Trust and Satisfaction as the Relational Outcomes of Perceived Usefulness in B2C Online Servive Context

Despite the fact that consumers’ post-purchase behavior has been a focal point of consumer behavior literature for decades, studies investigating online consumer behavior have mostly been focused on exploring the adoption phase, i.e. pre-purchase behavior. Trust plays a pivotal role in both consumers’ adoption decisions, but also in ongoing customer relationships. Thus, we argue that studies investigating both online consumer behavior in the post-adoption context, and the role of trust, are needed. This explorative study presents a research model in which perceived usefulness (PU) is viewed as the antecedent of satisfaction and trust, whereas perceived ease of use (PEOU), online self-efficacy and perceived switching costs are placed as the determinants of PU. We empirically investigate a sample of active users of online services and use structural equation modeling to analyze the data. The findings indicate that as an explanatory factor, perceived usefulness alone is not adequate for explaining trust satisfaction among active users of online services. Moreover, online self-efficacy seems to have a positive influence on both PEOU and PU. Finally, switching costs were, somewhat surprisingly, identified as having a positive influence on PU.