Buyers' trust and mistrust in e-commerce platforms: a synthesizing literature review

Abstract

Electronic markets have grown substantially, and they are considered an effective form of retail in recent years. Despite such growth, lack of physical transactions between different parties, as well as users' concerns about their privacy and security of transactions in electronic commerce (e-commerce) platforms have jeopardized users' trust. Thus, trust as a key issue for reducing consumers' perceived risk and the successful promotion of e-commerce has motivated many researchers to study it. This paper created a comprehensive and up-to-date framework that synthesized the previous studies in the literature conducted on trust in e-commerce environments. A systematic literature review method was selected to achieve this aim. The initial search in 17 top-ranked information systems journals and conferences resulted in 129 papers that met the inclusion criteria. Then these studies underwent an in-depth examination to determine how trust had been conceptualized in e-commerce environments. Further, the theoretical bases in relation to trust in e-commerce contexts used in the literature were investigated. The study concludes with implications for practice and a critical agenda for future research.