Antecedent of purchase intention: online seller reputation, product category and surcharge

This paper aims to examine the antecedent of purchase intention: online seller reputation, product category and surcharge.

This paper uses five experimental designs to explore the seller reputation, product category and surcharge effects in Internet shopping. The authors chose one seller of low reputation and one seller of high reputation from Yahoo Mall. ANOVA are used to evaluate the results.

Sellers of high reputation can post higher surcharges to increase the total price paid by the buyer, but sellers of low reputation cannot do so (experiment 1). Moreover, partitioned price will decrease purchase intention for sellers of low reputation more than for sellers of high reputation (experiment 2). Consumers take the longest time to make purchasing decisions when buying credence goods (experiment 3) or buying from sellers of low reputation (experiment 4). The effect of surcharge levied by sellers of low reputation is weakened for consumers with low (vs high) shipping‐charge skepticism (experiment 5).

This study is helpful to online sellers if they can identify their reputation, product category and those consumers who have shipping‐charge skepticism, they can create extra profit through surcharge practice.

The authors’ investigation extends the literature on consumers’ price processing by identifying the important moderators (seller reputation, product category, and elaboration) and probing into the decision process (via the response time). The results suggest prescriptive strategies for online sellers.