International Business Research; Vol. 7, No. 7; 2014 ISSN 1913-9004 E-ISSN 1913-9012 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 129 Effects of Visual Control and Graphical Characteristics of 3D Product Presentations on Perceived Trust in Electronic Shopping Raed Salah Algharabat 1 1 Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan Correspondence: Raed Salah Algharabat, Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business, The University of Jordan, Amman, 11192, Jordan. E-mail: r.gharabat@ju.edu.jo Received: March 20, 2014 Accepted: April 17, 2014 Online Publication: June 25, 2014 doi: 10.5539/ ibr.v7n7p129 URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ibr.v7n7p129 Abstract The importance of online trust lies at its ability to predict users’ adoption of electronic shopping. However, little is known about the role of three dimensional (3D) product presentations in enhancing online trust based on graphical characteristics (GC) and visual control (VC). Therefore, this paper discusses the effects of different levels of visual control and graphical characteristics on perceived trust. While visual control allows users to manipulate 3D product images (to view products from various angles and distances), graphical characteristics allows consumers to experience different colours and 3D motions of presented products. The individual and joint effects of visual control and graphical characteristics were investigated in a laboratory experiment. Our results showed that visual control and graphical characteristics increased users’ perceived trust. Furthermore, we find an interaction effect of graphical characteristics on perceived trust of the 3D product presentation only when visual control of the 3D product presentation is high. Keywords: e-tailing, three dimensional (3D), virtual product experience, virtual control, graphical characteristics, e-commerce, perceived trust 1. Introduction Product experience often classified into three areas; direct product experience, indirect product experience and virtual product experience (VPE). Previous research (Hoch & Deighton, 1989; Kempf & Smith, 1998) on direct product experience (i.e., product trail) has argued the importance of this type based on the following reasons. (i) Direct experience generates a vivid and informative presentation of products due to users’ abilit y to employee multiple sensory cues (i.e., vision, tactile feelings, smell, sound, and taste). (ii) Direct experience motivates customers to evaluate the products, and thus it attracts their attention and engagement. (iii) Customers attained all the product information directly by themselves, and therefore possess the highest credibility and trustworthiness. The importance of VPE, which enhance users interaction with three-dimensional (3D) virtual models, appears as a result of the 3D product presentation ability to enrich users’ learning processes (Klein, 2003; Jiang & Benbasat, 2005), to reflect simulated offline retailer (Algharabat & Dennis, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c; Li et al., 2001, 2002, 2003), to convey relevant information (Algharabat & Zamil, 2013; Jiang & Benbasat, 2007), to evaluate the quality of presented products (Algharabat & Abu-ElSamen, 2013; Algharabat & Shatanawi, 2014; Jiang & Benbasat, 2005) and to enhance consumer’s thinking and emotional responses (Kim and Forsythe, 2007, 2008; Park et al., 2008). Furthermore, 3D product presentations are often helpful to consumers to form a clear understanding of product functionality and performance (Algharabat & Abu-ElSamen, 2013; Jiang & Benbasat, 2007). Particularly, a vivid and interactive 3D product presentation is often used to impress consumers with the illustrated product features and to enhance customers’ intentions (Algharabat & Dennis, 2010b). Despite the previous efforts in this area, we noticed that previous research linked the notion of 3D product presentation with online trust (Algharabat & Abu-ElSamen, 2013; Algharabat & Zamil, 2013) based on investigating the impact of 3D product presentation on online trust. However, most of previous studies (Algharabat & Abu-ElSamen, 2013; Algharabat & Zamil, 2013) have treated the relationship between 3D product presentation and online trust as a black box, without investigating the effects of different levels of 3D product presentation antecedents (such as visual control and graphical characteristics) on online perceived trust. Therefore, the present study identifies two antecedents of 3D perceived trust, namely, visual control (VC) and graphical characteristic (GC), and investigates their individual and joint effects on perceived trust. A controlled experiment is employed to