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The pandemic brought ample opportunities for E-commerce companies to accelerate their growth. Post-pandemic, the share of the Indian online retail market has grown up to 7% of the total retail in 2021, with total revenue of 55.1 billion dollars (IBEF, 2021). The number of annual online shoppers in India rose to 190 million in 2021 from 135 million in 2019, which is a drastic growth of close to 40% seen post the outbreak (Redseer, 2021; Statista, 2021). This figure is further expected to increase to 300 million online users in the next five years (IBEF, 2021). Further, the share of new sellers on Amazon Marketplace alone in 2020 was 13.8% globally, while it was 12% in India, being the second-highest on the Amazon website (Marketplacepulse, 2020; Statista, 2021). Sectors such as beauty, health, pharma, fashion, FMCG, and electronics have experienced generous growth during 2019-21, with an average increase in sales of 133% (Statista, 2021). During and post-pandemic, thousands of new startups and MSMEs (Medium, Small, and Micro Enterprises) began listing their new products on leading e-commerce sites to reach a wider audience. To penetrate the highly competitive market, MSMEs followed a penetration pricing strategy, and hence such products offer a lower price compared to the similar products of established brands. The price differentiation may convince some consumers to try a new-brand product but at the same time raise concerns about the quality of the product (Razak et al., 2016; Sije et al., 2013).
For the purpose of this study, the authors classify the products being sold on leading e-commerce portals into two types on the basis of their branding, a) A branded product b) A new-brand product. A branded product is an offering from a well-known brand, produced by large companies, and has been on the market for many years. New-brand products are new and up-and-coming products, and the buyers are unfamiliar with their brand names (Aaker, 2009; Atulkar, 2020).
Trust is identified as a vital factor in e-commerce (Hillman & Neustaedter, 2017; Mohammed & AlShahri, 2021). It is defined as “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other party will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party” (David Schoorman et al., 2016, p. 79). Consumers’ purchase intention for a product is influenced by the trust in the online vendor (Rehman et al., 2019; Zhu et al., 2011). There are certain antecedents to building trust in online purchase, like, reviews and ratings, recommendations and referrals, and forums and committees (McCloskey, 2021; Shekhar & Jaidev, 2020). Branded products have a significantly higher presence of trust antecedents in e-commerce compared to new-brand products (Atulkar, 2020; Rehman et al., 2019; Shekhar & Jaidev, 2020).