Buyer satisfaction and loyalty intention in online auctions: Online auction web site versus online auction seller

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of the influential factors of buyer satisfaction and loyalty toward online auction web sites and online auction sellers. Customers' loyalty toward the online auction web site and seller is also explored.

An internet survey is conducted on 221 buyers of online auction.

Loyalty intention toward an online auction seller positively affects a buyer's loyalty intention toward the online auction web site, whereas his/her loyalty intention toward the online auction web site negatively affects his/her loyalty intention toward the online auction seller.

The first is in its cross‐sectional design. Second, this paper examines the antecedents of the online auction web site and the online auction seller in a single country. The findings may have limited generalizability to other countries.

The results of this paper provide less positive news for online auction sellers. Sellers on an online auction web site should be careful in making online auction web site change decisions. Although a seller can secure buyer loyalty intention by providing strong e‐service quality, overall satisfaction and the specific asset investment (SAI), buyers still may not be enthusiastic about moving with the seller to another auction web site.

This paper contributes to comparing the pulling force of the web sites and the sellers, and explains that SAI can affect the buyers through web sites and sellers. There are three parties involved in the model.