Identification of Consumer Factors that Influence Purchase Intention in Online C2C Second-Hand Transactions

Despite the increasing popularity of the online Customer-to-Customer (C2C) second-hand market, factors that affect consumers’ willingness to engaged in online C2C second-hand transactions are not fully investigated. Therefore, we take an approach to identify the factors influencing consumers’ intention to purchase on C2C second-hand platforms in China, verifying the applicability of existing achievements in China's second-hand trading context and exploring new factors based on the characteristics of C2C second-hand transactions. Based on the literature review and characteristics of C2C second-hand transactions, eight consumer factors were introduced into the research model: disposition to trust, familiarity with buying, familiarity with selling, frugality, environmentalism, dematerialism, fashion consciousness and hygiene consciousness. Among them, familiarity with selling and hygiene consciousness are new research variables that never appeared in previous studies. A questionnaire containing 38 questions with 10 constructs and demographic data was designed and distributed to 425 participants, where 377 valid responses were finally obtained. The results provided evidence that consumers’ familiarity with buying, frugality, dematerialize, fashion consciousness and hygiene consciousness all significantly affected their intentions to purchase in C2C second-hand transactions. Also consumers’ familiarity with selling and disposition to trust had positive impacts on purchase intention through the mediation effect of trust. Another important finding revealed that the impact of environmentalism on second-hand purchase intention was not significant, showing a difference in the role of environmentalism in China and developed countries. The findings provided insight into marketing and design strategies for C2C second-hand platforms to promote C2C second-hand consumption.