Building Initial Trust in an Intermediary in B2C Online Marketplaces: The Korean Evidence From Interpark.com

The author develops and test a consumer trust model for building first-time buyer's trust in an intermediary in Korean online marketplaces. Data was collected via a questionnaire survey using 218 respondents. Results from an empirical analysis indicate that while all the three factors of trustworthiness were found to be a predictor of overall initial trust in the intermediary, ‘integrity' turned out to have the strongest association with overall trust. The author's findings suggest that trustworthiness beliefs and trust are conceptually distinct from each other and that the former is a predictor of the latter. The article offers implications for both academics and practitioners of online marketplaces.