The Impact of Different Types of Satisfaction on C2C Platform Loyalty

Online satisfaction is regarded as an important construct in both the marketing and IS literatures. However, online satisfaction has been treated primarily as a unified concept in previous research, some researchers indicate that satisfaction can be differentiated into several types. We identify four types of customer satisfaction in the C2C online shopping context, viz.: economic satisfaction, social satisfaction, transaction-specific satisfaction and overall satisfaction. In addition, we identify the different antecedents and consequences of these four types of satisfaction. The results of a survey of 239 online buyers indicate that economic satisfaction is positively related to price, product quality and service quality, while social satisfaction is positively related to relationship with the sellers and service quality. Both economic satisfaction and social satisfaction exert a positive impact on overall satisfaction with the website. Finally, all these types of satisfaction can lead to online loyalty. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.