Scale library · Consumer behavior
Trust in online vendor scale: Gefen et al. (2003)
Gefen, Karahanna and Straub (2003) integrated trust into TAM to explain online purchase intention: since customers cannot control the vendor, they rely on trust that the vendor is honest, caring and competent. The 7 items ask about trust formed through prior experience with a specific vendor. It is one of the most cited trust scales in e-commerce research and suits theses on buying from online marketplaces, brand websites or social media sellers.
Cite the original, not the blog.
- Model or scale: Trust in e-vendor
- Constructs: 1
- Items: 7
Original English items
Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.
Trust (TR, 7 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| TR1 | Based on my experience with [the online vendor] in the past, I know it is honest | No |
| TR2 | Based on my experience with [the online vendor] in the past, I know it cares about customers | No |
| TR3 | Based on my experience with [the online vendor] in the past, I know it is not opportunistic | No |
| TR4 | Based on my experience with [the online vendor] in the past, I know it provides good service | No |
| TR5 | Based on my experience with [the online vendor] in the past, I know it is predictable | No |
| TR6 | Based on my experience with [the online vendor] in the past, I know it is trustworthy | No |
| TR7 | Based on my experience with [the online vendor] in the past, I know it knows its market | No |
Response scale
A 7-point agreement scale (1 = Strongly disagree … 7 = Strongly agree) is the usual format for these statements; the source we checked (Gefen, Fresneda & Larsen, 2020) does not state the response scale.
Licence and permission
The items are published in an academic article and reused by the first author in an open-access article. Cite Gefen, Karahanna and Straub (2003); we found no permission requirement for non-commercial academic use.
Sources (APA 7)
- Gefen, D., Karahanna, E., & Straub, D. W. (2003). Trust and TAM in online shopping: An integrated model. MIS Quarterly, 27(1), 51–90. https://doi.org/10.2307/30036519
- Gefen, D., Fresneda, J. E., & Larsen, K. R. (2020). Trust and distrust as artifacts of language: A latent semantic approach to studying their linguistic correlates. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 561. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00561
Vietnamese translation
A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.