The Mediating Role of Perceived Risk when Buying Online

This paper aim is to assess if consumers’ perceived risk can mediate the relationship between trust and consumers’ intention to buy online. Several others studies indicate that perceived risk acts like a barrier to online buying adoption, while trust in the online vendors and the reliability of the online environment is an enhancer of consumers’ intention to buy online. Two models were developed for the purpose of this study and Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis was used on data collected from 98 respondents. Three variables were introduced in the model: perceived risk, perceived trust and consumers’ intention to buy online. Each variable was formed as a formative latent variable using multi-items, measured on a 7 point Likert scale. The results of the first structural equation modeling indicate that trust is capable of explaining 44% of the variance in consumers’ intention to buy online. Perceived risk was introduced in the second structural equation modeling and results indicate that it has a negative direct effect on consumers’ intention to buy online . However, perceived trust is the sole variable capable of decreasing consumers’ perceived risk. Thus, online vendors should put a great emphasize on creating a trustful environment for selling online goods and services.