An empirical study on repeat consumer's shopping satisfaction on C2C e-commerce in Japan: the role of value, trust and engagement

Purpose: Technology has advanced and led the revolution of the online e-commerce industry through various online platforms. These online platforms were integrated to enhance customer's shopping experience, promoting different business models including consumer-to-consumer (C2C) secondary e-commerce market. This new online business model has been gaining interest in both academia and industry due to potential opportunities and challenges to serve customers effectively. This study aims to draw upon the means-end theory to test a conceptual model to understand the role of engagement between different types of trust and satisfaction toward shopping on C2C e-commerce. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative survey method was developed to test the antecedents and mediator of C2C customer satisfaction. A panel service was used to collect the dataset (n = 294) to test the proposed extended means-end chain theory (MEC) model. Findings: The authors found that the role of trust toward the platform provider and the third-party seller differs based on the perceived value (functional and emotional) and impact of trust on satisfaction. This study provides a rich conceptualization of an instrument for a C2C experience that can serve as a starting point for future research to investigate the antecedents and impacts of the C2C context. Research limitations/implications: Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed hypotheses further in a different context (e.g. country). Practical implications: The paper includes implications for a guide to designing an effective online C2C retailing strategy. Originality/value: This paper fulfills an identified need to study how engagement serves different role depending on the trust consumers have toward the intermediary vs the seller, which has a subsequent effect on consumer's satisfaction.