The Model for Consumer Trust in C2C Online Auction

Trust is a vital factor in many social interactions. In e-commerce environment, the characters like uncertainty, anonymity, lack of control and potential opportunism are more remarkable than in conventional environment, so trust is to be one of the most important factors to facilitate the e-commerce acceptance. Most researchers have focused on the trust in B2C settings, however the trust in C2C settings is different. There are alternate trust objects for the trustor in C2C online auction market such as eBay and Taobao in China. This paper presents a trust model for both types of consumer (act as a seller and buyer) in C2C settings after conceptualizing the trust definition through literature review. For different trust objects, their antecedents are distinct. And the model treats their antecedents as causality, mediator and moderator respectively but not including trust consequents