¹Department of Information Systems and Logistics, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Correspondence: Tibert Verhagen, Department of Information Systems and Logistics, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 0 20 4446050; E-mail: tverhagen@feweb.vu.nl

Received 20 December 2005; Revised 23 July 2006; Accepted 31 August 2006.

Abstract

Understanding consumer behaviour is of vital importance to consumer-oriented e-business models today. In this paper, we study the relationships between consumer perceptions of risk and trust and the attitude towards purchasing at a consumer-to-consumer electronic marketplace (EM). Typical for EM settings is that consumer behaviour is subject to perceptions of the selling party as well as of the institutional structures of the intermediary that is operating the EM. Building upon the well-established literature of trust, we consider the concepts of intermediary trust and seller trust. We extend this categorisation by introducing the concepts of intermediary risk and seller risk. We developed measurement instruments for intermediary risk and seller risk. All measurement scales have acceptable alphas and are unidimensional. An empirical study is conducted to explore the relationships between the risk and trust types and consumer purchase attitude. The results reveal significant, direct effects of seller trust and seller risk. Second-order effects of intermediary trust and intermediary risk are investigated and reported. The paper concludes with general observations and recommendations for research and practice.