The
Ecommerce trust and security study
Shopping
online: investigating the different perceived forms of trust and security
between English and Italian societies.
Thomas
Klein
14th
March 2001
Report
on a final year project submitted for the degree of Bachelor of Science in
information Technology, Business Management and Language in the Department of
Computer Science At the University of York
Number
of words is 16119 as counted by Word, word count command. This includes the body
of the report and the appendences.
Number
of pages is 54 as counted by Word, page count command. This includes the body of
the report and the appendences.
ABSTRACT
As the European union becomes
more integrated major E-tailers like Amazon are localizing their websites. Not
only should the language be native and currencies converted but also the design,
customer services and support should be adapted to the country's native shopping
culture. A key factor for a successful E-shop is its web site's usability and
adaptability in design to conquer the country's native shopping culture. In this
context the debate about Internet security and user trust issues has reached a
significant level of priority. A vast amount of literature, particularly on the
Internet, outlines many different approaches on how to achieve good web site
design. Equally, we can find other resources that describe bad web design.
Although there have been a number of recent papers and companies such as IBM
E-commerce division developing tools addressing this issue, this work has not
yet led to a full use of potentials in the Ecommerce domain, in particular
Italy, and therefore there are opportunities to improve usability.
The aim
of this project is to determine a different approach to a pragmatic eshop web
page design solution to provide a better localized online service and layout and
all that from a single site. The author has investigated three different sectors
that are essential for successful cross-cultural E-commerce; the degree of
usability for E-commerce sites, in particular E-tailers in the UK and Italian
sector; the key factors for a satisfactory shopping experience physically and
virtually; comparing trust and security perception between English and Italian
consumers; comparing the cultural and lingual differences between the UK and
Italy to draw out a better understanding in how web design must be distinguished
based on these findings.
The Ecommerce trust and security study
Shopping online: investigating
the different perceived forms of trust and security between English and Italian
societies.
CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................
4
2 Literature
Review.......................................................................................................
6
2.1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................................
6
2.2
A definition of
E-commerce?.........................................................................................................................
6
2.3
Web usability for
E-commerce......................................................................................................................
7
2.4
Security, Trust
and Usability........................................................................................................................
7
2.5
Ecommerce “truly
global”?........................................................................................................................
10
2.5.1 The
Impact of culture on usability..........................................................................................................
10
2.5.2 Ecommerce tools on
the market...............................................................................................................
12
2.5.3 Italians and the
Internet...........................................................................................................................
13
2.5.4 The
Italian retailer business.....................................................................................................................
15
3 The
Study..................................................................................................................
16
3.1
Experiment
description................................................................................................................................
16
3.2
Hypothesis......................................................................................................................................................
17
3.3
Method.............................................................................................................................................................
18
3.3.1 Why Choose a
Questionnaire?...............................................................................................................
18
3.3.2 Sampling.....................................................................................................................................................
18
3.3.3 An Explanation of
the Questions............................................................................................................
19
3.3.3.1
Section 1 ---
Profile.........................................................................................................................
19
3.3.3.2
Section 2 ---
Shopping Habits.......................................................................................................
19
3.3.3.3
Section 3 ---
views and attitudes on shopping either high street or online........................... 20
3.3.3.4
Section 4 --- A
good Web design................................................................................................
21
3.4
Analysis of
Results.......................................................................................................................................
21
3.4.1 Analysis: Section 1..................................................................................................................................
22
3.4.2 Section
3 --- views and attitudes on shopping either high street or online.....................................
27
3.4.3 Section
4 --- A good Web design...........................................................................................................
32
3.5
Technologies
used for the questionnaire..................................................................................................
41
4 Conclusion
& Further Work.....................................................................................
42
4.1
Report
Summary...........................................................................................................................................
42
4.2
Summary of
Findings...................................................................................................................................
42
4.3
Further Work
Ideas......................................................................................................................................
44
5 Appendix
A References...........................................................................................
45
6 Appendix
B A Full Questionnaire Sample...............................................................
46
The power of
E-commerce has tempted many existing firms and young entrepreneurs to start
their Dot-Com-Business in recent years. However, many of them went bankrupt
shortly after they were launched. Sadly most of those enthusiastic young
Managers had to realize that the Internet had no guarantee for its promises
made. It wasn't enough to build a web site, rent or buy a web server and then
load up the content in hope that the whole world may start crazily purchasing
online products. Young and enthusiastic Entrepreneurs forgot that however
'smaller' the world becomes, it is still a very large planet. It has its
thousands of diversified cultures, languages, religions and lifestyles. To
design a web site targeting the whole continent Europe for example, or even only
the richer western part, demands an equally customized and diversified web
design as its target regions are. Amazon.com was probably the most famous of
first companies to move into the field of business-to-consumer E-commerce. It
was originally known for selling books online, but has since broaden their
online product range into music, electronic goods and toys as well as having an
auctioning capability for customers to bid for desirable products such as rare
or second hand books. When Amazon started out, a huge marketing campaign, a well
designed website and discounts on the recommended retail price of most of their
products swiftly built a formidable brand image in online retailing. The share
price reflects the value of their international brands. Competitors are now
catching up.
UCommerce, a new
buzzword, the breaking future trend, the perfect combination of E and M-Commerce
also called the silent Commerce. ...” Where efficiency guards the door and
context-rich services are the jewel of the new economy"[14]. Where the seamless
stream of communications content and services exchanged among businesses, as
well as their customers, suppliers and products. The vision of uCommerce centers
on a concept of dynamic interaction with the clients, always to know and be
aware of the customer's activity.
Computer security and global risk
management of Ecommerce systems are crucial factors in the new market
development. The debate about Computer security has reached a significant level
of priority. The Internet as a market-place is developing to maturity and
therefore aspects of system safety are essential to lead the business to success
since it brings in the customers which are the base to keep the business alive
in the first place. However providing technological solutions for security is
not sufficient. Providing ease-to-use, understandable services, where the
customer knows what he is doing and is successful in using these solutions
properly is a necessity. Moreover, not only do we have to make these online
services usable, in the sense that they will be effective, efficient and
satisfying to use, but also we need to make the user aware of security risks
involved by online transactions through our design. Our web interface design has
to support cases were the user needs to make security-sensitive decisions.
Further having designed this foundational user trust-gaining interface we need
to lay it out for all our users in all over the world from a cross-cultural user
interface design perspective. And this is why we must include cultural studies
as part of our methodology for creating usability in a truly global environment
that the Internet essentially is.
I would start with an
introduction on existing literature on what is understood by the term Ecommerce
and web design usability, exploring what is believed to be effective web design
and what is ineffective. In addition to this I will investigate what a
satisfactory E-shopping experience is and how this differs in different cultural
settings. I will then set up a survey that aims to find out what a satisfactory
e-shopping experience is in respect to the UK (Northern European) and Italian
(Southern European-Mediterranean) shopping attitude and culture in the E-tail
sector. I will then critically analyze and compare the results gained from the
survey with the initial research I have carried out. This will allow me to
suggest what are the key factors for good web page design in a multicultural
E-commerce environment with a high degree of usability for E-tail in respect to
culture. Finally I will conclude the findings and suggest improvements that can
be made based on them.
This report aims to
give an overview of the perceived benefits to the retailer of selling online and
of the capabilities of E-commerce to the availability of online shopping and
discusses the current E-commerce climate. The author will then in particular
investigate the Italian shopping culture and Italians attitude to the new
economy. The Bocconi University in Milan and the American University has done
some basic research about what reasons there are for the Italians to use the
Internet more and why they do not use it as much as Internet retailer would like
to see. The main purpose for choosing this particular area of business in
geographical and economical terms is that it can be considered that Italy is a
growing market within the EU and globally. The two major industries to emphasis
are its Fashion and Clothes retailing, as stated by the Délégation Commerciale
d'Italie (Italian Trade Commission in Paris), and also the fact the Italy is one
of the largest merchandise countries in Europe, per proportion and
inhabitants.
An empirical study is carried out
to investigate further: why the Italians are still reserved in using the online
shops compared to English and how Web designers can ameliorate Interface
customization in terms of local needs.
In the author’s opinion, computer
security is and will be one of the hottest and most crucial topics for the
long-term success in Ecommerce. The e-market is still growing, but the recent
downfall of many dot.coms highlights that in many respects, these companies have
failed the shopper. It will be seen
that security and trust issues are crucial to investigate, since these seem to
be the key concerns of online customers. It is necessary to investigate the
level of society trust in Internet technology - the will to accept a new way of
buying things under different emotional conditions and a new ‘virtual’
environment. In this environment, the eyes of the consumer see only a user
interface and not a ‘real’, physical shop. Therefore it will be entirely up to
the trustworthiness’ generated through the e-shop interface and its content
whether the user is going to buy anything at all. Thus the review will cover how
the user-trust issue can be improved through usability. To be successful in this study it is
essential to have a clear idea of what E-commerce is and the relationships
between the parties. This is
necessary to be able to understand the impact of the investigated issues on
it. Different people have different
mindsets about what Ecommerce is. In the following we will see some of the most
common definitions.
The term electronic commerce and its
signification are often poorly understood.
It has different meanings for people depending on their professional
orientation, job function and background education as well as the type of
information technology deployed. It is possible to identify upwards of 30
different technologies that individually or mutually enable electronic commerce.
Certainly is Electronic commerce more than just the pure use of technology. The
author chose the following definition of Ecommerce published by Rolf Wigand in
1997: “Electronic Commerce: Definition, Theory, and Context” The information Society” [1].
“Electronic commerce denotes the seamless
application of information and communication technology from its point of origin
to its end point along the entire value chain of business processes conducted
electronically and designed to enable the accomplishment of a business
goal.”
These
processes may be partial or complete and may encompass business-to-business, as
well as business-to-consumer and consumer-to-business transactions. An alternative is offered by www.Commercenet.com [2]. This perhaps shows more of the
commercial essence of what e-commerce has become, and what this project will
relate to:
“Ecommerce is the use of Internet
worked computers to create and transform business relationships. Applications
provide business solutions that improve the quality of goods and services,
increase the speed of service delivery, and reduce the cost of business
operations.”
It carries on to discuss the
various relationships between the entities involved.
“It's a new methodology of doing business in
three focal areas:
·
Business-to-business
Perhaps the most interesting of
these is the Business-to-consumer relationship, and it is undoubtedly the main
focus of companies – since this is how they make their money. This is captured by a quote from the
same source.
“The new paradigm of Ecommerce is built not just
on transactions but also on building, sustaining and improving customer
relationships, both existing and potential.”
Online shopping over the
World-Wide Web has become a major commercial application in 1998 and volume is
rapidly growing. At the same time usability of these sites is an essential
problem as significant numbers of users (50 - 75% depending on study) fail to
find what they are looking for. As a matter of fact a key factor for a
successful E-commerce web site is its usability. It is thus essential that a
potential web shopper is satisfied with his shopping experience such that he is
likely to come back again. Moreover friends or colleagues who used the site
before rather than by ads or other promotion tools more often gain new customers
through recommendation. A well build and user-friendly e-shop will therefore far
more effective in product promotion and enhance the profit margin of the firm.
A number of HCI techniques, tools, and methods are used to design, realize,
and evaluate new forms of Internet shopping to address this
problem.
More and more people are learning
to use Internet for information retrieval, communication and leisure time
activities. Now they would like to widen the scope of their use of the Internet:
to use it to take care of more private businesses also, such as paying bills
from their bank account, for example. According to recent research from a
leading technology think-tank [7],
the Internet is continuing to boom, despite the current global recession. Despite some negative views predicting
the death of the net in the light of recession and slowdown in the tech
industry, the report predicts that by the end of this year, 600 million people
will be online. The continued
explosion in net-use highlights the growing size of markets for e-commerce firms
– and the importance of maximizing their potential. The issues that these
companies need to focus upon as shown by Rhodes [3]. When surveyed about why they are not
using the web, three common themes among people are trust, security and
usability.
According to Rhodes, people
simply do not trust the web.
A similar view was portrayed by the New York Times when it described
trusting the service of a website like: ”
trusting a website is like following a helpful stranger in Morocco who offers to
take you to the best rug store". Holmström and Karvonen further this idea by
saying that: “the Internet was not designed with security in mind, and
stories of its untrustworthiness have almost become ‘urban legends’ “. There is a huge mess of misunderstandings and confusion
related to the users' ideas about the security and privacy of the Internet. The
theme of trust goes hand in hand with those of security and usability. Without security, there is nothing to
base the trust on. The customer is more likely to trust a website if he feels it
is secure. However it is not enough
to just make the system safer and more secure - this also has to be communicated
to the users in some way. That is
why usability becomes such a central issue when considering the security of the
Internet. Obviously this puts a lot
of responsibility on the design of user interface: it has to make the users more
willing to use the services that the Internet provides by promoting the feelings
of trust and security. Other
factors that influence usability, trust, and security will be
explored.
A survey by Rhodes concludes that
people have the tendency to trust more usable Web sites. [3] Three other major trust factors
were identified: good content, simple design, and few grammatical errors. Rhodes
states that a solid and well-written content is essential to gain trust. The
core design question is therefore, content-driven versus design driven, since it
was found that fancy graphics, animations, may be used as “eye candies” but do
not have a substantial effect on the enhancement of user trust. And grammatical
errors seemed to have and repulsive effect on the user, reducing the possibility
the web site would be book marked. On the other hand, trust can be improved
rapidly when the Web site is well organized and provides the users with
frequently updated contents. Feedback on the site, the accuracy and speed of
emails links and feedback forms, is 'inversely proportional' to trust. Based on the three major trust factors,
Rhodes derived 8 principles in web usability for developing user trust:
1.
User
driven; Create first the content and then the design and the site with an
iterative approach (repetitive testing in spiral form).
Along with usability, brand
constitutes one of the central influences to a user’s concept of trust. A web portal from a household name with
a good image is more likely to be used than that by an unknown company. Studio Archetype and Cheskin [4] completed a user study of Web
trust. They identified six key elements for building online trust among
consumers. However the focus of the
piece is the concept of third party seals – TRUSTe. Studio Archetype is a
non-profit organization dedicated to building global trust and confidence in the
Internet through a third-party "seal" (TRUSTe). Though the impartially of the
study may be questioned, the results make very interesting reading. Susan Scott, Executive Director of
TRUSTe, says her theory that third party seals improve online sales is confirmed
by statistics that show that sites with the TRUSTe branding have signicantly
higher percentage of successful sales than others. TRUSTe assures users that
sites are indeed doing what they claim through periodic site reviews and
provides consumers with a dispute resolution mechanism. Sites that have
successfully met TRUSTe guidelines are able to display a "trustmark" seal to
inform users of their participation in the program.
Dave
Zentmyer, Vice President and Internet Managing Director stated, "I'm convinced that posting the TRUSTe seal
on our site has turned hesitant visitors into confident shoppers." This confidence mirrors that
of Scott. The success of the TRUSTe
campaign is shown by the study Studio Architype. The findings of that study
include the following.
"Clearly, the online medium is giving rise to
new symbols of trust that have significance to Web users," said Clement Mok,
Founder of Studio Archetype.
. "The study shows that sophisticated Web users
expect to see the six elements of trust identified in our research, including
seals of approval."
Furthermore the study says that
seals of approval have consequently improved the Web user’s initial feel of
chaos transformed to the believe of having control and security, crucial to the
consumer in order to make online purchases. In particular consumers new to
online purchase feel uncomfortable with the Internet. This is more so when
personal information is required from the user. It is therefore vital to
integrate the whole set of all six signifiers, seal of approval, brand,
navigation, fulfillment, presentation and technology. However, this task is not
easy:
"The key finding is that trust is a long-term
proposition that builds slowly as people use a site, get good results, and don't
feel let down or cheated. In other words, true trust comes from a company's
actual behavior towards customers experienced over an extended set of
encounters. It's hard to build and easy to lose: a single violation of trust can
destroy years of slowly accumulated credibility".
It will be
interesting to see if that is the same in every market and for every product or
if the consumer is more tolerant in some cases? [5]
One of the
major aims of my study will be to find out and analyze the key factors behind
users' comprehension of the Internet, computer security, privacy and
trustworthiness. This will possibly
allow the author to suggest further guidelines for integrating elements of trust
into web user interfaces.
Albert N.
Badre claims that due to daily evolution of the Internet, increases the
likelihood in international participants and transactions. Taking that as the
basic assumption several key issues were investigated related to the cultural
context of Web interface design. For this reason three major studies were
conducted to find out the relationship of culture to design on the
Web.
In the
first survey more general design issues were asked in order to find out if and
what are the repetitive design issues equal for any genre or culture, usable for
any genre-specific or culture-specific Web design. In order to answer this
question a foraging study was conducted by analyzing a dozens of Web sites from
various countries. It was found that indeed there are a few design elements,
called cultural markers, which are both culture specific and genre
specific.
In the
second study a cultural specific Web site was created based on the findings of
the foraging studies using some of the cultural markers identified and compared
their effects on native users performance and preferences.
Although
by the end of this year 600 million people will be online worldwide, according
to vice president of IDC's global research organization Carol Glasheento, [7] the idea that the global village
created by the internet will be homogenous is mistaken.
She
said: "In effect, instead of the internet
normalizing worldwide variations, it has become a reflection of the many
geographies, cultures, economics and political conditions that exist in the
offline world." This Internet
mosaic means businesses must be careful to understand the variations and
complexities of net use in each country if they are to utilize its full
potential.
The effects that cultural differences can have on the degree of Web Interface usability are very well know in the world of HCI (Human Interaction Interfaces) science (e.g., [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]). Acknowledging the cultural aspects is essential both for localization and also globalization services. This requires the web interface designer to research the worlds of users, rather than relying on pure intuitive to create designs that cover the diverse global user needs. [16] [9]. Day [13] states that the study of interface usability is about the users perception of what a easy-to-use website is and that this can vary depending on the users cultural background. Therefore the social and cultural context that user brings, as a potential customer, must be taken into account during the development of the user interface. This is required in order to achieve a complete user task completion and satisfaction. He furthers says that elements of cultural context have only been recently included in the mostly US or Western Europe based interface developments and that this is about to change now. A further argument is to be made that HCI attempts to understand the preferences, mental models and cognitive processing of computer users, which can be seen as the characterizations of personal cultures from a micro perspective. Depending on that personal culture, a user
