A new CarGurus survey finds that Canadians demand trust and transparency when shopping for big-ticket items, like cars.

CarGurus has released a survey that finds trust is a leading factor when Canadians shop for expensive purchases like houses, cars and mortgages.

Transparency is also very important, and both price information and customer reviews play a large role in the final shopping decision.

The survey finds the following key points:

– When making a major online purchase, 73 per cent of respondents note that the website’s trust and transparency is the most important factor

– Nearly half of Canadians rely on customer reviews to determine if a website is trustworthy and 31 per cent gauge trustworthiness by word of mouth.

– 40 per cent of respondents note that when researching expensive items online positive and negative customer reviews would make the process more transparent and trustworthy.

– More than a third of Canadians feel duped and will lose trust in the seller if the price in store is greater than what they read online.

– 23 per cent answered that a detailed cost breakdown would increase trust and transparency.