This article
studied the internet users’ behavior with threat in respect to online privacy. Customers
feel threatened for disclosing too much information while visiting webpage.
This created customers dissonance along with e-commerce innovation. This study
is important as e-commerce advanced tremendously in the twenty-first centuries.
Consumers find the convenience of online shopping with the efficient good
delivery to the doors. Online shopping with E-bay and Amazon are ones of the
most popular website shopping activities. Consumers use internet tools buying
household goods, commodities, banking and so on. For instance, on Black Friday,
consumers could buy the clearance items through webpage and the items could be
picked up from the stores upon paying. Multi million dollar purchases were
made by online consumers on one single Black Friday. With the skyrocket
e-commerce, consumers’ privacy needed to be protected.
The author
suggests four hypotheses to be tested in the study (Cromer, 2011)
1) Perceived online threat severity will
have
a) Positive relationship with adaptive
behavior
b) Positive relationship with
maladaptive behavior
2) Perceived threat probability will
have a
a) Positive relationship with adaptive
behavior
b) Positive relationship with
maladaptive behavior
3) Internet Self-efficacy will have a
a) Positive relationship with adaptive
behavior
b) Negative relationship maladaptive
behavior
4) Privacy Response Self-efficacy will
have
a) Positive relationship with adaptive
behavior
b) Negative relationship maladaptive
behavior.
For the
result, it turns out that the first three and part (a) of fourth factor are all
true except the last part of fourth factor. Adaptive behavior includes
self-regulate their time spend on internet. Filing suit with government agency
are one of the maladaptive behavior. (Cromer, 2011)
The implication of this article is how the managers should not share any customer information with third parties. They have to earn the trust of consumers so that consumers feel protected. For instance, E-bay consumers are protected while buying goods from E-bay websites under E-bay Protection Fraud. E-bay has achieved the goal of protecting the consumers by using Pay-pal. E-bay consumers have to pay with Pay-Pal. Pay-pal has earned the trust of the online consumers as the organization has the reputation of not sharing information with any other party. Customers feel safe when they disclosed banking information to Pay-pal. Managers have all the responsibility of protecting the customer private information. It is to ensure the continuation of progressive development of E-commerce
Cromer, Cory Taylor. “Consumer E-Commerce Dissonance: Innovating Without Alienating Before Information Overload”, Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness (2011) : vol.5(4) 11-21
This is a very relevant article for the times we live in. Our lives are directly linked to e-commerce, email communication, etc. From a company's standpoint, they must make sure that all consumer personal information stored on servers is highly protected against hackers and online pirates. This is two-fold, the consumer should take precautionary measures as well (well developed passwords, etc.)
ReplyDeleteI like the article. Indeed, E-commerce is becomming an important part our way to shop. As it is getting more popular, it is also a potential threat to our life due to identity thefts. Phishing scams are becomming more and more present online, because people tend to trust more the big e-commerce firms such eBay, Amazon, and Paypal,and they tend to be less carefull when they log in those firms' websites.Therefore, it could be very easy for a thieft to steal our identities. Firms know about those threats and they are improving their online security. As consummers, we need to be more carefull online, because it is not safe as it might look. Sooner or later most people will shop online, and it will be great for e-commerce firms to make their potential customers safer while shopping online.
ReplyDelete