A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION

WITH ONLINE RESALE OUTCOMES AND PRODUCT

PERFORMANCE

Hsunchi Chu

Department of Global Marketing and Logistics, MingDao University

369 Wen-Hua Road, Peetow 52345, ChangHua, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Keywords: Consumer Online Resale, Consumer Satisfaction, C2C e-commerce.

Abstract: Consumer online resale is soaring and becoming a major venue for transactions related to second-hand

goods. Previous studies on consumer satisfaction have focused on perceived product performance or quality,

but in the extension of consumer behaviour from purchase to resale, consumer satisfaction and repurchase

intentions may also be determined by the resale outcome, rather than being limited to product performance.

Through consumer interviews conducted in Taiwan and China, this study aims to build a model consisting

of consumer satisfaction from both product performance and online resale results. The model illustrates the

antecedents of consumer resale satisfaction, and its relationships with product performance satisfaction and

the holistic consumer satisfaction. Propositions related to these concepts are also developed for discussion

and further study.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Internet has not only changed marketers’

business models, but has also dramatically expanded

consumer purchasing behaviour to an unprecedented

scope of utility and experience. The Internet

provides a convenient and efficient selling platform,

allowing consumers to sell things they no longer

need at nearly any time and in any place. Compared

to what is traded in physical retail stores and the

traditional secondary market, durable goods are

much easier to resell online. Thus, they are less

likely to be considered as big-ticket costs by

consumers who have mastered reselling items

through consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online

websites, but rather as liquid assets or accounts

recoverable (Chu and Liao, 2007). Studies of

consumer behaviour in regards to selling goals,

knowledge, and skills differ tremendously from

those on traditional consumer buying and

consumption behaviour. Why and how consumers

become resellers is an interesting issue in C2C e-

commerce research. Unfortunately, consumer online

resale behaviour has not been studied in detail. This

specific kind of consumer resale behaviour differs

from the behaviour of retailers and cannot be

analyzed from a retailer’s perspective.

For instance, consumers may feel more

comfortable financially and be more willing to

purchase high-priced products if they have skills in

using online auctions to recover part of the product

costs. In view of the prosperity of C2C e-commerce,

it is crucial to investigate the behaviour of C2C

resellers in order to elucidate the consumer resale

phenomenon more completely. Chu and Liao (2007,

2009) found that online resale intentions may

influence the purchase decisions of consumers in

many aspects. In the pre-purchase phase, consumers

with the intention to resell online may more easily

arouse a need because they perceive a lower product

price; therefore, more brands and products become

affordable. Furthermore, they may search for

different information and have different evaluations

of market preferences, such as brands providing a

longer guarantee period.

In the post-purchase phase, consumer satisfaction

with a brand may be heavily altered by the resale

result. Consumers may also be less likely to

purchase a new product if, they cannot make

“complete use” of it and, on the other hand, cannot

resell it. Consumers may feel discouraged and will

not repurchase the brands with undesirable resale

performance if the resale outcome fails to meet their

191

Chu H. (2009).

A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION WITH ONLINE RESALE OUTCOMES AND PRODUCT PERFORMANCE.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business, pages 191-195

DOI: 10.5220/0002173001910195

 SciTePress

expectations (Chu and Liao, 2007). Therefore,

repurchase intentions could be undermined by

consumer resale dissatisfaction. This deduction

provides inspiring implications for consumer

behaviour research because it illustrates that

consumers care about product quality as well as

resale results, such as the resale price or time needed

to resell items. A consumer satisfaction model

including satisfaction from both product quality and

resale results may have stronger explanatory power

for predicting consumers’ repurchase intentions. In

sum, this exploratory study aims to build a

conceptual model illustrating the antecedents of

consumer resale satisfaction, and its relationships

with product performance satisfaction and the

holistic consumer satisfaction. Propositions related

to these concepts are also developed for discussion

and further study.

2 METHODS

Consumer interviews were conducted to collect

information on consumer purchase decisions and

online resale behaviour. Through a snowballing

process, a purposeful sample of 25 participants in

Taiwan and China who had experience with

successfully selling a number of products online

took part in this study. The author of the study, who

is very familiar with C2C auction mechanisms in

Taiwan and China, interviewed the participants in

this study. Interviewees ranged in age from 19 to 42,

with an average age of 28. Novice users, those with

only one resale transaction experience, and veteran

users, those with 17,637 resale transaction

experiences, were included in the interviews. To

collect consumer online resale data in Taiwan and

China, two phases of interviews were implemented.

From April to December 2006, the first phase of

interviews was launched in Taiwan by inviting 80

students enrolled in an undergraduate marketing

class to participate. Five students with online resale

experience volunteered. Before the formal interview,

several questions were asked to check the

qualifications of these participants, and one

professional retailer who sold computer components

online was screened out. At the end of each

interview, we asked participants to nominate

qualified candidates among their friends or relatives

for our next interviews. We also requested that

participants contact the candidates they nominated to

question their willingness for an interview in

advance. We purposively avoided including more

students in our study in order to expand our sample

variety. Through the snowballing process, a total

sample of 15 participants in Taiwan joined the

interview. We then started the second phase of

interviews in February 2007 to study consumer

online resale in China. Likewise, we first asked 15

interviewees in Taiwan to invite qualified consumer

resellers in China they were acquainted with, and

requested that they get permission from their friends

by phone or email prior to the face-to-face

interviews. After contacting 15 candidates, we

selected 10 consumer resellers who had participated

in consumer resale transactions on China’s C2C

auction websites, now located in Shanghai and

Shenzhen, two of the largest cities in China. We

restricted our interviews to participants in these two

cities in order to reduce travel costs. Although the

participants from China resided in China’s major

cities at the time of the interviews, half had relocated

from less developed inland cities, and may have

shared information on online resale experiences

taking place in the smaller cities of China. The

author travelled to China to interview the 10

participants from June to August 2007.

Patton (2002) identified three basic types of

qualitative interviews for research or evaluation:

informal conversational interview, interview guide

approach, and standardized open-ended interview.

We employed the interview guide approach

considering that the main purposes of the study are

clear, and we had enough information to develop

guidelines for interviews. Intensive interviews were

conducted using a conversational, unstructured,

exploratory interview style guided by an outline in

order to explore resale motivations, product supply

sources, product conditions, pricing strategies, resale

goals, and resale satisfaction. Resellers can offer

different products for different reasons, so we asked

each participant to give several examples of

successful online resale transactions. We collected

131 resale transaction cases from the 25 participants,

with each participant providing an average of 5

resale examples. One advantage of investigating

online resale is that all transaction records are kept

in the auction system for two years, including the

messages between sellers and buyers. Interview

participants were encouraged to review the records

of their resale transactions in their accounts if they

did not remember the details of the transaction

during the interviews, which helped to improve the

accuracy of the information.

ICE-B 2009 - International Conference on E-business

192

3 CONSUMER SATISFACTION

MODEL

Consumer satisfaction is an evaluative mental state

as a result of the consumer’s comparison of

expectations prior to a purchase with performance

perceptions after a purchase (Oliver, 1980, 1993;

Westbrook, 1987). Previous studies on consumer

satisfaction have focused on perceived product

performance or quality, but in the extension of

consumer behaviour from purchase to resale,

consumer satisfaction and repurchase intentions may

also be determined by the resale outcome, rather

than being limited to product performance (Chu and

Liao, 2008). Thus, we propose a consumer

satisfaction model consisting of two parts. One part

is traditional consumer satisfaction related to

product performance, while the second is in regards

to the resale result. In the interviews, we found

related examples:

The best brand of cell phone should be the one

which performs well and can be resold at a good

price. (Vicky, Taiwan, 32 )

I am not satisfied with my used portable computer

because the resale price is much lower than other

brands. (Yang, Taiwan, 22)

These two examples expressed their concern

about resale outcomes, suggesting that the presented

model could better explain consumer satisfaction

when individuals practice secondary resale since the

traditional consumer satisfaction model does not

cover resale satisfaction, which affects consumer

behaviour. Therefore, the following propositions are

developed for discussion (please also see Figure 1).

P1a: The higher the product performance

satisfaction, the higher the consumer satisfaction.

P1b: The higher the resale satisfaction, the higher

the consumer satisfaction.

P1c: The higher the consumer satisfaction, the

higher the repurchase intention toward the item.

We also found that consumers with resale intentions

may hold expectations toward the resale results,

such as an ideal resale price or time taken to sell the

goods. Consumers may feel discouraged if the resale

outcome fails to meet expectations, and will not

repurchase the brands with undesirable resale

performance. Below are two examples:

I prefer luxury goods that provide authentic

certificates and a longer guarantee period because

that could help me resell it for a higher price. In

addition, before making each purchase decision, I

definitely check online auctions first to know which

one has a better second-hand price. (Ivy, Taiwan,

25)

Before buying high-price electronic products, I go

online first to check product information and user

comments in online communities to identify ideal

products. Then I visit stores to feel and test the

products personally. After deciding which model I

like, I compare price and service conditions to

decide where I should buy. I have no specific

preference for online or offline outlets, that depends

on the information I receive. (Tony, Taiwan, 22)

Figure 1:The Model of Consumer Satisfaction Including Consumer Resale Outcomes.

Repurchase

Intention

Consumer

Satisfaction

Product

Performance

Satisfaction

Online

Resale

Satisfaction

P1a(+)

P1c(+)

Resale Price

Disconfirmation

Resale Price

Expectation of

Resale Price

P1b(+)

P5(+)

P4(+)

P2(-)

P3(+)

A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION WITH ONLINE RESALE OUTCOMES AND

PRODUCT PERFORMANCE

193

The current study borrows the concept of

expectancy-disconfirmation from other consumer

satisfaction studies (Cardozo, 1965; Oliver, 1980) in

order to analyze consumer resale satisfaction, where

proposed “consumer resale disconfirmation” equals

the consumer resale expectation minus the resale

outcome. When the resale result is higher than

expectations, there is positive resale

disconfirmation; otherwise, there is negative resale

disconfirmation. A poor and painful result from the

online resale of a particular brand against

expectations might create a bad memory for that

brand, leading to negative disconfirmation (Oliver,

1980). Some examples of this are found in the

interviews:

After selling a cell phone at a very low price, I

wondered about the reason and considered not

buying the same brand next time. (Chen, Taiwan,

35)

I love the products of Louis Vuitton and Chanel, not

just the brands themselves, but they also have better

resale prices than Gucci and Prada on eBay. When

not liking a LV purse any more, I can sell it on eBay

in a week to get 70%-80% of the money back. A real

luxury good should have a better preservation value

and LVs never disappoint me. (Mary, China, 21)

Based on the interviews, we propose the following.

P2: The higher the expectation of resale price, the

lower the resale price disconfirmation.

P3: The higher the resale price, the higher the resale

price disconfirmation.

P4: The higher the resale price disconfirmation, the

higher the resale satisfaction.

Consumers may hold negative attitudes toward

brands with a low resale value. However, a

surprisingly good resale result may positively

change consumer satisfaction with certain brands.

The resale performance of a brand may be deemed

as an indicator of product value, indicated by the

secondary market responses. Thus, the resale result

might interplay with the perception of product

performance to affect consumer satisfaction with a

brand. Examples of this are derived from the

interviews:

In the beginning, I didn’t like the style of the jeans.

But I changed my mind after reselling them online

with a good price. The brand is really trendy. (Ivy,

Taiwan, 25)

I would never buy the same brand. It’s not easy to

use and, what’s worse, nobody wants to purchase it

on eBay even with a very low price. I can confirm it

is really a third rate brand. (Kevin, Taiwan, 31)

Based on these information, the following

proposition is offered for discussion.

P5: After an item is resold, the higher the resale

satisfaction, the higher the product performance

satisfaction.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The satisfaction model in this study presents a clear

picture of consumer satisfaction, showing the

antecedents and consequences of consumer resale

satisfaction. Most importantly, this study has

indicated a direction that consumer resale

satisfaction, an important factor worth more

attention, could affect product performance

satisfaction and the holistic consumer satisfaction,

providing implications to both consumer researchers

and managers. In addition, this study introduced

useful tools to analyze consumer resale satisfaction

and offers some insights regarding resale

phenomena. The model is a first step toward an

understanding of consumer online resale

satisfaction. Clearly, the first research step is to

empirically test the proposed relationships in the

model as well as the propositions. Each of the major

antecedent factors needs to be examined to ascertain

the strength and exact nature of the relationship with

consumer online resale satisfaction. We have offered

a number of propositions, calling for more attention

and devotion to this relatively unknown area of

study, especially in regards to the impacts of

consumer resale satisfaction on product performance

satisfaction and overall consumer satisfaction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We deeply thank our six anonymous reviewers for

their insightful comments. This work was supported

by the National Science Council under Grants No.

NSC97-2410-H-451-008.

REFERENCES

Chu, H. , Liao, S. 2007. Exploring Consumer Resale

Behaviour in C2C Online Auctions: Taxonomy and

ICE-B 2009 - International Conference on E-business

194

Influences on Consumer Decisions. Academy of

Marketing Science Review, 11, 1-27.

Chu, H. , Liao, S. 2008. Toward a Conceptual Model of

Consumer Online Resale Behaviour: An Exploratory

Study in Taiwan, Journal of Internet Commerce, 7(2),

220-252.

Chu, H. , Liao, S. 2009. Buying While Expecting to Sell:

The Economic Psychology of Online Resale, Journal

of Business Research. (forthcoming)

Oliver, R. L. 1980. A Cognitive Model of the Antecedents

and Consequences of Satisfaction Decisions. Journal

of Marketing Research, 17 (November), 460-469.

Oliver, R. L. 1993. Cognitive, Affective, and Attribute

Base of the Satisfaction Judgments, Journal of

Consumer Research, 20 (December), 495-507.

Patton, M. Quinn. 2002. Qualitative Evaluation and

Research Methods. (3

ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage.

Westbrook, R. A. (1987). Product/Consumption-based

Affective Responses and Postpurchase Processes.

Journal of Marketing Research, 24 (August), 258-270.

A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION WITH ONLINE RESALE OUTCOMES AND

PRODUCT PERFORMANCE

195