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Without trust, few transactions would take place. Consumers will not buy from a seller if they do not trust the seller to deliver the product as agreed. Businesses will not trade if they do not trust the other party to follow through with its promises. And clients will refuse to do business if they do not trust the security and privacy practices of the vendor.
High levels of trust have multiple payoffs. Organizations with high levels of trust are able to charge price premiums, have their customers share more information, and keep their customers coming back. Online retailers who offer the lowest prices do not necessarily register the highest sales for those products, and this is at least partially due to differences in the levels of trust in these online sellers. Many internet businesses have to lower their prices in order to compensate for low levels of consumer trust, but such a practice hurts long-term profitability and sustainability. Generating high levels of trust appears to be the most promising way for online retailers to charge price premiums and achieve higher margins, sales, and profits.
Unfortunately, generating trust is especially problematic in the online business environment. In the brick and mortar world, customers can alleviate some of their concerns through face-to-face interactions with a person representing the business. The physical presence of the business offers assurance that it exists, is accessible, and is trustworthy. In the online virtual marketplace, it is more difficult (if not impossible) to develop trust from the visible physical presence of the business or a personal interaction with its people.
One way that an online organization can build trust is by promoting value congruence. Value congruence is a measure of the amount of overlap between the values of potential customers and the values those customers perceive the organization to possess. The sharing of similar values, backgrounds and beliefs has been shown to produce trust between persons that share those common values. While many other factors can also influence trust in an e-business, value congruence is