Consumers increasingly prefer to use mobile phones to surf the internet and make purchases. Mobile applications are also being more used in the area of trade between consumers. This study seeks to understand how satisfaction is generated in the context of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) commerce via mobile applications for buying and selling second-hand fashion products (e.g., clothing, accessories). The research model was empirically evaluated using data collected by an online survey and analysed through partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results show that trust, perceived usefulness and mobility have significant and positive impacts on consumer satisfaction with C2C mobile applications in fashion sales. Conversely, factors such as security, privacy and enjoyment do not have significant influence.
TopIntroduction
The evolution of the Internet and mobile technologies has led to a change in consumer purchasing behaviour (Dennis, Alamanos, Papagiannidis & Bourlakis, 2016). Increasing numbers of consumers prefer to use mobile phones and tablets to surf the Internet. In Spain, 97% of the population use mobile phones to access the net (Ditrendia, 2018), spending almost three hours a day online (IABSpain, 2019). The mobile phone has become one of the fastest growing technologies for making purchases (Luqman, Razak & Ismail, 2014). In 2017, approximately 58% of online sales worldwide, and 57% nationally, were made using mobiles; of particular note is that 66% of these purchases were made using applications (Ditrendia, 2018; Emarketer, 2018). The fashion industry is one of the sectors with the highest mobile commerce market share in Spain (44%), which represents 51% of all mobile purchases made by young people aged between 18 and 34 (Ditrendia, 2108). The fashion industry has experienced a major boom in online commerce, which has forced it to adapt its strategies (Amendola, Calabrese, Caputo & Fabrizio, 2018). Among the new business models, consumer-to-consumer (C2C) applications have emerged; these facilitate purchase/sale or barter between consumers (Lemaitre & De Barnier, 2015). Thus, the idea of collaboration is becoming more common among regular fashion consumers (Pedersen, Gwozdz & Hvass, 2016; Pedersen & Netter, 2015); this has given rise to websites and mobile platforms based on second-hand fashion products, such as the specialised Chicfy, ThredUp and Vinted, and the generic eBay, Vibbo and Wallapop.
The competition caused by the constant proliferation of new mobile applications makes their viability difficult. Therefore, we need to understand better the factors that lead to the continued use of applications (Chong, 2013; Gao, Waechter & Bai, 2015). Of the factors that influence continued use of a technology, user satisfaction plays a key role (Gao et al., 2015; San Martín & López-Catalán, 2013). Satisfaction can have an impact on consumer loyalty (Choi, Seol, Lee, Cho & Park, 2008; Deng, Lu, Wei & Zhang, 2010; Ryu, Kim & Kim, 2014), purchase intention (Chong, 2013), and the user's intention to recommend (Kassim & Abdullah, 2008). Previous studies evaluate the factors that affect the adoption or intention to use m-commerce (e.g., Lee & Kim, 2018; Lu & Su, 2009; Pantano & Pripora, 2016; Wei, Marthandan, Chong, Ooi & Arumugam, 2009), the antecedents of satisfaction in the mobile environment (e.g., Choi et al., 2008; Chong, 2013; Gao et al., 2015; San-Martín & López-Catalán, 2013) and the use of mobile applications (e.g., Marinkovic & Kalinic, 2017). However, few studies analyse the influential factors in user satisfaction with C2C mobile applications specialising in fashion items.