ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCE OF TRUST IN THE CHINESE B2C ONLINE SHOPPING CONTEXT

This research examines how argument quality and source credibility influence vendor trust and trust-gaining information, as well as how vendor trust and trust-gaining information influence repeat purchase intention in the Chinese business-to-consumer (B2C) online shopping context. This study collected 346 valid samples from an online survey and used structural equation modeling with AMOS version 22.0 to validate the proposed model. The results show that argument quality and source credibility have a significant and positive effect on vendor trust and trust-gaining information, respectively. Furthermore, source credibility has a higher effect on vendor trust and trust-gaining information than argument quality does. Vendor trust and trust-gaining information significantly and positively affect repurchase intention. Moreover, trust-gaining information has a higher effect on repurchase intention than vendor trust does. The positive effect of argument quality on vendor trust increases when the relationship strength increases. Conversely, the positive effect of argument quality on trust-gaining information and the positive effects of source credibility on vendor trust/trust-gaining information decrease when the relationship strength increases. Source credibility plays an important role of vendor trust and trust-gaining information. Online vendors encourage consumers to post current and objective information on their websites. Meanwhile, trust-gaining information is more important than vendor trust for repeat purchase intention. Online vendors should increase their expertise and knowledge about product information. They must maintain appropriate relationship strength with consumers to build their vendor trust and trust-gaining information. © 2022, Chinese Society for Quality. All rights reserved.