Research On The Effects Of The Seller's Social Class Signals On Buyers' Online Purchase Intention Of Second-hand Products

As an important part of the sharing economy,the transaction of second-hand products plays a decisive role in building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society.However,from the perspective of industry development,there are problems such as insufficient users growth in second-hand products transactions and low penetration among online shopping user groups.Due to the low barriers for users to enter and exit the market in the second-hand products trading platform,increasing consumer purchase intention is of great significance for building seller confidence,improving commodity conversion rates and maintaining platform ecology.The previous research on consumers' online purchase intention of second-hand products can be divided into three aspects.One is to start with product attributes and explore the influence of factors such as price discounts of products and time sensitivity of products;the other is to start with platform attributes,explore the impact of factors such as product reviews and seller reputation score;the third is to start with consumer characteristics,focus on consumer attitudes toward second-hand products transactions and picture group psychological differences.Although this study starts with product attributes,it explores the social attributes of products.From the perspective of consumption stratification,the class of the seller generally determines theproducts that he can have.From the perspective of social class signals,these material conditions can be used as a signal to judge the sellers' class for consumers.Therefore,the products displayed by the seller in the second-hand products trading platform are not only product information,but also a kind of sellers' social class siganls.Based on these two theories and combined with stereotype theory,this thesis explores the influence of seller's social class signal on consumers' purchase intention of second-hand products.The results show that consumers can perceive the sellers' social class signs by observing the sellers' second-hand products.Regardless of the level of the consumer's own social class,they are more inclined to choose sellers with a higher social class signals.When the target product's involvement is lower,perceived quality and cognitive trust play a mediating role between the seller's social class signals and consumers' online purchase intention.When the target product's involvement is higher,only cognitive trust plays a mediating role between the seller's social class signals and the consumer's online purchase intention of second-hand products.Although consumers have different emotional with different signals of the seller's social class,this difference does not have a significant impact on consumer purchase intention.This thesis enriches the research on second-hand products purchase intention,introduces the concept of social class signals in social class psychology to the context of second-hand products transactions,and discusses the role of stereotypes in the context of online shopping.At the same time,it also provides a reference for sellers participating in the transaction of second-hand products to enhance competitiveness.