Dual Effect of Price in E-Commerce Environment: Focusing on Trust and Distrust Building Processes

This study examines the dynamics of trust and distrust at different price levels. We first note that trust and distrust are built with cognitive and affective foundations, and price is viewed as a financial burden or product quality information. Then, we relate price changes to trust and distrust, and hypothesize their interactions: price as a quality cue will positively moderate the cognitive dimension of trust, whereas price as financial burden will negatively moderate the affective dimensions of trust and distrust. We surveyed 263 online mall shoppers in Korea. Among our eight hypotheses, six are fully supported and two are partially supported. The result shows that price perception interacts with both the cognitive and affective dimensions of trust and distrust, but its specific impacts are distinguished by the price perceptions, whether it is financial burden or product quality information.