Moderating effects of online shopping experience on customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions

Purpose – Satisfaction and experience are essential ingredients for successful customer retention. This study aims to verify the moderating effect of experience on two types of relationships: the relationship of certain antecedents with satisfaction, and the relationship of satisfaction with intention to repurchase. Design/methodology/approach – This paper applies structural equation modelling (SEM) and multi-group analysis to examine the moderating role of experience in a conceptual model estimating the intention to repurchase. Responses from 393 people were used to examine the differences between high- and low-experienced users of online shopping. Findings – The research shows that experience has moderating effects on the relationships between performance expectancy and satisfaction and satisfaction and intention to repurchase. This study empirically demonstrates that prior customer experience strengthens the relationship between performance expectancy and satisfaction, while it weakens the relationship of satisfaction with intention to repurchase. Practical implications – Practitioners should differentiate the way they treat their customers based on their level of experience. Specifically, the empirical research demonstrates that the expected performance of the online shopping experience (performance expectancy) affects satisfaction only on high-experienced customers. Instead, the effort needed to use online shopping (effort expectancy) and the user's belief in own abilities to use online shopping (self-efficacy) influence satisfaction only on low-experienced customers. The effect of trust and satisfaction is significant on online shopping behaviour on both high- and low-experienced customers. Originality/value – This paper investigates how different levels of experience affect customers' satisfaction and online shopping behaviour. It is proved that experience moderates the effect of performance expectancy on satisfaction and the effect of satisfaction on intention to repurchase. It also demonstrates that certain effects (effort expectancy and performance expectancy) are valid for only one of the two examined groups, while only one effect (trust) is valid for both (high- and low-experienced).