Original Articles: 2014 Vol: 6 Issue: 7
Effect of e-commerce sellers�¢���� evaluation on consumers�¢���� perceived trust-Case of taobao.com
Abstract
Perceived trust is one of the most important prerequisites for consumers to make trading decisions. Taobao.com
provides an evaluation system for sellers to judge a seller’s degree of trust in terms of its historical transaction.
However, according to prospect theory, consumers’ judgment was warped in some cases. Taking the evaluation
system of taobao.com in China as an example, it analyzed decision makers' psychological activities when they facing
positive and negative evaluations. Meanwhile, In order to quantitatively evaluate consumers’ perceived trust, it
recalculated consumers’ perceived probability about sellers’ positive evaluation and negative evaluation based on
prospect theory. The result shows, consumers’ perceived negative evaluations are not the same as the negative
evaluations listed on website. In fact, consumers usually overstate sellers’ negative evaluation, and adjust their
perceived trust. E-commerce sellers should be vigilant even if their negative evaluation probability were quite low.