Swift guanxi data analysis and its application to e-commerce retail strategies improvement

E-commerce has changed retail, offering an opportunity to sell products online. Before retailers can take advantage from e-commerce however, they need to understand the factors driving consumers' intentions to purchase online as well as the factors motivating product re-purchase. To date, a number of studies have been commissioned with an aim to support e-retailers in those efforts. These studies show the key role of trust in consumers' initial and continuous use of e-commerce sites. E-retailers however find online trust difficult to establish due to buyer-seller social and temporal separation online. Recent studies argue that this limitation of online channels can be overcome by computer-mediated communication technologies, which enable 'swift guanxi' that facilitates online trust. This study extends this stream of research by analyzing data generated through swift guanxi in order to help retailers establish online trust and improve their online strategies.