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data indicates that salient consumer value similarity did in fact increase trust,
suggesting that the SVS model of trust is a valid process model in cases of financial
transactions under conditions of social uncertainty.
While we widened the definition of trust by including indicators of store
trustworthiness, benevolence, integrity, and competence, ANOVA tests showed
that salient consumer value similarity to previous buyers had effects on all four
indicators (tables not shown), raising the possibility that people depend on infor-
mation about salient consumer value similarity to previous buyers to make com-
prehensive evaluations in situations where they lack adequate information about a
website's trustworthiness. In other words, rather than arriving at trust as the sum of
independent evaluations of competence, benevolence, and so on, people form top-
down judgments based on external information about salient consumer value
similarity to previous buyers. This interpretation is supported by the extremely
high goodness of fit of the models in Figs.
2.3
and
2.4
.
Several tasks remain before we can apply the findings of this study to create a
trust-building methodology for e-commerce stores. First is the question of how to
present potential buyers with information about SVSs to previous buyers. If previ-
ous buyer profiles are displayed on a site, the information becomes an internal
component of the website. In fact, reputation information is already widely
presented on e-commerce stores in the form of user ratings and other messages
from previous buyers. However, such displays may not function as valid clues for
potential buyers if they do not discuss salient consumer values or if it is possible for
the website owner to manipulate the information. These kinds of internal
components may also be insufficient as signals of trustworthiness because, as
discussed earlier, they may be easily imitated and reproduced. In this study,
information on previous buyers is presented as the result of a survey by a research
company independent of the e-commerce store. This retains the neutrality of the
external information and suggests that information on salient consumer values and
attributes of previous buyers should be presented by a neutral third party.
Of course, not all potential buyers will be willing to trust an e-commerce store
just because a neutral third party has provided information about previous buyers.
Our study shows that trust building is rather difficult if potential buyers and
previous buyers have different salient consumer values. This means that a trust-
building methodology based only on the presentation of salient consumer values is
not universally effective. However, when the customers of an e-commerce store
share some consumer values, presenting such information should be effective in
attracting, or selectively encircling, potential buyers who share such values. By
explicitly stating that users of a store share the same salient consumer values,
e-commerce stores can build a sense of community or in-group identity among
users to maintain a highly loyal customer base based on trust.
Finally, our study leaves us with several research tasks for the future. While we
tested a food product e-commerce store, it is unclear whether we would obtain the
same results with other products or services. Transaction uncertainties are greater
for food products because there tends to be greater variation in quality, unlike
products such as topics or CDs. Further research should be conducted on the effects
