A comparison of consumer perception of trust-triggering appearance features on Indian group buying websites.

Sharma, Varinder M.

Abstract

Trust-triggering appearance features are considered vital to establishing trust in consumers visiting websites for the first time. This becomes even more crucial for group buying websites because of their daily changing deals. This study tests consumer perceptions about ten such features on three Indian group buying websites using one-way AN OVA with repeated measures. Results show significant differences among the websites on four features. Interestingly, the website with most distinguishing features also scored highest on trustworthiness. Important contributions to the literature, and implications and future research issues associated with the results are addressed.

Keywords: Group Buying, Trust triggers, Appearance features, Trustworthiness, Indian websites.

INTRODUCTION

Consumers visiting a retail website for the first time look for certain cues in that website to assess its trustworthiness because perception of trustworthiness is essential for them to feel comfortable in sharing their personal and financial information with it. According to Doney and Cannon (1997), trust is an order qualifier for a website, therefore, if consumers get a sense of trustworthiness from their website visit, they may also transact with it. Over the past decade, a steady stream of literature has been building to find out the features which if incorporated effectively in a website would enable it to quickly earn consumer trust sufficient enough for them to engage in transactions with it. The underlying assumption is that the very first impression formed about the extent of credibility of a website is based upon the presence or absence of trust-triggering features. Depending upon this impression, consumers may feel comfortable to engage in further interaction with that website. Extending this to the group buying websites, we think that earning consumer perception of trustworthiness is even more important for these websites because of their daily deals, i.e., deep discounts (seem too good to be true) on deals that change daily.

Studies conducted on trust-triggers in websites have been largely carried out under controlled conditions on experimental websites designed solely for specific research purposes. This study advances the literature by conducting a comparative assessment of consumer perceptions of trust-triggering appearance features on three functional Indian group buying websites. The study attempts to address two related research questions. One, which trust-triggering appearance features are perceived significantly superior on which of the three websites? And two, is there a relationship between the number of superior trust-triggering features in a website and the perception of its trustworthiness? Based on our literature review, we found that these questions have not been answered so far.

In order to address these questions, this study first describes the importance of trustworthiness of a website followed by a discussion about the literature on website trust-triggers, and develops testable hypotheses. The next section discusses the results of hypothesis testing on three Indian group buying websites using data from a sample of 110 MBA students of a large Indian university. The last section describes the study-related implications, limitations, and future research issues. This study makes several theoretical and practical contributions. On the theoretical front, the study advances the literature on relationship between trust-triggering features and the website trustworthiness onto the group buying websites. As a result, this study acts as a link between two different literatures, which, according to Hunt (1991), is important in itself as it lays the pathway for future empirical testing. On the practitioner front, the results of the study shed light on specific trust-triggering features a website needs to enhance to improve its consumer perception of trustworthiness, which may not only improve its sales but also its competitive position.

TRUSTWORHTINESS OF A WEBSITE

Trust has been conceptualized as one party's belief, attitude, intention, behavior, or expectancy in the other party that its promise, verbal or written statements, resources and capabilities, integrity, credibility, openness, or actions can be relied upon (Anderson and Narus, 1990; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Siau and Shen, 2003). Tan and Thoen (2000) went a step further by suggesting that trust in the transaction control mechanism is even more important than trust in the transacting party. McKnight and Chervany (2001) note that the concept of trust falls into three major categories: impersonal/structural, dispositional, and personal/interpersonal. Uslander (2002) classified trust into moral trust (an enduring predisposition that strangers can be trusted) and strategic trust (knowledge-based trust resulting from decision to trust someone over time). Likewise, Siau and Shen (2003) regarded consumer trust in a firm to consist of competence-, predictability-, and goodwill-trust. Regardless of these conceptualizations, consumers are unlikely to patronize a seller that fails to create a sense of trust in them (Jarvenpaa et al., 1999). The history of business world is replete with examples of failed businesses because consumers lost trust in those businesses' abilities to cater to their needs and wants. Doney and Cannon (1997) regard trust as an order qualifier without which, consumers may not do business with a firm. Similar conclusions have been reached by several other scholars as well (Lumsden, 2009; Schlosser et al., 2006). Therefore, it is essential for a business to not only earn but maintain consumer trustworthiness to remain in business for a long time.

Brick-and-mortar businesses establish trust with their consumers through a variety of ways such as physical locations, employees, and displays, which help store visitors to develop some level of trust to do business with them. Fast forwarding to the e-commerce format, a seller's website is its store front and therefore, has the burden to establish its trustworthiness with consumers. Ostensibly, it is much harder for a website to establish trust with consumers due to its impersonal nature and low entry and exit barriers of website owners (Jarvenpaa et al., 1999). By impersonal nature, it is meant that unlike traditional businesses where employees, specifically, salespeople in person can address consumers' concerns about specific purchases and hence earn trust for their firms, a website has to do all that by itself through the description of the firm, its history, location, contacts, purchasing, return policies, products and services, and steps to select and purchase items using specific methods. Most importantly, the descriptive material on a website has to be perceived as trustworthy to earn consumer business.

The importance of trustworthiness of a website to a firm's business finds support from several studies. For example, According to Jarvenpaa et al. (2000), trust is a critical factor in stimulating purchases over the internet. According to Basso et al. (2001), the probability of repeat purchase from a website increases if it has a higher rating of trustworthiness. According to Robins and Holmes (2008), if a site is not credible, consumers are less likely to use it. They found significant relationship between consumer perception of a website's credibility and its design. Schlosser et al. (2006) also found that consumer trust in a website was strongly related to their purchase intentions. In another study, Heijden et al. (2000) found that trust in a website affects shoppers' perceived risk toward shopping from it. It is clear that trust is essential for a website to earn consumer patronage; consumer is one click away from leaving the website if he/she does not perceive its trustworthiness given that he/she has access to many competing websites. This heightens the importance of the first impression of a website on a visitor. The next section discusses the trust triggers and their importance in trust development in a website.

TRUST TRIGGERS IN A WEBSITE

According to Basso at al. (2001), first impressions are very important in developing consumer trust in a website because judgment of trustworthiness occurs as soon as a visitor comes to the website. Similar assertions have been made by Robins and Holmes (2007). In their view, web is primarily a visual medium. When a visitor comes to a website for the first time, he/she makes the first credibility judgment about it very quickly based upon the visual design elements. It is a preconscious judgment at the visceral level that a consumer makes in the first few seconds based upon his/her expertise or experience from certain previous unrelated events before any cognitive processes take over. And, if a website doesn't attain certain level of credibility on the first sight, the visitor may leave the site; even if he/she stays, the halo effect of the first impression may be difficult to overcome for that website. In their study, they observed that consumers take only a few seconds to make credibility judgment and they rank high aesthetic websites as high on credibility. According to Marsh and Meech (2000), trust with an interface develops in two stages. At the initial stage, it is the 'Grabbing Trust' and at the later stage, it is the 'Experiential Trust'. However, of these two, the first one is more important than the latter because if a consumer is turned off from the website in the very first interaction, the second stage may not even come into play.

How to develop the first impression of trustworthiness in a website? Scholars have given several noteworthy suggestions. According to Basso at al. (2001), web design can influence user behavior using eye catching graphics and ease of navigation, and security-based seals of approval can also indicate website trustworthiness for first time users. Jarvenpaa et al. (2000), suggested that reputation and company size are antecedents of trustworthiness of a website. Firms can promote their reputations by highlighting consumer testimonials or having seals of approval of recognizable third parties on their websites. They can also use eye catching banners to promote the perception of their large size. In another study, Tsygankov (2004) proposed a framework to test the trustworthiness of a website using four dimensions: website general appearance (design and color scheme, company information, links to other companies), business-to-customer relations (clarity of site navigation, major features placement, response within a limited time), information security (trusted third party presence, declaration of secured transactions), and legal enforcement (terms and conditions, cancellation policies, and disclaimers). Yang at al. (2005) tested a website trust inducing model using features belonging to graphic design, structure design, content design, and social-cue design and found significance of those features in trust inducement.

Credibility evaluation of websites and the features noticed during evaluation was the goal of Fogg et al.'s (2003) landmark study. The top ten features in their study in order of importance were: design look, information design/structure, information company motive, usefulness of information, accuracy of information, name recognition and reputation, advertising, bias of information, and tone of writing. Their recommendations for improvement of website credibility were: invest in design looks, incorporate company's name and reputation, and carefully make some elements more prominent than others. Extending the literature on trust-triggers, this study analyzes consumer perception of ten trust-triggering features in three competing Indian consumer group buying sites to find whether these features differ significantly on these websites. These ten trust-triggers pertain to the appearance of a website consumers come in contact on visiting. These have also been referred as immediate triggers of trust (Lumsden 2009). These ten features were selected from Fogg et al. (2003), Marsh and Meech (2000) and Yang et al. (2005). These features are: professional looks, existence of company name/log in bold letters, attractiveness, well organized website, presence of multimedia features, security certificate/log, contact information, social networking logo, ease of access, and customer support.

The three Indian group buying websites that were randomly chosen are: Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou. While the Mydala website has been in business since 2009 operating in about 150 cities all over India, the Snapdeal website has been in business since 2010 serving about 4000 cities in India. Finally, the Dealsandyou website has been functional since 2010 and serving consumers from more than a hundred Indian cities. All three sites are Groupon clones. As a results, there websites are apt to be quite similar to one another. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, we first asked consumers to give their perception of trustworthiness about the three websites using the trust scale of Schlosser et al.'s (2006). Then they were asked to provide their assessment of the ten trust triggers common to all three websites. Given the objectives of the study, we used One-way ANOVA with repeated measures to analyze a comparative assessment of consumer perceptions of trustworthiness and the ten trust-triggers. Consequently, the eleven hypotheses for testing are summarized below.

H1: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the appearance of trustworthiness of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H2: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the professional looks of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H3: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the appearance of company name/logo of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H4: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the appearance of attractiveness of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H5: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the well-organized appearance of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H6: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the multimedia features of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H7: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the security certificate/logo feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H8: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the contact information feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H9: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the social network logo feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H10:The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the ease of access feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

H11: The Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the customer support feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites.

METHODOLOGY

The survey instrument using a five point Likert scale format where l=strongly agree, 2=agree, 3=neither agree nor disagree, 4=disagree, and 5=strongly disagree was deployed to measure consumer perceptions on ten appearance features and the trustworthiness of three Indian websites. The survey was conducted among MBA students from a large Indian University during the second half of the year 2014. A total of 110 completed responses were obtained. Though it would be ideal to have randomly collected data of actual consumers, given the goals and objectives of this study, the usage of convenient data is considered appropriate (Calder, Phillips and Tybout, 1981). Also, this is a descriptive study and we are not using the sample results for forecasting purposes. Furthermore, the marketing literature review shows that college students are commonly used as subjects in a large number of consumer-related marketing studies. In our case, the student sample was also considered appropriate as they engage in online purchases. The gender distribution among the 110 respondents entailed 71 males (64.5%) and 39 females (35.5%). The mean age of the respondents was 27.8 years with a standard deviation of 10.9 years. All the student participants belonged to the age group 20 to 30 years and they were all active e-commerce participants. The sample demographic distribution fortuitously is in line with Indian online shopping participants (www.yourstory.com, 2013).

Table 1 depicts Mean and Standard Error of each of the ten appearance features and the trust scale items for the three websites. The table 1 also shows the Cronbach alpha of the trust scale for each of the three websites. According to Hair et al. (2006), the generally agreed lower limit acceptable for Cronbach's alpha is 0.70 for a scale to be considered reliable. As is clear from the Table 1, the trustworthiness scale exhibits high reliabilities for all three websites.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

A one-way repeated measure ANOVA was used to test the hypotheses stated above. Table 2 depicts the results of hypothesis testing. The first hypothesis HI states that the Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the trustworthiness of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites. The sphericity assumption was not met (Mauchly's W = 0.920, / [sup.2] = 9.047 df = 2, p = .011). It is usually difficult to meet this assumption as the differences in scores among various pairs are likely to be different, however, the value of Greenhouse-Geisser correction (o = 0.920) showed that the sphericity assumption violation was relatively small (Warner, 2008). When the sphericity assumption is not met, Greenhouse-Geisser F statistics is used. This statistics downwardly adjusts the degrees of freedom to apply the correction factor. The Greenhouse-Geisser results [F (1.851, 201.785) =4.297, p=0.017) shows that HI is rejected. That means that Indian consumers perceived significant differences in trustworthiness of the three websites. The results also showed the value of Partial [c.sup.2] = 0.038, which corresponds to an observed power of 72% of the test for a sample size of 110 and at a = 0.05. This further corroborates that the Indian consumer trustworthiness perceptions were significantly different for the three sites.

For hypotheses H2 through H4, sphericity assumption was not violated. As a result, Wilk's Lambda statistics was used to assess whether these hypotheses were supported or rejected. The hypothesis H2 pertained to similarity in consumer perception about the appearance of professional looks of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou. Results show that Wilks' Lambda = 0.988 with [F (2.00, 108.000) = 0.658, p=0.520) thereby showing that H2 is not rejected. That means that Indian consumers did not perceive significant differences in the appearance of professional looks of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou sites. The hypothesis H3 tested the similarity in consumer perception about the appearance of company name/logo feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou. Results show that Wilks' Lambda = 0.989 with [F (2.00, 108.000) = 0.599, p=0.551) thereby showing that H3 is not rejected. That means that Indian consumers did not perceive significant differences in the appearance of company name/logo feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites. The fourth hypothesis H4 tested similarity of consumer perception about attractiveness of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites. The Wilks' Lambda = 0.960 with [F (2.00, 108.000) = 2.275, p=0.108) shows that H4 is not rejected.

For hypotheses H5 through H7, the sphericity assumption was found to be violated again. As a result, we used Greenhouse-Geisser statistics to assess whether these hypotheses were supported or rejected. The hypothesis H5 was tested to check whether the Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites appear to be similarly well-organized websites in consumer perception or not. The Greenhouse-Geisser statistics [F (1.212, 132.094) =1.568, p=0.215] shows that H5 is not rejected. The hypothesis H6 states that the Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the appearance of multimedia features of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites. The Greenhouse-Geisser statistics [F (1.859, 202.581) =4.024, p=0.022] shows that H6 is rejected, thereby indicating that the Indian consumers perceived significant differences in the appearance of multimedia features on the three websites. The hypothesis H7 pertained to testing consumer perception of similarity about the appearance of security certificate/logo features of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites. The Greenhouse-Geisser results [F (1.733, 188.942) = 5.509, p=0.001) shows that H7 is rejected, thereby indicating that the Indian consumers perceived significant differences in the appearance of security certificate/logo features on the three websites.

For hypotheses H8 through H11, the sphericity assumption was not violated. As a result, Wilk's Lambda statistics was used to assess whether these hypotheses were supported or rejected. The hypothesis H8 pertained to testing the similarity of consumer perception about the appearance of contact information feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites. The results of Wilks' Lambda = 0.890 with [F (2.00, 108.000) = 6.671, p=0.002) show that H8 is rejected. This result indicates that the Indian consumers perceived significant differences in the appearance of contact information feature on the three websites. The hypothesis H9 tested the similarity in consumer perception of about the appearance of social network logo feature on the three websites. The results show that with Wilks' Lambda = 0.883 with [F (2.00, 108.000) = 7.188, p=0.001), H9 is rejected, thereby indicating that the Indian consumers perceived significant differences in the appearance of the social network logo feature on the three websites. The hypothesis H10 states that Indian consumers, ceteris paribus, are likely to perceive no difference in the appearance ease of access feature of Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou group buying sites. The results show that with Wilks' Lambda = 0.95 with [F (2.00, 108.000) = 2.517, p=0.085), H10 is not rejected. Finally, the hypothesis H11 tested the similarity in consumer perception about the appearance of customer support feature on Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou websites. The results show that with Wilks' Lambda = 0.966 with [F (2.00, 108.000) = 1.896, p=0.155) that H11 is not rejected.

It is clear from the above analysis and discussion of results that the hypotheses H2 through H5, H10, and H11 were not rejected. As a result, no further analysis was carried out. However, pairwise comparison was conducted on hypotheses H1, H6, H7, H8, and H9 to see which websites significantly differed from others on specific features. Table 3 presents the results of such analyses.

The post hoc comparison of consumer perception of trustworthiness about the three websites was conducted using the Bonferroni statistics. The results show that there is a significant difference in consumer perception of trustworthiness between the Mydala and Snapdeal websites at p= 0.032. However, there were no significant differences in consumer perception of trustworthiness between the Mydala and Dealsandyou as well as between the Snapdeal and Dealsandyou websites. Furthermore, among the three websites, Snapdeal with the lowest Mean = 2.876 appears to have the highest value of trustworthiness perception. In the case of consumer perception about the multimedia feature on the three websites, the results show that the differences between the Mydala and Snapdeal websites were marginally significant at p= 0.054. However, the differences between the Dealsandyou and Snapdeal websites were significant at p=0.044. Looking at the mean values of this feature on these websites, it appears that the Snapdeal website with the lowest Mean = 2.68 was perceived to have superior multimedia features than the other two websites. In the case of consumer perceptions about the security certificate/logo on the three websites, the results show that the differences between the Mydala and Snapdeal websites were significant at p= 0.002 and between the Snapdeal and Dealsandyou websites were also significant at p=0.022. However, there were no significant differences between the Mydala and Dealsandyou websites. Looking at the mean values of this trust-triggering feature on the three websites, it appears that the Snapdeal website with the lowest Mean = 2.85 was perceived to have this feature as superior to the other two websites.

Regarding consumer perception about contact information feature on the three websites, the results show that there were significant differences between the Mydala and Snapdeal websites at p= 0.001. However, there were no significant differences between the Mydala and Dealsandyou websites as well as between the Snapdeal and Dealsandyou websites. It appears once again that this feature on the Snapdeal website with the lowest Mean = 2.67 was perceived to be superior to that on the other two websites. Finally, on consumer perception about the social networking logo feature in the three websites, the results show that there were significant differences between the Mydala and Dealsandyou websites at p= 0.001. However, there were no significant differences between the Mydala and Snapdeal websites as well as between the Snapdeal and Dealsandyou websites. Once again, it appears that the consumers perceived this feature to be superior on the Dealsandyou website with Mean = 2.76 than on the other websites.

Summarizing the results, it becomes clear that Indian consumers perceived significant differences in the four appearance features--multimedia, security certificate/logo, contact information, and social networking logo--on three Indian group buying websites. As described before that these features are also indicative of trustworthiness of a website (Fogg et al., 2003). We find that the Snapdeal website scores greater superiority vis-a-vis the other two websites on three out of four appearance features: multimedia, security certificate/logo, contact information. Only on social networking logo, Dealsandyou performed better than the other two websites. Since, the Snapdeal website also scores the highest consumer trustworthiness perception among the three group buying websites, we can infer that there appears to be a relationship between the trustworthiness perception of a website and the number of relatively superior trust-triggering features on it.

IMPLICATIONS

This study was undertaken to conduct a comparative assessment Indian consumer's perception of trust-triggering appearance features on three Indian group buying sites. Specifically, the study was targeted at addressing two inter-related questions. One, which trust-triggering appearance features are perceived significantly superior on which of the three websites? And two, is there a relationship between the number of superior trust-triggering features in a website and the perception of its trustworthiness? In this regard, the data from MBA students of a large Indian university was gathered to answer these questions. The websites chosen were: Mydala, Snapdeal, and Dealsandyou. The results show that there are significant differences among the three websites on four appearance features--multimedia, security certificate/logo, contact information, and social networking logo appearance features. A subsequent post hoc analysis using Bonferroni statistics showed that of these four appearance features, three features were perceived to be superior on the Snapdeal website as compared to the other three websites. However, the social networking logo was perceived to be superior on Dealsanadyou website. A one-way ANOVA with repeated measures was also conducted on the trustworthiness perception of the three websites. The results showed that Snapdeal scored the highest and Mydala got the lowest score on trustworthiness perception while the Dealsandyou website scored in between these two websites. Combining the above two results, it was also observed that Snapdeal with highest trustworthiness perception score also had three of the four superior appearance features. The fourth feature was perceived to be superior on the Dealsandyou website. It appears that in consumers' minds there is an association between the superiority of appearance trust-triggering features on an Indian group buying website and its trustworthiness perception.

Like other studies, this study also has the limitation inherent with the use of convenient sample. Another limitation stems from the use of student subjects for gathering data. Therefore, the results of the study can't be used for forecasting purposes. However, given the objectives of the study, such data is considered appropriate in the literature. The study opens up several issues for future research as well. One such issue pertains to the use of random sample from group buying consumers to study their perceptions about the appearance features that trigger trust in their perception. A second area for future research is a cross-cultural comparative assessment of appearance features on group buying websites from other countries. Finally, a third area to consider for future research is to include covariates such a gender and trust predisposition of participants in data analysis to obtain more precise results on gender-based comparative assessment of appearance features. It is our hope that this study opens up comparative assessment of trustworthiness of online consumer group buying sites in other countries as well.

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VARINDER M. SHARMA, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA 15705, E-mail: sharma@iup.edu

Table 1
Measurement Properties of Independent Constructs

Constructs                                 Mydala            Snapdeal
                                        Mean (SE)           Mean (SE)
                                            Alpha               Alpha

Website's Trustworthiness        3.03 (0.071) .94    2.87 (0.088) .95
The website seems very capable       2.84 (0.102)        2.78 (0.135)
  of performing online
  transactions
The website appears to be             2.95(0.082)        3.11 (0.314)
  successful at the things it
  tries to do
The website seems to have the         2.97(0.110)        2.79 (0.134)
  knowledge to fulfill online
  transactions
I feel very confident about           3.00(0.097)        2.75 (0.113)
  the website's online skills
The website seems very               3.04 (0.092)        3.05 (0.088)
  concerned about my welfare
My needs and desires appear          2.95 (0.091)        2.83 (0.104)
  to be important to the
  website
It does not seem that the            3.31 (0.115)        3.05 (0.104)
  website would knowingly do
  anything to hurt me
The website appears to go out        3.27 (0.086)        2.85 (0.086)
  of its way to help me
The website seems to really          2.96 (0.094)        2.75 (0.106)
  lookout for what is
  important to me
The website seems to have a          3.05 (0.074)        2.87 (0.099)
  strong sense of justice
The website appears to try           3.00 (0.092)        2.94 (0.102)
  hard to be fair in its
  dealings
I like the website's values          2.89 (0.104)        2.86 (0.095)
Sound principles seem to guide       3.20 (0.095)        3.02 (0.099)
  the website's behavior
It seems that a great deal of        3.04 (0.115)        2.82 (0.116)
  time was invested into
  developing the website
It appears that a great deal         2.95 (0.114)        2.72 (0.114)
  of effort was devoted to
  developing this website
It seems that a lot of money         3.09 (0.110)        2.83 (0.116)
  was invested into developing
  this website

Trust Triggering Appearance Features

1. Professional Looking              2.84 (0.099)        2.75 (0.114)
   Website
2. Company Name/Logo in bold         2.77 (0.109)        2.80 (0.118)
   letters
3. Attractiveness                    3.08 (0.109)        3.06 (0.108)
4. Well-organized                    3.25 (0.305)        2.83 (0.126)
5. Multimedia features               2.91 (0.096)        2.68 (0.097)
6. Security Certificate/Logo         3.25 (0.099)        2.85 (0.115)
7. Contact Information               3.05 (0.123)        2.67 (0.120)
8. Social Networking Logo            3.18 (0.107)        2.93 (0.122)
9. Ease of Access                    3.08 (0.119)        2.89 (0.127)
10. Customer Support                 2.89 (0.103)        2.92 (0.105)

Constructs                            Dealsandyou
                                        Mean (SE)
                                            Alpha

Website's Trustworthiness        2.99 (0.071) .94
The website seems very capable       2.91 (0.097)
  of performing online
  transactions
The website appears to be            3.07 (0.099)
  successful at the things it
  tries to do
The website seems to have the        2.96 (0.102)
  knowledge to fulfill online
  transactions
I feel very confident about          3.24 (0.097)
  the website's online skills
The website seems very               3.15 (0.081)
  concerned about my welfare
My needs and desires appear          2.95 (0.103)
  to be important to the
  website
It does not seem that the            3.10 (0.093)
  website would knowingly do
  anything to hurt me
The website appears to go out        3.18 (0.089)
  of its way to help me
The website seems to really          3.01 (0.095)
  lookout for what is
  important to me
The website seems to have a          2.85 (0.094)
  strong sense of justice
The website appears to try           2.82 (0.097)
  hard to be fair in its
  dealings
I like the website's values          2.90 (0.094)
Sound principles seem to guide       3.09 (0.098)
  the website's behavior
It seems that a great deal of        3.01 (0.111)
  time was invested into
  developing the website
It appears that a great deal         2.74 (0.098)
  of effort was devoted to
  developing this website
It seems that a lot of money         2.86 (0.097)
  was invested into developing
  this website

Trust Triggering Appearance Features

1. Professional Looking              2.75 (0.107)
   Website
2. Company Name/Logo in bold         2.88 (0.112)
   letters
3. Attractiveness                    2.83 (0.117)
4. Well-organized                    2.92 (0.110)
5. Multimedia features               2.98 (0.102)
6. Security Certificate/Logo         3.20 (0.095)
7. Contact Information               2.85 (0.091)
8. Social Networking Logo            2.76 (0.106)
9. Ease of Access                    2.86 (0.113)
10. Customer Support                 3.05 (0.087)

Table 2
ANOVA with Repeated Measures Results for Trust Triggering Appearance
Features

Feature                     Sphericity             Greenhouse-Geisser
                            Assumption             Statistics

H1: No difference in        Violated               F (1.851, 201.785)
the Trustworthiness         Mauchly's W=0.920,     =4.297, p=0.017.
perception of               [chi square]=9.04
the websites                df=2, p=.011

H2: No difference in the    Not Violated           Not applicable
appearance of               Mauchly's W=0.990,
Professional Looks of       [chi square]=1.106
the websites                df=2, p=0.575.

H3: No difference in the    Not Violated           Not applicable
Company Name/Logo in        Mauchly's W=0.989,
Bold letters appearance     [chi square]=1.166
feature in the websites     df=2, p=0.558

H4: No difference in the    Not Violated           Not applicable
appearance of               Mauchly's W=0.970,
Attractiveness of the       [chi square]=3.298
websites                    df=2, p=0.108

H5: No difference in        Violated               F (1.212, 132.094)
the appearance of           Mauchly's W=0.350,     =1.568, p=0.215.
Well-organized Feature      [chi square]=113.485
of the websites             v p=0.00

H6: No difference in        Violated               F (1.859, 202.581)
the appearance of           Mauchly's W=0.924,     =4.024, p=0.022.
Multimedia Features         [chi square]=8.550
of the websites             df=2, p=0.014

H7: No difference in        Violated               F (1.733, 188.942)
the appearance of           Mauchly's W=0.846,     =7.509, p=0.001.
Security Certificate/       [chi square]=18.035
Logo feature of the         df=2, p=0.000
websites

H8: No difference in        Not Violated           Not applicable
the appearance of the       Mauchly's W=0.994,
Contact Information         [chi square]=0.690
feature of the websites     df=2, p=0.708

H9: No difference in        Not Violated           Not applicable
the appearance of Social    Mauchly's W=0.999,
Networking Logos in         [chi square]=1.356
the websites                df=2, p=0.508

H10: No difference in       Not Violated           Not applicable
the Ease of Access          Mauchly's W=0.999,
feature of the websites     [chi square]=0.121
                            df=2, p=0.941

H11: No difference in       Not Violated           Not applicable
the appearance of the       Mauchly's W=0.983,
Customer Support            [chi square]=1.897
feature of the websites     df=2, p=0.387

Feature                     Wilk's Lambda         Power of the test
                            A                     statistics

H1: No difference in        Not applicable        72%
the Trustworthiness                               HI Rejected
perception of
the websites

H2: No difference in the    A=0.988 with          15.8%
appearance of               F (2.00, 108.000)=    H2 not rejected.
Professional Looks of       0.658, p=0.520.
the websites

H3: No difference in the    A=0.989 with          14.8%
Company Name/Logo in        F (2.00, 108.000)=    H3 not rejected.
Bold letters appearance     0.599, p=0.551.
feature in the websites

H4: No difference in the    A=0.960 with          45.4%
appearance of               F (2.00, 108.000)=    H4 not rejected.
Attractiveness of the       2.275, p=0.108.
websites

H5: No difference in        Not applicable        25.8%
the appearance of                                 H5 not rejected.
Well-organized Feature
of the websites

H6: No difference in        Not applicable        69.1%
the appearance of                                 H6 rejected.
Multimedia Features
of the websites

H7: No difference in        Not applicable        91.5%
the appearance of                                 H7 rejected.
Security Certificate/
Logo feature of the
websites

H8: No difference in        A=0.890 with          90.7%
the appearance of the       F (2.00, 108.000)=    H8 rejected.
Contact Information         6.671, p=0.002
feature of the websites

H9: No difference in        A=0.883 with          92.8%
the appearance of Social    F (2.00, 108.000)=    H9 rejected.
Networking Logos in         7.188, p=0.001
the websites

H10: No difference in       A=0.95 with           49.5%
the Ease of Access          F (2.00, 108.000)=    H10 not rejected.
feature of the websites     2.517, p=0.085
                            Not significant

H11: No difference in       A=0.966 with          38.7%
the appearance of the       F (2.00, 108.000)=    H11 not rejected.
Customer Support            1.896, p=0.155
feature of the websites

Table 3
Pairwise Comparisons of Websites with Significant Differences on Trust
Triggering Appearance Features

Feature            Mydala            Snapdeal          Dealsandyou
                   Mean (S.E)        Mean (S.E)        Mean (S.E)

Trustworthiness    3.0324 (0.071)    2.8756 (0.088)    2.9903 (0.071)

Multimedia         2.91 (0.096)      2.68 (0.097)      2.98 (0.102)
Features

Security           3.25 (0.099)      2.85 (0.115)      3.20 (0.095)
Certificate/Logo

Contact            3.05 (0.123)      2.67 (0.120)      2.85 (0.091)
Information

Social             3.18 (0.107)      2.93 (0.122)      2.76 (0.106)
Networking Logo

Feature            Pairwise Comparison

Trustworthiness    Significant difference between Mydala
                   and Snapdeal websites at p=0.032

Multimedia         Marginally significant difference
Features           between Mydala and Snapdeal at
                   p=0.054;Significant difference
                   between Snapdeal and Dealsandyou
                   websites at p=0.044

Security           Significant difference between Mydala
Certificate/Logo   and Snapdeal websites at
                   p=0.002; Significant difference
                   between Snapdeal and Dealsandyou
                   websites at p = 0.022
Contact            Significant difference between Mydala
Information        and Snapdeal websites at p = 0.001

Social             Significant difference between Mydala
Networking Logo    and Dealsandyou websites at p=0.001