Analysing Cyber Security and Data Privacy Models for Decision Making among Indian Consumers in an e-commerce environment

Abstract

While e-commerce evidently addresses consumer needs, businesses and their customers remain vulnerable to cyberattacks that could already be instituted against them. This paper presents an understanding of the antecedent factors that engender concerns among Indian consumers while using ecommerce websites. It aims to measure the perceived threats and data privacy issues that influence an individual’s approach to making a risk-informed buying decision.A Quantitative Method of approach has been adopted for this study. A preliminary set of five-point Likert-style questions with several subscales was designed and distributed online to a sample of 165 participants. The results were then evaluated using exploratory factor analysis technique to test the hypothesis.Factor Analysis of the survey underlined several parameters of an individual’s perception towards their personal information like- accountability and trust issues, geopolitical and data sharing concerns, and cyber security cognizance. It also provided an empirical understanding of the consumer-perceived model for an e-commerce transaction. Based on the findings, better industry-standard e-security frameworks and models can be implemented towards the consumers’ decision-making process. Knowledge from all these aspects can be applied to serve the research and practitioner groups.This study approaches a substantial research gap by providing real-time data for the variables affecting Indian customers’ attitudes towards security and data privacy concerns as online shopping transactions increase. The results add to a growing body of literature identifying and developing advanced ways to reevaluate the existing compliance strategies across e-commerce websites, making it conducive for the customers.