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Privacy concerns are an important factor in internet users’ decisions to participate in e-commerce, defined here as the use of the internet by individuals to purchase goods or services. While various studies have examined how privacy concerns and e-commerce participation are influenced by online shopping self-efficacy, personality traits, or demographic characteristics, these aspects have rarely been examined together in one single explanatory model. Therefore, this paper proposes an integrated model of e-commerce participation based on the APCO model (Antecedents, Privacy Concerns, Outcomes Smith et al., 2011) in which internet users’ personality traits and demographic characteristics influence their privacy concerns and online shopping self-efficacy, which in turn affect e-commerce participation. The model was tested on a sample of internet users (n = 3,736) in Slovenia, a prototypical EU country in terms of internet use and online shopping. The results from path analysis showed that individuals with greater privacy concerns were less likely to participate in e-commerce, while those with higher online shopping self-efficacy were more likely to do so. Online shopping self-efficacy also reduced privacy concerns and mediated the effect of demographic characteristics on privacy concerns and e-commerce participation. Therefore, a viable strategy to increase e-commerce participation is to increase internet users’ self-efficacy. Moreover, users with different personalities seem to have different coping strategies related to privacy concerns and online shopping self-efficacy. Overall, this study highlights the importance of online shopping self-efficacy for comprehensively analyzing the antecedents and outcomes of privacy concerns in e-commerce. |
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