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The Perceived Risk of E-Shopping By Charles Dennis Shoppers often feel apprehension or risk when considering a purchase, especially from a new vendor. Perceived risk is a function of the uncertainty when making a purchase that may have unpleasant outcomes (Forsythe and Shi, 2003). Such risk is linked to both the type of merchandise being acquired and the channel or method of acquiring that merchandise (Hisrich et al., 1972). The reasons why non-store purchases fuel a shopper's perceived risk relate to the touch and accessibility issues (Gillett, 1970; Spence et al., 1970; Phau and Poon, 2000), specifically:   Not being able to touch merchandise before making a purchase.   Barriers to returning merchandise.   Initial Internet adoption research identified risk as a significant barrier to e-retailing (GVU, 1998; Salam et al., 1998) and this has continued in more recent studies (Miyazaki and Fernandez, 2001). Yet, simply identifying this phenomenon under the single concept of 'risk' is to miss the complexity of the issue. Risk is a multidimensional construct for e-shopping (Fenech, 2003) with the economic, social, performance, personal and privacy dimensions (Vijayasarathy and Jones, 2000). These initial risk dimensions were summarized as:   Economic risk - the probability of making poor purchase decisions.    Social risk - the possibility of incurring societal disapproval for engaging in shopping using a particular medium.   Performance risk - the chance of product/services performing less than expected.    Personal risk - the potential for theft and abuse of credit card information.    Privacy risk - the danger of compromising personal information.   (Vijayasarathy and Jones, 2000)The first three Vijayasarathy and Jones risk dimensions (economic, social and performance) were an integral component of retailing prior to the Internet. A shopper in a bricks store can make a poorly researched purchase decision or select merchandise that fails to deliver its performance promise as easily as it could be done online, whereas the remaining risk dimensions (personal and privacy) are more frequently attributed to e-shopping and receive greater media attention. Source: E-Retailing