multidimensional, comprised
of integrity, benevolence and ability. Tan and
Sutherland (2004) review the definitions and di-
mensionality of trust and propose that intention
to trust impacts online purchase behavior and
is comprised of dispositional, institutional and
interpersonal trust. Additional research should
direCtions For Future
researCh
This study sought to examine the impact trust, ease
of use and usefulness had on electronic commerce
participation by older Americans. The partici-
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