How do you feel when you see a list of prices? the interplay among price dispersion, perceived risk and initial trust in Chinese C2C market
Date
2015-07-31Author
Wu, Kewen
Vassileva, Julita
Noorian, Zeinab
Zhao, Yuxiang
Publisher
ElsevierType
ArticleMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The issues of trust fraud, product genuineness and price dispersion jointly make Chinese C2C
buyers difficult to identify trustworthy sellers with a low price. Little is known about the
generation of initial trust when buyers search products and receive lists of widely ranged prices.
This study proposes a theoretical model to explain how price dispersion interacts with other
factors in C2C purchase, such as initial trust, perceived risk, perceived value and purchase
intention. Product type is considered as a moderator. 261 students were invited in a survey-based
experiment. The results from PLS analysis show that price dispersion negatively affects perceived
value, whilst, positively affects perceived risk, which further influences perceived value negatively.
Price dispersion also negatively influences initial trust through perceived risk. Moreover, the
negative effects of price dispersion are stronger when buyers purchase high-touch products.
Subject
consumer to consumer
trust
price dispersion
purchase intention
perceived risk