Online payments strategy: how third-party internet seals of approval and payment provider reputation influence the Millennials’ online transactions

With the recent increase in online purchases, organizations have been able to improve their capacity to collect, store and profit from personal and financial data gathering. Online purchases occur in an environment characterized by higher risk levels surrounding the transaction. Several payment strategies can be applied in order to mitigate the consumers’ perceived risk and increase trust levels. The present study intends to understand how the presence of internet seals of approval and the reputation of the payment provider impact consumer trust and online payment perceived risk. Four randomized experimental setups were used to manipulate the independent variables, on a sample size of 324 valid responses. The majority of participants were between 18 and 35 years old. The study results demonstrate that new online vendors could mitigate these variables by investing in a payment strategy that combines the presence of internet seals of approval logos together with the presence of payment providers with low reputation.