The effect of online shopping channel on consumers’ responses and the moderating role of website familiarity

Electronic commerce platforms provide various shopping channels for consumers. This study investigated the impact of two types of shopping channels (i.e., self-run and third-party channels on the same e-commerce platform) on consumers’ responses and the moderating role of website familiarity. Behavioral and event-related potential approaches were employed. The results indicated that consumers developed higher purchase intention for the self-run (vs. third-party) channel because the former channel triggered higher perceived product quality and perceived service quality (study 1). Moreover, when consumers were not familiar with the platform, the shopping channel did not affect the purchase rate; whereas when consumers were familiar with the platform, the self-run channel evoked a higher purchase rate than the third-party channel (study 2). The neural results revealed a similar pattern: the self-run and thirty-party channels did not differ in late positive potentials (LPP) amplitudes when consumers were unfamiliar with the platform. However, the self-run channel led to a larger LPP amplitude than the third-party channel when consumers were familiar with it (study 2). Our findings have significant implications for e-commerce platform operators, manufacturers, and independent sellers.