Determinants of customer loyalty in China C2C ecommerce: From a social network perspective

Jin Chen, Cheng Zhang, Lihua Huang

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

China's C2C electronic market has been growing very rapidly. The largest Chinese online auction company, Eachnet, was purchased by eBay but faced tough competition from another Chinese company, Taobao. Taobao's market share is now twice as large as eBay's. Why has eBay quickly lost its market share to newly-launched Taobao? This paper developed and tested a theoretical model that explains the effects of social relation and customer value on online customer loyalty and shopping behavior. This model was tested using empirical data (N=224) and PLS-Graph software. Results show that customers' trust networks and customer value significantly influenced their loyalty to vendors, while customers' affect networks and loyalty significantly influenced their shopping behaviors. The results suggest that the current C2C electronic market in China is a social environment where customers' loyalty to a vendor can be built more easily by the vendor's social relation management services than by transaction services. These findings advance theory by understanding online consumer loyalty from a social network perspective. The present study contributes by explaining the determinants of consumer's shopping behavior and loyalty in China C2C Electronic Commerce.

Original languageEnglish
Pages24-35
Number of pages12
Publication statusPublished - 2007
Externally publishedYes
Event15th European Conference on Information Systems, ECIS 2007 - St. Gallen, Switzerland
Duration: 7 Jun 20079 Jun 2007

Conference

Conference15th European Conference on Information Systems, ECIS 2007
Country/TerritorySwitzerland
CitySt. Gallen
Period7/06/079/06/07

Keywords

  • Customer Loyalty
  • Electronic Commerce
  • Shopping Behavior
  • Social Relation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems

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