Results

A typical respondent was a young (22 to 32 years), active citizen who was either a student (39%) or employed (45%) and often had an academic degree. Unemployed persons accounted for 9% of the informants and pensioners for 1.5%. Of all respondents, 55% were women and 45% men. Almost 50% of the participants were aged 22 to 32 years.

Over half of the respondents (54%) used the Internet in their daily life, 28% at least once a week and 4.5% monthly, while 12% of all respondents were non-users (Figure 3). Of all Internet users in this sample, 80% regarded their online skills to be very good or moderate.

Figure 3: Participants' Usage of the Internet

The respondents seemed to be quite familiar with online shopping, as 42% of them had experiences of making purchases from the Internet. Over half (53%) of the online shoppers made purchases a couple of times a year, 21% approximately once a month and 25% less than once a year. The most commonly purchased products were clothes.

Reasons for Online Shopping

The most common reason for shopping online was the ease of use (15 answers). Moreover, the products were perceived as less expensive (10 answers) than in traditional shops. The better selection of products available in online shops than in regular department stores (five answers) was given as another reason to use them. The possibility to find out easily whether or not a product is available for ordering was also mentioned as a reason to purchase products online. Two of the main reasons for choosing a particular online shop were: less expensive prices (seven answers) and a large selection of products (seven answers). Another important factor was that the online shop was part of a larger commercial enterprise that also had department stores (four answers). Four people said that they had chosen an online shop randomly.

Thirty-eight of 67 participants had not shopped online. The most common reason for this was that e-commerce were not perceived as trustworthy enough (nine answers). Another reason (four answers) was that the respondent wanted to have a personal contact with the sales person. Sixteen of the 38 persons who had not shopped online answered affirmatively when asked if they were going to use online shops in the future. Four of them reported their willingness to shop on the Internet if the vendor is able to provide data security and if the overall reliability of e-commerce will be established.

Factors Producing Trust in E-Commerce

Familiarity of the brand seemed to be significant factor producing trust in e-commerce: most respondents (70%) said they would rather purchase from well-known online shops even though the prices were lower in smaller or less known ones. Most respondents (78%) trusted more in Finnish e-commerce than in foreign stores and, consequently, most of them also preferred to order from a domestic online shop rather than from a foreign one. Similar results were presented in two previous Finnish studies (Hirvasniemi et al., 1999; Uusmedia kuluttajien silmin, 1998). It did not seem to make a great difference even if there were less expensive prices or a wider range of products available in foreign web stores. Familiarity has also been an important agent in trust in earlier studies, but it has been connected with somewhat different factors. In Cheskin Research (1999), familiarity was represented by well-known brands, whereas in earlier studies conducted in Finland, domestic online shops have been considered more trustworthy than foreign ones (Uusmedia kuluttajien silmin, 1998; Hirvasniemi et al., 2002). Probably this foreign-domestic juxtaposition has not been equally clearly present in studies conducted elsewhere. Favouring domestic brands and products may also be distinctive among consumers in small countries.

The respondents with good Internet skills had the most positive attitudes regarding foreign online shops, though the differences were relatively small. In this study, the participants with good Internet skills seemed to exhibit lower perception of risk, in line with Miyazaki's and Fernandez's (2001) study.

Factors Producing Mistrust in E-Commerce

Mistrust in e-commerce was obvious among the respondents: 25 of all respondents (37%) felt that online shops are not trustworthy. The participants who had good online skills had notably more positive attitudes regarding the trustworthiness of online shops. Almost half of the respondents considered mail order businesses more trustworthy than shopping through the Internet. Despite the negative opinions, 46% of the respondents considered e-commerce one of the most significant forms of trade.

Mistrust was connected with the concerns about the security of paying online. Only seven of all respondents (10.5%) were willing to disclose their credit card number when shopping through the web. The vast majority (82%) has a doubtful attitude towards the safety of this form of payment. It remained unclear whether they attributed this mistrust towards the vendors or whether they feared intrusion by other parties, for example, hackers. Despite the doubts, 21% of the shoppers preferred to pay online with their credit card.

Sixty percent of the respondents had a doubtful attitude towards shopping for groceries on the web, and 52% thought that if they ordered vegetables or fruit from online shops, the purchases would not be of first-rate quality. Apparently, in this context, the participants do not trust the grocery vendors.

The uncertainty of paying online was also mentioned in Cheskin Research (1999) and by Hoffman et al. (1999) and Miyazaki and Fernandez (2001). However, the uncertainty concerning technical problems and the disclosure of personal data mentioned by Grabner-Kraeuter (2002) or unauthorized third party access to it (Miyazaki and Fernandez, 2002) were not mentioned by the participants of this study.

Usability and Trustworthiness in E-Commerce

The respondents who had experiences of online shopping were asked to describe a trustworthy online shop. The most important criterion was that the online shop should have a well managed and easy-to-use website. Other factors mentioned to contribute to trustworthiness were short delivery times and reasonable prices.

The respondents who had online shopping experiences were asked to choose between different types of information that online stores should present to their customers. The list below shows the features that the shoppers considered significant factors of the online stores' websites:

1. High-quality pictures of the products (27 of 28 respondents)

2. Detailed terms of delivery and service fees (27 of 28 respondents)

3. Comprehensive information about the products and their prices (27 of 28 respondents)

4. Contact information (26 of 28 respondents)

5. Information about delivery time (25 of 28 respondents)

The requirements related to the presentation of information are dominated by product and shipping information. The retailer's contact information was also considered important. Rhodes (1998) and Hirvasniemi et al. (2002) similarly reported these usability features as important with respect to the trustworthiness of a web store. However, the physical location of the store, refund policy and promotional material mentioned by Rhodes (1998) were not considered important by the participants of this pilot study. This was a contradictory result in the light of the earlier studies. The refund policy is undoubtedly of interest to anyone shopping online. We suspect that the questionnaire used in our pilot study was not able to capture all the issues that arise from purchasing from the Internet.