Relationships Among Dimensions of Online Second-Hand Shopping, Satisfaction, and Repurchase Intention

Introduction

E-commerce research has gained momentum among academicians and practitioners over the past few years. Online second-hand retail market is the most interesting expansion of e-commerce industry (Belk, Sherry, and Wallendorf, 1988; Roux and Guiot, 2008; Sherry, 1990a; Soiffer and Herrmann, 1987). It provides huge opportunities for sellers and buyers. Buyers are able to compare products through online platform and sellers are able to post advertisements online and communicate easily with the prospective buyers (Kamoun and Halaweh, 2012; Kumar, Sikdar, and Alam, 2016; Sherry, 1990b).

Globally, online second-hand retail market is spearheading. In India, online second-hand retail industry has been growing over the past years (Snigdha, 2016). For example, Indian households have progressed dealing with second-hand goods worth of 1, 15, 000 crore in 2015 from 60,000 crore in 2011 (Chitra, 2014). Today’s economic condition fuels the demand for purchasing second-hand products. Importantly, middle and lower income people buy second-hand products to satisfy their needs in a cost-effective manner. People who count on time and money are the most prospective buyers to engage in second-hand shopping (Kwon and Lennon, 2009; Williams and Paddock 2003). However, customer retention stands as a major concern for online retailers and sellers who wish to develop and maintain customer relationships (Sharkey, Scott and Acton, 2010). Customer retention is four times profitable than acquiring a new customer (Fang, Chiu, and Wang, 2011). Hence, it is crucial to determine the key factors that affect customer’s intention towards repeat purchase of second-hand products.

Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of online second-hand shopping dimensions on customer satisfaction and customer retention. Specifically, this study aims to test the relationships between price, website quality, nostalgia, and brand image on customer satisfaction and effect of customer satisfaction on customer retention. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next section provides hypotheses development followed by research methodology. Finally, we present discussion, implications and future research directions.

Price

Price represents a sum of money that customers give to acquire a particular product (Zeithaml, 1988). Customers use price as a quality-signalling cue that indicates “you get what you pay for” (Erickson and Johansson, 1985). Customers have a propensity to compare the prices and then adopt the one which suits their situation (Abu-shamaa et al., 2016; Bojanic, 1996; Kim et al., 2012; Yoon, et al., 2014). In online second-hand consumption, price is the most influencing dimension as many rare products are available for lesser price. Fair price strategy helps the second-hand sellers to attract buyers and achieve buyers’ satisfaction. Therefore, we hypothesize that

• H₁: There is a positive relationship between price and customer satisfaction.

Figure 1.

Research Model