Financial risk is defined as the likelihood of suffering a monetary loss from a purchase [Horton 1984; Jacoby and Kaplan 1972; Peter and Tarpey 1975; Sweeney et al. 1999]. There are different reasons why online shoppers may suffer monetary loss when shopping online. First, it is hard for online shoppers to determine whether the price of the item purchased at a particular online retailer is the lowest available compared to others. Perception of such financial risk explains why online shoppers abandon carts [Egeln and Joseph 2012]. Second, financial losses may occur due to credit card fraud, which is a primary financial concern among online shoppers. In addition, Caterinicchia [2005] reports shoppers’ concerns regarding financial loss if products purchased online fail to perform as expected. Furthermore, shoppers may be reluctant to purchase products online due to other costs such as shipping. Overall, financial risk has been negatively associated with online shopping [Bhatnager et al. 2000; Chang et al. 2005; Forsythe et al. 2006] and is found to be a strong predictor of shoppers’ online shopping intentions [Bhatnager et al. 2000] and behaviors such as tendency to abandon online shopping carts, purchase frequency, amount spent online, and frequency of searching with intent to buy [Egeln and Joseph 2012; Forsythe and Shi 2003].
H2: Financial risk is negatively associated with online shopping intentions.