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Experimental study of the effects of structural assurance, personal experiences, and product reviews on repurchase behavior in e-commerce platforms

Abstract:

The structural assurance (SA) of e-commerce platforms determines how safe it is for shoppers to purchase from merchants. However, it remains unclear whether SA encourages repurchasing from the same merchant or switching to another merchant within the platform. This study investigates the main effect of SA on repurchasing and its moderating effect on the relationship of personal experience and product review with repurchasing. To test this effect, we designed a shopping experiment to capture shoppers’ thoughts and feelings (12 sessions, 192 university students). The results show that shoppers on high-SA platforms are less likely to repurchase from the same merchant. Moreover, the effects of negative personal experience and negative product reviews on repurchases mainly stem from egoistic resentment and sympathetic resentment, respectively; the former effect is stronger than the latter effect. As a moderator, low SA strengthens the negative effect of negative personal experience on repurchase behavior.