Developing a Consumer Trust Model for Electronic Marketing Platforms Through a Grounded Theory Approach: Evidence from the Iraqi Online Shopping Market

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to explain the process through which consumer trust is formed in electronic marketing platforms and to develop a context-specific conceptual model applicable to the Iraqi online shopping market.

Methodology: This applied study adopted a qualitative design based on the systematic grounded theory approach of Strauss and Corbin. The study population comprised academic and executive experts in electronic marketing, e-commerce, digital marketing, information technology, and online business management. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling, which continued until theoretical saturation was achieved. In total, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 experts. Data collection and analysis proceeded concurrently through constant comparison, and the interview data were analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding. The trustworthiness of the findings was enhanced through credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability procedures.

Findings: The analytical relationships among the categories indicated that consumer trust in electronic marketing platforms is a dynamic and multidimensional phenomenon arising from the interaction of causal, contextual, intervening, and managerial factors. Technological security and infrastructure, together with platform quality and capabilities, emerged as the primary causal conditions of trust formation. Consumer trust was manifested through four interrelated dimensions: trust in security, information, platform performance, and sellers. Online shopping culture, customer experience, laws and regulations, and platform reputation constituted contextual conditions, whereas advertising, recommendations from others, user reviews, and economic conditions operated as intervening factors. Trust-building strategies, particularly enhancing security, improving service quality, increasing information transparency, and strengthening customer relationship management, reinforced and stabilized consumer trust. In turn, stronger trust generated increased purchase intention and behavior, repeat purchasing, customer loyalty, greater platform engagement, improved organizational performance, and competitive advantage.

Conclusion: Consumer trust in Iraq’s online market is not attributable to a single determinant but develops through the systematic interaction of technological, platform-related, environmental, and managerial factors. Electronic marketing platforms can therefore strengthen sustainable consumer trust by improving security, information transparency, service quality, and customer relationship management, thereby promoting purchasing behavior, loyalty, engagement, organizational performance, and sustainable competitive advantage.