Title:	B2C IN IRAN: A CASE STUDY TO IMPROVE TRUST IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Author(s):	Fatemeh Meskaran , Masitah Ghazali
ISBN:	978-972-8924-49-2
Editors:	Sandeep Krishnamurthy and Pedro Isaías
Year:	2007
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	E-commerce, Business to customer, Trust, Iran, Culture.
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	129
Last Page:	136
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	Trust has been found to be the common limitation that hinders the successful growth and usage of e-Commerce across both developed and developing countries. Improving trust in e-Commerce in general has been the quest by many researchers in the past decade. Whilst we applaud this effort, we think that in order to do so in the developing countries, we first must understand the culture of the respective country. In this paper, we present a case study, which is an attempt to improve trust in developing countries by considering B2C activities in Iran. By using an existing trust model, we performed a survey on people of Tehran to give us insights about the locals’ views and preferences when it comes to purchasing goods and items in both conventional way of purchasing and online shopping. Despite the fact that people in Iran are familiar with the Internet particularly to gather information and to communicate with other people, findings show that the lack of trust in online shopping in Iran is very much related to their strong preferences of conventional manners in purchasing goods that are not reflected in the online shopping. In addition to this, due to its collectivist culture, recommendations by close friends and families plays such an important role in gaining one trust in purchasing goods online. This study has given us better understanding and insights about the factors that affect their trust in online shopping by considering the role of culture. We believe this is paramount in order for us to know the best approaches in improving trust in developing countries.
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