The Mediating Role of Consumer Perception in the Impact Consumer Trust on Purchase Intentions in China

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the mediating role of consumer perception in the process of consumer trust influencing purchase intention. With the rapid development of e-commerce, trust has been widely regarded as one of the core factors driving consumers purchase intention. Based on this background, this study constructs a theoretical model mediating consumer perception, and deeply analyzes the complex relationship between consumer trust, consumer perception and purchase intention.
Using a stratified random sampling method to ensure sample representativeness, 522 valid sample data were drawn from survey reports of active consumers across multiple mainstream e-commerce platforms. After data collection, the reliability and validity test, direct path analysis and mediation effect were tested by structural equation model (SEM).
The empirical results show that consumer trust has a significant positive influence on purchase intention, and that consumer perception plays a significant intermediary role between trust and purchase intention. This result reveals that in the context of e-commerce, the establishment and enhancement of trust can not only directly enhance consumers purchase intention, but also indirectly promote purchase decisions by optimizing consumer perception; the study also found that improving consumer perception experience is a key way to increase consumer trust and promote purchase behavior.
This study still has some limitations. The data sources are mainly focused on specific e-commerce platforms, which may affect the universality of the research results; this study does not thoroughly analyze the impact of platform characteristics on trust and perception, which needs to be further explored in future studies; since this study is based on cross-sectional data, longitudinal data can be used to infer causality more accurately.
In conclusion, by systematically analyzing the relationship between consumer trust, perception and purchase intention, this study provides valuable theoretical enlightenment and practical suggestions for academia and practice, and provides a new perspective and path for e-commerce enterprises to optimize trust management strategies.