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Customer
Determinants of customer repurchase
repurchase intention in online intention
shopping
761
Chao-Min Chiu and Chen-Chi Chang
Department of Information Management, National Central University, Refereed article received
Jhongli City, Taiwan 2 September 2008
Approved for publication
Hsiang-Lan Cheng 10 October 2008
True Generation Hospital, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, and
Yu-Hui Fang
Department of Information Management, National Central University,
Jhongli City, Taiwan

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand customers’ repurchase intentions in online
shopping. This study extends the technology acceptance model (TAM) by introducing e-service
quality dimensions, trust and enjoyment in the development of a theoretical model to study customers’
repurchase intentions within the context of online shopping.
Design/methodology/approach – Data collected from 360 PCHome online shopping customers
provides strong support for the proposed research model. PLS (partial least squares, PLS-Graph
version 3.0) is used to analyse the measurement and structural models.
Findings – The study shows that trust, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and enjoyment
are significant positive predictors of customers’ repurchase intentions.
Research limitations/implications – The data are collected from a single online shopping store –
the generalisation of the model and findings to other online stores requires additional research. Our
findings imply that the five dimensions of e-service quality are possibly among the most important
antecedents of customers’ trust in online vendors.
Practical implications – Online vendors should ensure that they provide adequate utilitarian and
hedonic value for customers instead of focusing on just one of these aspects in their web site
development.
Originality/value – Customer loyalty is critical to the online vendor’s survival and success. The
study provides evidence that online trust is built through order fulfilment, privacy, responsiveness and
contact.
Keywords Internet shopping, Consumer behaviour, Customer services quality, Trust
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Customers’ repurchasing or loyalty is critical to the success and profitability of online
stores. A study by Mainspring and Bain & Company (2000) showed that the average
customer must shop four times at an online store before the store profits from that Online Information Review
Vol. 33 No. 4, 2009
customer. What, then, encourages customers to repurchase from an online store? pp. 761-784
Understanding the beliefs and motivations underlying customers’ repurchase q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
intentions towards online shopping was the objective of this study. DOI 10.1108/14684520910985710
OIR The technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) is widely used to explain
individuals’ intentions and actual use of information technology (IT). The primary
33,4 interface for customers to purchase products and services online is the web site, a form of
IT. Accordingly, online shopping behaviour can be partially explained by the TAM.
However, there are discrepancies between the use of the web site and online purchasing,
especially with respect to repurchase (Tsai and Huang, 2007). The TAM needs to be
762 extended by incorporating additional variables in order to adapt it to the online shopping
context and improve its explanatory power (Hu et al., 1999; Moon and Kim, 2001).
Research supports the notion that shopping can provide both hedonic and
utilitarian value (Babin et al., 1994; Babin and Darden, 1995). Utilitarian value reflects
task-related worth and is an overall assessment of functional benefits and costs, while
hedonic value reflects entertainment and emotional worth, and is an overall
assessment of experiential benefits and costs (Overby and Lee, 2006). Some studies
have modelled perceived usefulness and enjoyment as utilitarian and hedonic values
respectively, and have linked them to customer attitude and behavioural intention
towards online shopping (Ahn et al., 2007; Lee, 2005). However, the impacts of
perceived usefulness and enjoyment on repurchase intention remain unclear in the
online shopping context.
Trust in the seller is a vital key to building customer loyalty (Reichheld and Schefter,
2000) and maintaining continuity in buyer-seller relationships (Anderson and Weitz,
1989). Many researchers have argued that trust is a crucial enabling factor in online
transactions, where there is uncertainty, information asymmetry and fear of opportunism
(Gefen et al., 2003; Triandis, 1980). If trust is indeed an important aspect of online
shopping, then understanding the antecedents of trust should be a prime concern of online
vendors. Most experienced and successful online vendors are beginning to realise that the
key determinants of success or failure are not merely a web presence or low price but
rather delivering a high quality electronic service (e-service) (Zeithaml et al., 2000). The
e-service quality represents the trust cue that conveys the trustworthiness of the site and
the system to customers (Corritore et al., 2003). However, the exact nature of the
relationships between the dimensions of e-service quality and trust in the online vendor is
still unclear in the online shopping context.
To understand better the customers’ repurchase intentions, this study proposed a
theoretical model that extends the TAM by incorporating trust, enjoyment and the
dimensions of e-service quality. The research questions addressed in this study were:
RQ1. Are perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use important determinants
of repurchase intention?
RQ2. Does trust have a more influential impact on repurchase intention than
shopping value – perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and enjoyment
– in the uncertain online shopping environment?
RQ3. Which of the e-service quality dimensions has the most influential effect on
trust in the online vendor?

Theoretical background
Technology acceptance model and online shopping value
The TAM (Davis, 1989; Davis et al., 1989) was originally developed to predict users’
initial adoption or use of a new IT in the workplace. It posits that user acceptance of IT
can be explained by two salient beliefs: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Customer
Perceived usefulness is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a repurchase
particular system would enhance his or her job performance” and perceived ease of use
is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system intention
would be free of effort” (Davis, 1989, p. 320). Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of
use are considered instrumental in achieving valued outcomes, and thus reflect the
utilitarian or extrinsic aspects of IT usage. Explicitly to model the role of intrinsic 763
motivation in the TAM, Davis et al. (1992) introduced a third belief called perceived
enjoyment. Perceived enjoyment is defined as “the extent to which the activity of using
the computer is perceived to be enjoyable in its own right, apart from any performance
consequences that may be anticipated” (Davis et al., 1992, p. 1113). Enjoyment reflects
the hedonic or intrinsic aspects of IT usage.
Marketing scholars have argued that the online shopping experience not only
produces utilitarian value but also hedonic value (Childers et al., 2001; Overby and Lee,
2006). Recently, some studies have applied the TAM in the online shopping and mobile
commerce contexts with the addition of enjoyment or playfulness as a hedonic factor,
and found that utilitarian and hedonic factors have different effects on customer
intention to use online shopping web sites, intention to return, or loyalty. For example,
Ahn et al. (2007) found that perceived usefulness has a stronger influence on intention
to use online retailing than playfulness. Lee (2005) found that perceived usefulness
significantly affects intention towards the online retailer but that the effect of perceived
enjoyment is not significant. Koufaris (2002) indicated that perceived usefulness has a
stronger effect on intention to return to a web-based store than shopping enjoyment,
whereas the effect of perceived ease of use is not significant. Cyr et al. (2006) showed
that enjoyment has a stronger effect on loyalty towards a mobile service than perceived
usefulness, whereas Cyr et al. (2007) showed that perceived usefulness has a stronger
effect on loyalty towards an e-service web site. It appears that the exact nature of the
impacts of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and enjoyment on customer
repurchase intention towards online shopping remains unclear.

Trust and electronic service quality

The spatial and temporal separation between online buyers and sellers leads to
asymmetry problems. A typical type of asymmetry is information asymmetry, which
refers to a situation where one party to a transaction has more or better information
than the other party (Akerlof, 1970). From the perspectives of buyers, two aspects of
asymmetric information are closely related to uncertainty and the risk of fraud in the
online transaction environment: one is the anonymous identities of the online sellers,
the other is incomplete or distorted information about the product (Pavlou et al., 2007).
Bradach and Eccles (1989) viewed trust as a control mechanism that facilitates
exchange relationships characterised by uncertainty, vulnerability and dependence.
Customers have limited information and cognitive resources available, and thus seek to
reduce the uncertainty and complexity of online transactions by applying mental
shortcuts (Grabner-Kraeuter, 2002). One effective mental shortcut is trust, which can
serve as a mechanism for reducing the complexity of human conduct in situations in
which people have to cope with uncertainty (Luhmann, 1989). Because of the limited
control over the vendor and the absence of proven guarantees that the vendor will not
OIR engage in undesirable opportunistic behaviour, trust is a critical aspect of online
33,4 shopping (Gefen, 2000; Reichheld and Schefter, 2000).
What, then, builds customer trust in the online vendor? Previous studies have
investigated the determinants of trust from three major perspectives: online vendor
characteristics, web site characteristics, customer characteristics and the
multidimensional nature of trust. The online vendor-related determinants of trust
764 include firm size and reputation, and offline presence (Bramall et al., 2004). Jarvenpaa
et al. (2000), for example, indicated that differences in size and reputation among
internet stores influence consumers’ trust in the stores. The web site-related
determinants of trust include privacy, security, navigation, presentation, order
fulfilment, etc. (Bart et al., 2005). McKnight et al. (2002) indicated that perceived web
site quality significantly influences consumer trust in the electronic vendor (e-vendor).
The customer-related determinants of trust include familiarity with the web site, online
savvy/expertise, online shopping experience, and entertainment or chatting experience
(Bart et al., 2005). Determinants in terms of the multidimensional nature of trust include
personality-based trust (propensity or disposition to trust), cognition-based trust (trust
derived through cognitive cues or first impressions), knowledge-based trust
(familiarity with other parties), institution-based trust (specifically, structural
assurance beliefs and situational normality beliefs) and calculative-based trust
(beliefs based on rationally derived costs and benefits) (McKnight et al., 1998). For
example, Gefen et al. (2003) showed that calculative-based trust, institution-based
structural assurances and institution-based situational normality affect trust in an
e-vendor.
Service quality is commonly defined as how well a delivered service level matches
customer expectations. The SERVQUAL instrument has been widely tested as a means
of measuring customer perceptions of service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1998).
SERVQUAL contains five dimensions: reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance
and tangibility. However, SERVQUAL does not embrace the unique facets of
e-commerce service quality, such as the interactions between customers and web sites,
since this instrument was developed to measure the quality of traditional customer
service, which focuses mainly on customer-to-employee interactions (Jun et al., 2004).
With a growing recognition that service quality in the e-commerce environment is
different from that in the brick-and-mortar environment, an increasing number of
studies have focused on e-service quality. Many different scales measuring e-service
quality have been developed. For example, Zeithaml et al. (2000) developed e-SQ to
measure e-service quality as an updated measure of SERVQUAL in the web setting.
Based on the explorative study by Zeithaml et al. (2000), Parasuraman et al. (2005)
applied a rigorous scale-development process to the e-SQ scale and developed an e-core
service quality scale (E-S-QUAL) and e-recovery service quality scale (E-RecS-QUAL).
The basic E-S-QUAL scale consists of four dimensions: efficiency, fulfilment, system
availability and privacy. The E-RecS-QUAL is a subscale for problem resolution and
consists of three dimensions: responsiveness, compensation and contact. According to
Bart et al. (2005), the dimensions of e-service quality can be considered as web
site-related determinants of trust. However, little research has been done to examine
the relative influence of the dimensions of e-service quality on trust in the online
vendor.
Research model and hypotheses Customer
Figure 1 presents the proposed model. The dependent variable – repurchase intention repurchase
– is posited as the primary construct to determine customers’ repurchase behaviour.
Repurchase intention refers to the subjective probability that an individual will intention
continue to purchase products from the online vendor or store in the future. The two
salient beliefs of the TAM are posited as the key drivers of repurchase intention
towards online shopping. The TAM initially focused on the adoption or use of a new IT 765
in the workplace. Therefore, the proposed model integrates additional variables that
are important for buyer-seller relationship maintainability, such as trust and the
dimensions of e-service quality. The practical utility of considering the TAM stems
from the fact that it contains variables that are critical to behavioural intention. Trust
is considered because of the uncertainty and information asymmetry of the online
shopping environment. Enjoyment is considered because not considering the hedonic
aspects of online shopping is a major omission (Bart et al., 2005). E-service quality is an
essential component of the customer-centric business strategy (Gurău, 2003) and
pivotal to e-commerce success (Parasuraman et al., 2005). The e-service quality scale of
Parasuraman et al. (2005) has seven dimensions. This study only adopted five of them,
since efficiency is analogous to perceived ease of use and very few customers have
experience of receiving compensation from an online store. All nine key variables of the
proposed model are defined and explained, and their relationship to repurchase
intention is proposed as follows.

Perceived ease of use

Perceived ease of use refers to the extent to which a consumer believes that online
shopping will be free of effort. The TAM implies that, all other things being equal, an
online shopping web site that is perceived to be easier to use is more likely to induce a
perception of usefulness. Davis et al. (1989) argued that improvements in ease of use may
also be instrumental in contributing to increased performance. To the extent that
increased ease of use leads to improved performance, ease of use would have a direct
effect on perceived usefulness and behavioural intention (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000).

Figure 1.
Research model
OIR Based on the expectancy-confirmation model of IS continuance (ECM-IS) (Bhattacherjee,
2001), perceived ease of use is also considered as a component of post-adoption
33,4 expectation and is expected to have a positive influence on repurchase intention. Prior
studies have provided evidence of the effect of perceived ease of use on perceived
usefulness in the context of online shopping (Devaraj et al., 2002; Gefen et al., 2003;
Pavlou, 2003). Support for the role of perceived ease of use in repurchase intention is
766 provided by Thong et al. (2006). Accordingly, the following hypotheses were proposed:
H1. Perceived ease of use is positively related to repurchase intention.
H2. Perceived ease of use is positively related to perceived usefulness.

Perceived usefulness
Perceived usefulness is defined as the extent to which a consumer believes that online
shopping will enhance his or her transaction performance. According to Davis et al.
(1989), individuals form behavioural intentions towards online shopping based largely
on a cognitive appraisal of how it will improve their shopping performance. According
to Bhattacherjee (2001), an individual is more likely to intend to undertake continued
usage when such usage is perceived to be useful. Customers who have accomplished
the shopping task of product acquisition in an efficient manner will be more likely to
exhibit stronger repurchase intentions (Babin and Babin, 2001). Prior research shows
that perceived usefulness has a significant effect on customer loyalty intention (Cyr
et al., 2006). Therefore:
H3. Perceived usefulness is positively related to repurchase intention.

Trust
In general, trust is viewed as a set of specific beliefs dealing primarily with the
benevolence, competence and integrity of another party. Benevolence is the belief that
the trustee will not act opportunistically against the trustor, even given the
opportunity. Competence is the belief in the trustee’s ability to fulfil its obligations as
expected by the trustor. Integrity is the belief that the trustee will be honest and will
honour its commitments. Following Pavlou and Fygenson (2006), trust is defined as the
buyer’s belief that the seller will behave benevolently, capably and ethically. According
to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), trust beliefs create favourable
feelings towards the online vendor that are likely to increase a customer’s intention to
purchase products from the vendor. A lack of trust prevents buyers from engaging in
online shopping because they are unlikely to transact with a vendor who fails to
convey a sense of trustworthiness, mainly because of fears of seller opportunism
(Hoffman et al., 1999). When consumers initially trust their online vendors and have a
perception that adopting online shopping is beneficial to shopping performance and
effectiveness, they will eventually come to believe that online shopping is useful (Gefen
et al., 2003). Indeed, prior research shows that trust plays a pivotal role in driving
perceived usefulness (Gefen et al., 2003; Pavlou, 2003) and customer repurchase
intention (Zboja and Voorhees, 2006). Therefore:
H4. Customer trust in the online vendor is positively related to repurchase
intention.
H5. Customer trust in the online vendor is positively related to perceived
usefulness.
Enjoyment Customer
Enjoyment is defined as the extent to which online shopping is perceived to be repurchase
personally enjoyable and fun. Enjoyment is an affective response and an intrinsic
motivation that refers to the performance of an activity for no apparent reinforcement intention
other than the process of performing it (Deci, 1975). According to self-determination
theory, customers are self-determining and intrinsically motivated in online shopping
when they are interested in it or enjoy doing it. Triandis (1980) argued that affect (e.g. 767
the feelings of joy, elation and pleasure) has an impact on an individual’s behaviour.
Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) suggested that positive consumption related to
emotions in a hedonic context is likely to lead to very high levels of commitment and
repurchase intention. Davis et al. (1989) suggested that perceived enjoyment has a
direct influence on behavioural intention. Support for the role of enjoyment in the
repurchase intention is provided by Koufaris (2002), Bart et al. (2005) and Cyr et al.
(2006). Therefore:
H6. Enjoyment is positively related to repurchase intention.

Fulfilment
Fulfilment refers to the extent to which the online vendor’s promises about order
delivery are fulfilled. Fulfilment is one of the most crucial factors related to judgements
concerning service quality in internet retailing (Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003). When a
customer enacts a transaction with an online vendor, a psychological contract is being
made with the customer that the vendor will keep its promises and fulfil its obligations.
A violation of this psychological contract results in mistrust (Robinson and Rousseau,
1994). A customer’s experience of fulfilled obligations or commitments is directly
related to the generation of trust in the online vendor (Saunders and Thornhill, 2003).
Support for the role of the fulfilment of trust is provided by Bart et al. (2005) and
Román (2007). Therefore:
H7. Fulfilment is positively related to customer trust in the online vendor.

Privacy
Privacy refers to the degree to which the online shopping web site is safe and protects
the customers’ information. Hoffman et al. (1999) suggested that the primary reason
why many people have yet to shop online or provide personal information to online
vendors is due to a lack of trust, which is manifested in their concern that online
vendors will sell their personal information to third parties without their knowledge or
permission. Consumers will hesitate to shop online if they do not feel assured that their
credit card information is secure and protected from potential hackers (Collier and
Bienstock, 2006). Prior research in the online shopping context indicates that
consumers’ perceptions of privacy have a significant and positive effect on their trust
in the online vendor (Bart et al., 2005; Liu et al., 2005; Román, 2007).
H8. Privacy is positively related to customer trust in the online vendor.

System availability
System availability refers to the correct technical functioning of the online shopping
web site. Collier and Bienstock (2006) argued that online vendors need to be mindful
that a web site that experiences problems, such as always being down and never
OIR working, thus preventing customers from shopping and purchasing products, is
33,4 equivalent to putting a “closed” sign on a brick-and-mortar store. A steady and reliable
web site generates an impression about the competence of the vendor and consequently
consumers tend to trust the vendor (Kim, 2005). Teo and Liu (2007) found that system
assurance had the strongest influence on consumer trust among all the antecedents of
trust. Support for the role of system availability in establishing trust is provided by
768 Kim (2005). Therefore:
H9. System availability is positively related to customer trust in the online vendor.

Responsiveness
Responsiveness refers to the effective handling of problems through the web site
(Parasuraman et al., 2005). According to Yang et al. (2004), responsiveness is the
foremost critical factor in determining e-service quality. When interacting with an
online vendor, it is critical that customers receive adequate and timely support in the
case of any questions or problems (Semeijn et al., 2005). According to Moorman et al.
(1993), timely communication fosters trust. A quick response to requests is likely to
diminish uncertainty, and is also an important way for online vendors to show that
they are customer-oriented and act benevolently towards customers (Gummerus et al.,
2004). Support for the role of responsiveness in the development of trust is provided by
Lee (2005). Accordingly, the following hypothesis was proposed:
H10. Responsiveness is positively related to customer trust in the online vendor.

Contact
Contact refers to the availability of assistance through telephone or online
representatives (Parasuraman et al., 2005). Providing numerous methods for
customers to contact the online vendor to obtain assistance is essential to improving
the quality of the vendor’s online service operation (Collier and Bienstock, 2006).
Customers will easily become frustrated if they have a question to resolve but cannot
contact the service representatives of the online store. Providing contact information is
one way to build customers’ trust in the web site (Drost, 2005). Therefore:
H11. Contact is positively related to customer trust in the online vendor.

Research methodology
Measurement development
Measurement items were adapted from the literature wherever possible. To discover
and eliminate potential problems in this study, a pilot test and pre-test of the
questionnaire were conducted by selecting individuals with online shopping
experience. A pilot test provides information on how long the data collection can be
expected to take and a preview of how difficult the items will be to complete (Quinones
et al., 1998). The pilot test was conducted using 20 graduate students to assess the
questionnaire’s logical consistencies, ease of understanding, sequence of items and
contextual relevance, and so to enable it to be refined. According to the pilot test
results, the longer the questionnaire, the more likely it is that the respondents will be
pressured to speed up the potential decline in the data quality. Therefore, we removed
some items from the repurchase intention, system availability, fulfilment, perceived
usefulness and perceived easy of use scales in order to shorten the questionnaire.
 The resulting questionnaire consisted of 38 items measuring the ten constructs. In Customer
addition, the comments collected from these graduate students also led to several repurchase
minor modifications of the wording, including the second (EN2) and third (EN3) items
of the enjoyment scale, the first (FU1) item of the fulfilment scale, the second (PEOU2) intention
and third (PEOU3) items of the perceived ease of use scale, and the second (RI2) and
third (RI3) items of the repurchase intention scale.
Finally, a large-scale pre-test of 157 customers of the target online shopping store 769
was also conducted to confirm the measurement properties of the final items and to
provide preliminary evidence for the proposed model. The results show that the factor
loadings ranged from 0.78 to 0.96, the composite reliabilities ranged from 0.89 to 0.96,
the correlation coefficients ranged from 0.39 to 0.79, the average variance extracted
(AVE) values ranged from 0.72 to 0.85, and that only two paths were not significant at
the 0.05 level of significance. The results indicate that no further modifications of the
questionnaire were needed and that it was appropriate for formal testing.
The items for measuring the perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness
(PU) were adapted from Davis (1989) and Gefen et al. (2003). Enjoyment was measured
by items adapted from Moon and Kim (2001). Items for measuring trust were based on
Gefen et al. (2003). Items for measuring the dimensions of e-service quality were based
on Parasuraman et al. (2005). Repurchase intention was adapted from Parasuraman
et al. (2005) and Pavlou and Fygenson (2006). (See the Appendix for questionnaire
items.) For all of the measures, a seven-point Likert scale was adopted with anchors
ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7).

Survey administration
The research model was tested with data from 360 PCHome online shopping customers.
PCHome was chosen because it is the most widely used online store in Taiwan. The data
for the study were collected via a web survey. A web-based questionnaire was used for
three reasons. First, it was possible to reach a large number of potential subjects and give
them instant access to the questionnaire, in turn, obtaining more representative results.
Second, it offered an economical, reliable method for gathering empirical data (Cooper
and Schindler, 2002). Third, a web survey is consistent within the context of this study,
which focuses on the usage of online shopping.
A banner with a hyperlink connected to our web survey was published on a number
of bulletin board systems (BBS), chat rooms and virtual communities, inviting
individuals with online shopping experience with PCHome to participate in the survey.
Fifty randomly selected respondents were offered an incentive in the form of US$10 in
cash. The first page of the questionnaire explained the purpose of this study and
guaranteed confidentiality. To validate the measures of contact and responsiveness,
we required the respondents to indicate whether they had experience of contacting
customer service representatives and returning products in the demographic
information page. The number of surveys completed was 1,754. Since very few
customers had experience of returning products, we dropped the items associated with
product returns in the responsiveness scale. The exclusion of questionnaires that
indicated no contact experience and invalid ones resulted in 360 valid questionnaires
for the data analysis.
Table I gives demographic information about the respondents. To give an
indication of the representativeness of our sample, we compared it with a nationwide
OIR
Measure Items Frequency Percentage
33,4
Gender Male 85 23.6
Gender Female 275 76.4
Age , 20 44 12.2
20-24 103 28.6
770 25-29 116 32.2
30 þ 97 27.0
Bought in the past six months 1-2 149 41.4
3-5 121 33.6
6-10 53 14.7
11 þ 37 10.3
Education Middle school 6 1.7
High school 63 17.5
College or university 237 65.8
Advanced degree 54 15.0
Internet experience (in years) ,5 53 14.7
5-6 65 18.0
7-8 92 25.6
Table I. 9þ 150 41.7
Demographic information
about the respondents Note: n ¼ 360

sample of online consumers. According to the Gender Digital Divide Report (Research,
Development and Evaluation Commission, 2008), the majority of online consumers in
Taiwan are female (52.5 per cent). However, the large majority of our sample was
female (76.4 per cent), indicating that the sample was unbalanced in terms of gender.
Two possible explanations for this situation are considered. First, we posted more
survey invitations in virtual communities in which there are more females. Second,
women would be more willing to fill out a questionnaire about shopping than men
(Farag et al., 2007). Accordingly, this must be kept in mind when interpreting the
empirical findings of our research.

Data analysis
Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data for three reasons.
First, according to the suggestions of Hair et al. (2006), SEM is a multivariate technique
that permits the simultaneous estimation of multiple equations. Second, SEM performs
factor analysis and regression analysis in one step, as SEM is used to test a structural
theory. Third, SEM has become a very popular technique in the social sciences based
on its main strengths. A structural equation modelling analysis was performed using
partial least squares (PLS; PLS-Graph 3.0). PLS places minimal restrictions on
measurement scales, sample size and residual distribution (Chin and Newsted, 1999).
PLS provides an analysis of both a measurement model and a structural model, and
allows latent constructs to be modelled as reflective or formative indicators. For the
model tested, all constructs were modelled as reflective.

Measurement model
The adequacy of the measurement model was evaluated on the criteria of reliability,
convergent validity and discriminant validity. Reliability was examined using the
composite reliability values. Table II shows that all the values were above 0.7, which is Customer
the commonly accepted level for explanatory research. Additionally, the convergent repurchase
validity of the scales was verified by using two criteria suggested by Fornell and
Larcker (1981): intention
(1) all indicator loadings should be significant and should exceed 0.7; and
(2) the average variance extracted (AVE) by each construct should exceed the
variance due to the measurement error for that construct (i.e. AVE should
771
exceed 0.50).

As shown in Table III, all items exhibited loading higher than 0.7 on their respective
construct, providing evidence of acceptable item convergence on the intended
constructs. The AVE ranged from 0.73 to 0.91 (see Table II). Hence, both conditions for
convergent validity were met.
Discriminant validity was assessed by examining the cross-loadings and the
relationship between the correlations among the constructs and the square root of the
AVEs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). An examination of the cross-factor loadings
(Table III) indicates good discriminant validity, because the loading of each
measurement item on its assigned latent variable was larger than its loading on any
other construct.
The other criterion is that the square root of the AVE from the construct should be
greater than the correlation shared between the construct and other constructs in the
model (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Table IV lists the correlations among the constructs,
with the square root of the AVE on the diagonal. All of the diagonal values exceed the
inter-construct correlations, indicating the satisfactory discriminant validity of all
constructs. Therefore, we conclude that the scales should have sufficient construct
validity.

Structural model
In PLS analysis, examining the structural paths and the R-square scores of the
endogenous variables assesses the explanatory power of a structural model. The
results of the structural path analysis are depicted in Figure 2 and summarised in
Table V. Ten of the 11 paths exhibited a P-value of less than 0.05, while the remaining
one was not significant at the 0.05 level of significance. Tests of significance for all

Constructs Items Composite reliability Mean (STD) AVE

Perceived ease of use (PEOU) 5 0.97 5.61 (1.16) 0.87

Perceived usefulness (PU) 5 0.96 5.27 (1.17) 0.81
Trust (TR) 6 0.96 4.98 (1.33) 0.81
Enjoyment (EN) 3 0.94 4.92 (1.21) 0.83
Fulfilment (FU) 4 0.92 5.18 (1.31) 0.73
Privacy (PR) 3 0.97 5.08 (1.26) 0.91
System availability (SA) 3 0.92 5.34 (1.31) 0.78
Responsiveness (RE) 3 0.95 4.90 (1.35) 0.85 Table II.
Contact (CO) 3 0.92 5.01 (1.40) 0.78 Descriptive statistics of
Repurchase intention (RI) 3 0.96 5.30 (1.29) 0.87 constructs
OIR
PEOU PU TR EN FU PR SA RE CO RI
33,4
PEOU1 0.94 0.66 0.61 0.56 0.64 0.62 0.69 0.58 0.54 0.67
PEOU2 0.96 0.67 0.62 0.59 0.63 0.64 0.70 0.60 0.54 0.68
PEOU3 0.88 0.67 0.64 0.60 0.59 0.61 0.65 0.58 0.49 0.68
PEOU4 0.95 0.65 0.58 0.58 0.61 0.63 0.68 0.57 0.54 0.66
772 PEOU5 0.94 0.66 0.65 0.64 0.63 0.67 0.67 0.62 0.54 0.71
PU1 0.63 0.89 0.56 0.62 0.55 0.51 0.62 0.49 0.46 0.61
PU2 0.62 0.91 0.59 0.64 0.54 0.49 0.60 0.49 0.41 0.61
PU3 0.59 0.91 0.56 0.64 0.52 0.48 0.58 0.45 0.42 0.61
PU4 0.66 0.91 0.60 0.64 0.56 0.49 0.61 0.47 0.44 0.65
PU5 0.69 0.89 0.67 0.69 0.61 0.51 0.64 0.53 0.46 0.73
TR1 0.58 0.57 0.90 0.65 0.70 0.62 0.56 0.66 0.60 0.68
TR2 0.53 0.52 0.87 0.62 0.64 0.63 0.54 0.70 0.63 0.56
TR3 0.57 0.57 0.92 0.68 0.66 0.64 0.55 0.68 0.62 0.67
TR4 0.62 0.60 0.92 0.63 0.71 0.65 0.59 0.71 0.64 0.66
TR5 0.62 0.64 0.93 0.70 0.69 0.64 0.60 0.69 0.57 0.75
TR6 0.67 0.69 0.87 0.64 0.72 0.61 0.63 0.61 0.59 0.75
EN1 0.49 0.55 0.65 0.85 0.54 0.54 0.51 0.58 0.57 0.56
EN2 0.60 0.68 0.63 0.93 0.55 0.53 0.54 0.57 0.51 0.65
EN3 0.64 0.71 0.70 0.95 0.60 0.58 0.60 0.61 0.55 0.71
FU1 0.61 0.55 0.65 0.52 0.88 0.60 0.65 0.63 0.55 0.57
FU2 0.57 0.54 0.61 0.54 0.84 0.62 0.59 0.61 0.54 0.53
FU3 0.51 0.47 0.54 0.45 0.83 0.55 0.58 0.57 0.47 0.54
FU4 0.57 0.54 0.77 0.58 0.86 0.66 0.61 0.72 0.58 0.66
PR1 0.68 0.56 0.69 0.60 0.70 0.96 0.66 0.65 0.59 0.62
PR2 0.61 0.50 0.67 0.57 0.66 0.96 0.59 0.60 0.55 0.59
PR3 0.65 0.52 0.63 0.55 0.67 0.94 0.66 0.62 0.57 0.60
SA1 0.68 0.59 0.51 0.49 0.62 0.54 0.86 0.58 0.51 0.56
SA2 0.69 0.63 0.59 0.57 0.64 0.63 0.93 0.61 0.50 0.64
SA3 0.56 0.58 0.60 0.55 0.63 0.60 0.87 0.63 0.47 0.63
RE1 0.57 0.50 0.69 0.60 0.68 0.61 0.63 0.92 0.58 0.59
RE2 0.56 0.48 0.66 0.56 0.67 0.61 0.63 0.92 0.64 0.55
RE3 0.61 0.52 0.71 0.62 0.72 0.60 0.64 0.93 0.61 0.66
CO1 0.45 0.38 0.57 0.52 0.53 0.54 0.44 0.59 0.89 0.40
CO2 0.54 0.46 0.58 0.49 0.56 0.48 0.54 0.54 0.85 0.44
Table III. CO3 0.51 0.44 0.64 0.57 0.58 0.57 0.50 0.63 0.92 0.50
PLS confirmatory factor RI1 0.73 0.68 0.71 0.66 0.67 0.60 0.68 0.62 0.47 0.95
analysis and RI2 0.61 0.66 0.73 0.68 0.58 0.60 0.60 0.61 0.44 0.90
cross-loadings RI3 0.70 0.65 0.67 0.63 0.65 0.58 0.65 0.59 0.49 0.94

paths were performed using the bootstrap resampling procedure. In addition, the
model accounted for 57 to 70 per cent of the variance (R-square scores). Overall, the
research model accounted for 70 per cent of the variance of repurchase intention
(Figure 2). Thus, the fit of the overall model is good.

Discussion and implications

This paper aims to shed light on the phenomenon of online shopping behaviour.
Drawing on the TAM, trust, enjoyment, e-service quality, management and marketing
literature, the study presented here theoretically developed and empirically tested a
 Customer
PEOU PU TR EN FU PR SA RE CO RI
repurchase
PEOU 0.93 intention
PU 0.71 0.90
TR 0.67 0.66 0.90
EN 0.64 0.72 0.73 0.86
FU 0.66 0.62 0.76 0.62 0.91 773
PR 0.68 0.55 0.70 0.60 0.71 0.95
SA 0.72 0.68 0.64 0.61 0.71 0.67 0.88
RE 0.63 0.54 0.75 0.64 0.75 0.66 0.69 0.92
CO 0.57 0.48 0.67 0.59 0.63 0.60 0.56 0.66 0.88
RI 0.73 0.72 0.76 0.71 0.68 0.63 0.69 0.65 0.50 0.93
Notes: PEOU ¼ perceived ease of use; PU ¼ perceived usefulness; TR ¼ trust; EN ¼ enjoyment; Table IV.
FU ¼ fulfilment; PR ¼ privacy; SA ¼ system availability; RE ¼ responsiveness; CO ¼ contact; AVE and correlation
RI ¼ repurchase intention among constructs

Figure 2.
SEM analysis of the
research model

model that explains and predicts customers’ repurchase intentions towards online
shopping.

Summary of the results

The results provide strong support for the proposed model of online shopping
repurchase intention. Trust, enjoyment, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
are significant determinants of repurchase intention. In addition, the salience of trust is
much stronger than the other three determinants of repurchase intention. This finding
supports the contention that trust is a key enabling factor for customer relationship
building and loyalty (Anderson and Weitz, 1989; Reichheld and Schefter, 2000). A
recent study by Flavián and Guinalı́u (2006) has also highlighted the important role of
trust in understanding web site loyalty. Indeed, the inclusion of the trust variable in
OIR
Hypotheses Results
33,4
H1. Perceived ease of use is positively related to Supported
customer repurchase intention
H2. Perceived ease of use is positively related to Supported
perceived usefulness
774 H3. Perceived usefulness is positively related to Supported
customer repurchase intention
H4. Trust in the online vendor is positively related to Supported
customer repurchase intention
H5. Trust in the online vendor is positively related to Supported
perceived usefulness
H6. Enjoyment is positively related to customer Supported
repurchase intention
H7. Fulfilment is positively related to customer trust in Supported
the online vendor
H8. Privacy is positively related to customer trust in the Supported
online vendor
H9. System availability is positively related to customer Not Supported
trust in the online vendor
H10. Responsiveness is positively related to customer Supported
Table V. trust in the online vendor
Results of the hypotheses H11. Contact is positively related to customer trust in the Supported
testing online vendor

any theoretical model to predict customer loyalty or repurchase intention is strongly

warranted.
The results indicate that while a customer’s belief about the usefulness of online
shopping is an important determinant of repurchase intention, the more immersive,
hedonic aspect of online shopping (i.e. enjoyment) plays at least an equal role. This finding
supports the contention that online customers are not purely utilitarian, valuing only
shopping efficiency. They also enjoy shopping online enough to encourage them to make
a repurchase from an online store (Ahn et al., 2007; Koufaris, 2002).
One interesting finding is that the effect of perceived ease of use on repurchase
intention is stronger than the effects of perceived usefulness and enjoyment. This
finding contradicts the results of prior IT adoption research that found that the effect of
perceived ease of use will reduce over time as users, through experience, become more
familiar with an IT (Karahanna et al., 1999). The strong influence of perceived ease of
use on repurchase intention may be due to the nature of the context under study
(Thong et al., 2006). The online store often makes significant changes to the design and
layout of its web site over a period of time, and thus customers must constantly expend
effort in order to get used to the web site’s changes. As web site design and layout are
important aspects of web site usability, which involves the ease with which the user
can learn to manage the system (Nielsen, 1993), it is plausible that perceived ease of use
could have a stronger effect on customers’ intentions to repurchase products through
the web site. In addition, the results are consistent with previous TAM-based studies
on customer loyalty in e-service and mobile commerce contexts (e.g. Cyr et al., 2006).
Perceived ease of use was found to have a significant effect on customers’ perception of
usefulness.
 Fulfilment, privacy, responsiveness and contact are significant determinants of Customer
customer trust in the online vendor. In addition, the influence of fulfilment was repurchase
stronger than other determinants of trust. This finding supports the contention that the
most important aspect of the service quality of the online shopping experience is the intention
delivery of the purchase (Collier and Bienstock, 2006).
A possible explanation for the insignificant effect of system availability on trust is
that the web site is always accessible and reliable. Customers are not really interested 775
in system availability, unless they run into problems when accessing the web site. If
the web site is always accessible and functioning well, then customers would not be
interested in the issue of system availability, and hence, whether they think positively
or negatively about it, this does not influence their level of trust.

Implications for theory

From a theoretical perspective, our findings imply that perceived usefulness and
perceived ease of use can be represented as post-consumption beliefs and that the TAM
is applicable for studying post-purchase phenomena, such as repurchase intentions
and loyalty. Our findings imply that perceptions of usefulness and ease of use in
themselves are not sufficient for increasing the customers’ repurchase intentions.
Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use can contribute to the customers’
repurchase intentions to some extent, but it is trust and enjoyment that lead to a higher
level of repurchase intention.
The strong impact of perceived ease of use on repurchase intention implies that
perceived ease of use may not remain as a secondary factor after perceived usefulness
when studying the repurchase intention of experienced repeat customers. Thong et al.
(2006) argued that the previous technology adoption literature implicitly assumed that
the IT under study does not change or evolve over time in terms of its features and
usage contexts. Web technology keeps evolving and changing over time and online
vendors also make changes to their web sites over a period of time; thus customers
need to adapt by learning the changes made to the web site. Even after the adoption of
online shopping, experienced repeat customers often have to keep up with the new
content, design and layout of the online shopping web site. In other words, online
customers may have to undergo a long and continuous learning process; thus
perceived ease of use can play an influential role in repurchase intention for an
extended time period (Thong et al., 2006).
Van der Heijden (2004) identified two types of information systems: hedonic and
utilitarian. Hedonic systems aim to provide self-fulfilling value for users, while
utilitarian systems aim to provide instrumental value for users. His findings suggest
that the nature of system use determines the relative importance of hedonic and
utilitarian motivators. The current study found that perceived usefulness and
enjoyment play nearly equal roles in predicting repurchase intention, suggesting that
the usage purposes of online shopping encompass not only task-related worth but also
entertainment and emotional worth, and that both types of worth (i.e. value) have equal
importance.
Our findings imply that, although obtaining shopping value is an important
purchase goal and is pivotal to experienced repeat customers’ repurchase intentions,
trust still plays an extremely influential role in repurchase intention in the uncertain
online shopping environment. Parasuraman et al. (2005) argued that e-service quality is
OIR essential for creating customer loyalty and managing customer repurchases. The
33,4 current study implies that the dimensions of e-service quality exert their influences on
repurchase intention indirectly through trust. In addition, the extent of explained
variance in trust (R2 ¼ 0.70) implies that the five dimensions of e-service quality are
possibly among the most important antecedents of customers’ trust in online vendors,
shedding light on the trust-building potential of the dimensions of e-service quality.
776
Implications for practice
Our finding is consistent with previous in-store research (e.g. Babin and Attaway, 2000;
Babin et al., 1994) that has shown that utilitarian and hedonic value dimensions play
nearly equal roles in predicting shopping outcomes, such as intentions. Given the current
study findings, online vendors should ensure that they provide adequate utilitarian and
hedonic value to customers instead of focusing on just one of these aspects in their web site
development. Online vendors should design their web sites to meet the customers’ needs
for increasing performance, effectiveness and productivity in searching and purchasing
goods, and also for having fun when interacting with the web site.
The results tentatively suggest that providing good service quality may result in an
increased sense that the online vendor is trying to build good buyer-seller relationships
and thus increase repurchase intentions through increased trust. Our results suggest
that fulfilment plays an extremely influential role in consumer trust. A customer who
has a bad experience with an order delivery will have a low level of trust in the online
vendor and is far more likely to switch to a different vendor for future transactions.
Therefore, online vendors should place special emphasis on three aspects of fulfilment:
the timeliness of the order, the accuracy of the order and the condition of the order
(Collier and Bienstock, 2006).
The strong effects of responsiveness and contact on trust imply that customers are
concerned with the online vendor’s ability to recover from a service failure. Online
vendors must be prepared to take proactive steps to prevent or minimise the distrust
that results from a service failure, because failure to do so will ultimately influence a
customer’s future purchase behaviour (Collier and Bienstock, 2006). Online vendors
must provide numerous methods by which customers can provide feedback and report
problems, they must respond to customers’ problems promptly, and follow up
customers’ feedback and problems fully to resolve the problems.
Our findings imply that customers’ privacy concerns play an important role in their
trust in the online vendor. To earn customers’ trust, the online store should protect the
customers’ shopping, personal and credit information. Online shopping web sites should
post a clearly stated privacy policy, which may reduce a customer’s perceptions of
privacy-related risks and increase the customer’s perceptions that the online vendor can
be trusted (Culnan and Armstrong, 1999). A privacy statement should specify not only
what the online store does with the customer data but also what it does not do (Pollach,
2007). To make customers perceive that the online store is making a credible commitment
to customer privacy, the online store can supplement its privacy policy with a privacy seal
(e.g. TRUSTe) or make its web site P3P-compliant (Turner and Dasgupta, 2003).

Limitations
We note that our findings must be interpreted in the light of the study’s limitations.
First, the data were collected from a single online shopping store (PChome Online).
There are other well-known online stores in Taiwan that use very similar principles Customer
and policies. The generalisation of the model and findings to other online stores repurchase
requires additional research.
Second, the results may have been influenced by self-selection bias. Our sample intention
comprised only active customers. Individuals who had already ceased to purchase
products from PChome Online might have had different perceptions about the
influence of the TAM variables, enjoyment, trust and the five dimensions of e-service 777
quality, and so could have been differently affected by them. Therefore, the results
should be interpreted as only explaining the repurchase intentions of current online
shopping customers. Whether the results can be generalised to non-customers or to
disaffected customers will require additional research.
Finally, as the data are cross-sectional and not longitudinal, the posited causal
relationships could only be inferred rather than proven.

Future research
This study confirms that online shopping involves hedonic as well as utilitarian values
(net benefits). Prior research classifies convenience, savings and product quality as
utilitarian values, and entertainment, exploration and self-expression as hedonic
values (Ailawadi et al., 2001; Chandon et al., 2000). Therefore, an interesting area for
future research would be to identify the various dimensions of hedonic and utilitarian
values, and to examine their relative importance in driving customers’ repurchase
intentions towards online shopping.
Another area in need of additional research concerns the influence of potential
moderating variables for online shopping behaviour. Potential moderators include
product type, product price, purchase involvement and culture. Research has shown
that the type of product (Chiang and Dholakia, 2003) and purchase involvement
(Pavlou et al., 2007) can influence online shopping behaviour, and future research
should incorporate such variables when examining trust, hedonic and utilitarian value,
and repurchase intention.

Conclusion
This study has proposed an extended TAM with the inclusion of variables associated
with uncertainty (i.e. trust), hedonic value (i.e. enjoyment) and e-service quality.
Empirical testing of the extended TAM found the model to be strongly supported, with
only one path not significant in the hypothesised directions. As a result, the extended
TAM contributes to a better understanding of the customers’ repurchase intentions. The
results suggest that the interaction among the online vendor, the customer, the web site
and the environment explains online shopping behaviour. Researchers therefore should
give careful consideration to the unique characteristics of online shopping when
investigating the customers’ post-consumption decision-making processes.

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Appendix. Questionnaire items

Perceived ease of use (PEOU)
PEOU1 Learning to operate the web site is easy.
PEOU2 The web site is flexible to interact with.
PEOU3 My interaction with the web site is clear and understandable.
PEOU4 It is easy to become skillful at using the web site.
PEOU5 The web site is easy to use.

Perceived usefulness (PU)

PU1 The web site improves my performance when searching for and purchasing goods.
PU2 The web site increases my productivity when searching for and purchasing goods.
PU3 The web site makes it easier to search for and purchase goods.
PU4 The web site enhances my effectiveness in goods searching and purchasing.
PU5 The web site is useful for searching for and buying goods.

Trust (TR)
TR1 Based on my experience with the online store in the past, I know it is honest.
TR2 Based on my experience with the online store in the past, I know it cares about its
customers.
TR3 Based on my experience with the online store in the past, I know it is not
opportunistic.
TR4 Based on my experience with the online store in the past, I know it keeps its
promises to its customers.
TR5 Based on my experience with the online store in the past, I know it is trustworthy.
 TR6 Based on my experience with the online store in the past, I know that the Customer
transactions will be successful.
repurchase
intention
Enjoyment (EN)
EN1 I have fun when interacting with the web site.
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EN2 Using the web site to purchase products provides me with a lot of enjoyment.
EN3 I think that purchasing products from the web site is interesting.

Fulfilment (FU)
FU1 The online store delivers orders when promised.
FU2 The online store quickly delivers what I order.
FU3 The online store sends out the items ordered.
FU4 The online store is truthful about its offerings.

Privacy (PR)
PR1 The online store protects information about my online shopping behaviour.
PR2 The online store does not share my personal information with other sites.
PR3 The online store protects the information about my credit card.

Service availability (SA)

SA1 The web site is always available for business.
SA2 The web site launches and runs straightaway.
SA3 The web site does not crash.

Responsiveness (RE)
RE1 The online store offers a meaningful guarantee.
RE2 The online store tells me what to do if my transaction is not processed.
RE3 The online store solves my problems promptly.

Contact (CO)
CO1 The web site provides a telephone number to contact the vendor.
CO2 The web site has customer service representatives available online.
CO3 The web site offers the ability to speak to a live person if there is a problem.
OIR Repurchase intention (RI)
33,4 RI1 If I could, I would like to continue using the web site to purchase products.
RI2 It is likely that I will continue to purchase products from the web site in the future.
RI3 I intend to continue purchasing products from the web site in the future.
784
About the authors
Chao-Min Chiu is a Professor in the Department of Information Management at the National
Central University, Taiwan (ROC). He holds a PhD in Management from Rutgers University. His
research interests include electronic commerce, virtual communities and knowledge
management. His research has appeared in Decision Support Systems, Information &
Management, Information Systems Journal, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,
Behaviour & Information Technology, Computers & Education, Information and Software
Technology, Information Systems Management, Information Technology and Management,
Journal of Information Science, and others.
Chen-Chi Chang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Management at
the Nanya Institute of Technology, Taiwan. He is also a PhD candidate in the Department of
Information Management at the National Central University, Taiwan. His research interests
include electronic commerce and knowledge management. His research has appeared in Online
Information Review, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, and others.
Hsiang-Lan Cheng is an Executive Secretary at the True Generation Hospital, Taiwan. She
received her MS in Nursing from Kaohsiung Medical University. Her research interests include
electronic commerce and nursing service quality. Hsiang-Lan Cheng is the corresponding author
and can be contacted at: purelady@ccms.nkfust.edu.tw
Yu-Hui Fang is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Information Management at
the National Central University, Taiwan. She received her MS in Accounting from the University
of Houston. She previously worked as a Financial Analyst and Accountant in the USA and
Taiwan. Her research interests include electronic commerce and knowledge management.

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