The influence of e-service quality and e-satisfaction on repurchase intention: Mediating role of e-trust

This study aims to determine the role of e-trust in moderating the effect of e-service quality and e-satisfaction on the repurchase intention of Tokopedia's female consumers. This study uses a positive approach and partial least square analysis technique on samples of Tokopedia’s female customers, who have purchased fashion products within the past three months. The sampling method used in this study is purposive sampling, with a total of 100 respondents. First, we find that there is a positive influence of e-service quality on e-trust, e-satisfaction on e-trust and e-trust onrepurchase intention. Second, the mediating role of e-trust has proven statistically significant in predicting the influences of e-service quality and e-satisfactio n on repurchase intentions of Tokopedia’s female cunsumers. The limitations of this research is the relatively small sample size and the data are collected from a single online shopping store. Conclusions from this study may not generalize well to the entire online shopping. Our findings imply that the consumer’s e -trust is possibly as antecedent of female cunsumers repurchase intention in online vendors.


Introduction
E-commerce websites are changing the way customers buy products or services.Customers start buying products or services from e-commerce websites instead of going to a physical store.The ability to purchase goods and services online has existed for two decades but has recently become more popular with the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019  pandemic.The steady growth of online shopping has been accelerated by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic (Young et al., 2022).The Covid-19 pandemic has also accelerated the growth of the e-commerce industry in Indonesia and increased public consumption on digital platforms (Djumena, 2021).People are starting to use e-commerce platforms out of necessity (Desfika, 2021).Referring to the results of Market Research conducted by Evermos and the Soka Institute, it is known that Food and Beverage, Household Appliances, and Women's Fashion were the categories with the highest product purchases during the Covid-19 pandemic, furthermore fashion products is still one of the dominant categories in online sales (Halidi, 2021).Among the largest online shopping platforms in Indonesia, Tokopedia is increasingly being relied on by various groups.As many as 71% choose Tokopedia, 53% use other online platforms and 16% people choose to shop offline, based on LPEM FEB UI research (Astutik, 2021).More and more women are interested in shopping online during the Covid-19 pandemic.In fact, the percentage of consumers who shop online is now dominated by women compared to men.In 2019 consumers who shop online are dominated by men with a percentage of 54% and 47% consumers.This composition began to change since the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020.The proportion of male consumers who shop online fell to 51%.Conversely, women rose to 49% (Prasasti, 2022).
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed online shopping behaviors and that e-commerce companies need to fully understand consumer behavior patterns to maintain a competitive advantage.E-commerce companies should create superior customer value and finding ways to strengthen their relations with customers while also amusing them (Sahin, 2012), Lee et al. (2019) and Islam and Rahman (2016) found a positive effect between customer engagement and repurchase intention.Repurchase intention has become one of the critical issues for online business partly because customers can easily switch from one online store to another and partly because they can easily compare similar items across different online stores (Lu et al., 2013).Therefore, it is important for e-commerce businesses to maintain customer loyalty to make repeat purchases online (Chauke and Dhurup, 2017).Repeated purchases increase profitability and will produce loyal customers (Wu et al. 2014).Customer's repurchasing or loyalty is critical to the success and profitability of online stores (Chiu et al, 2009).As for success of any business in general and e-commerce, setting factors that influence repurchase intention has been of great importance and high relevance to businesses, and is a hot issue in both the IT and marketing areas (Wen et al, 2011).The purpose of this study is to focus on Tokopedia's female consumers of fashion products and aim to examine the mediate role of e-trust in the context of repurchase intention: e-service quality and e-satisfaction.

Repurchase Intention (RPI)
In this study repurchase intention examined as the endogenous variable, based on the theory of reasoned action.The theory of reasoned action proposes that behaviors can be predicted from intentions that correspond directly to that behaviour (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980).Intention is considered the best factor before the behavior and is appropriate for evaluating consumers (Alvarez et al, 2022).Repurchase intention is a form of customer retention in online context (Khalifa and Liu, 2007), and is the subjective probability that an individual will continue to purchase products from the online vendor or store in the future (Chiu et al, 2009).A consumers tendency to back to a website and consider purchasing products or services from the same online website or app and his/her commitment to purchasing more in the future (Lim et al, 2019).Repurchase intention are influenced by the initial use/purchase experience (Wen et al, 2011).To measure repurchase intentions 5 items each are used and adopted from Aren et al (2013).

E-Service Quality (ESQ) and consumer e-trust
E-Service Quality is the ability of a website to facilitate, efficiently and effective shopping, purchasing, thus delivery (Zeithaml et al, 2000).E-service quality also can be defined as overall customer evaluations and judgments regarding the excellence and quality of e-service delivery in the virtual marketplace (Santos, 2003).Several criteria that customers use in evaluating Web sites in general and service quality delivery through Web sites.These include (1) information availability and content, (2) ease of use or usability, (3) privacy/security, (4) graphic style, and (5) fulfillment (Zeithaml et al, 2002).A web site with good electronic service quality is a key to success in e-commerce, along with good system quality and information quality (Sharma and Lijuan, 2015).Achieving a high level of customer satisfaction requires good service, which often leads to favorable behavioral intentions (Brady and Cronin, 2001).Chang et al. (2013) stated that trust is the most important factor to attract e-commerce buyers.Rasheed and Abadi (2014) found that trust was an antecedent of service quality.Therefore, to examine the influence of the e-services quality on consumer e-trust, therefore we propose that: H 1 : e-service quality is positively influence consumer e-trust

E-Satisfaction (EST) and Consumer e-Trust
Satisfaction is defined as customer overall feelings of pleasure resulting from perceived outcomes in relation to expectations and desires (Kotler and Keller, 2021).According to Hansemark and Albinson (2004), satisfaction is the fulfillment of requirements, goals, or desires and this can be reflected by the overall customer attitude towards e-commerce retailers, or an emotional interaction with respect of between what online customers expect and what they really obtain.Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) defined customer satisfaction as the customers evaluation of a product or service in terms of whether that product or service has met their needs and expectations Researchers have concluded that four main elements mostly influence customer satisfaction in the online shopping environment; these are (1) website design, (2) delivery and refund service, (3) detailing extent with respect to product information provided, and (4) the product variety (Nisar and Prabhakar, 2017).Kim et al. (2009) previous studies have found e-trust to be a strong predictor of e-satisfaction, and consumers will be satisfied if the website has given them reasons for trust, and there's positive and significant relationships between e-satisfaction and e-trust (Al-dweeri et al, 2017).To examine the influence of the esatisfaction on consumer e-trust, therefore we propose that: H 2 : EWOM berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap keputusan pembelian.

E-Trust (ETR) and Consumer Repurchase Intention
E-trust determine in an e-retailer as customers willingness to accept vulnerability in an online transaction based on their positive expectations regarding future behavior (Kimery and McCord, 2002).Referring Pavlou and Fygenson (2006), trust is defined as the buyer's belief that the seller will behave benevolently, capably, and ethically.Trust can trigger increased purchasing to the extent that it reduces the complexity and perceived risks of purchasing (Gefen, 2000), is central to any commercial transaction over the Internet.Trust is a critical antecedent of building relationships between buyer and seller trust increases the probability of repurchase (Ruimei et al, 2012).Trust is a major factor for customers to decide whether to buy products from online stores or not (Fortes et al., 2017).Oliveira et al. (2017) measured three dimensions of customer trust (Competence, integrity, and benevolence) and found that customers with high overall trust demonstrated a higher intention to e-commerce.Referring to the extant literature customer etrust has direct and indirect impacts on repurchase intention.Kim et al., (2009) stated e-trust precedes online purchase intention.If customers have a high level of trust toward the website, it is more likely for them to have intention to purchase (Gao, 2011).E-trust is the basis of longterm relationship between customers and companies and a higher level of trust will increase consumers online repurchase decision (Bulut, 2015).Based on this evidence, we propose that: H3: e-trust is positively influence consumer repurchase intention.

E-Service, E-Satisfaction, and E-trust
Chek and Ho (2016) found evidence of a positive relationship between service, trust, and purchase intention.Based on this evidence, we assume that e-satisfaction has an indirect influence on repurchase intention through e-trust, therefore we propose that: H3a: e-service quality is positively influence repurchase intention through consumer e-trust.
H3b: e-satisfaction quality is positively influence repurchase intention through consumer e-trust.

Method
Quantitative method was adopted to test the scale, research model, and hypotheses using WarpPLS 8.0, including: testing scale reliability, testing the validity and consistency of the scale, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for testing the hypothesis.
Four concepts were considered including repurchase intention measured by 5 items adopted from Aren et.al (2013); e-service quality measured by 5 items adopted from Zeithaml et al (2002); e-satisfaction measured by 4 items adopted from Nisar and Prabhakar ( 2017) and e-trust measured by 3 items adopted from Oliveira et al. (2017).The five-point Likert scale was used for all variables, with 1 denoting totally disagreeing, and 5 denoting totally agreeing.
The sampling frame and subjects were Tokopedia's female consumers that have been shopping fashion products.The samples were collected using a purposive sampling method.Data were collected using two methods: (1) A survey questionnaire was designed on Google Form and sent to subjects through online tools such as social networking including forums and WhatsApp.(2) questionnaires were distributed directly to respondents.

Measurement model
The adequacy of the measurement model was evaluated on the criteria of reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity.In a reflective measurement scale, their outer loadings, composite reliability, AVE and its square root should be examined and reported (Wong, 2013).
Indicator reliability is square of the outer loadings, value 0.70 or higher is preferred.If it is an exploratory research, 0.4 or higher is acceptable (Hulland, 1999).Reliability was examined using composite reliability (CR) values.which is the commonly accepted level for explanatory research.Composite reliability should be 0.7 or higher.If it is an exploratory research, 0.6 or higher is acceptable.(Bagozzi and Yi, 1988).The convergent validity of the scales was verified by using the average variance extracted (AVE) by each construct should exceed the variance due to the measurement error for that construct.It should be 0.5 or higher (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988).1. Results summary for reflective outer models, indicating the satisfactory all indicators reliability.We conclude that outer model should have sufficient reliability.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) suggest that the "square root" of AVE of each latent variable should be greater than the correlations among the latent variables.2 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.

The structural model path analysis
The Structural Equation Modeling path analysis results are shown in Figure 1 and the hypothesis testing results are summarized in Table 3. E-service quality is positively influence consumer etrust (H1), e-satisfaction is positively influence consumer e-trust (H2) and e-trust is positively influence consumer repurchase intention (H3), are statistically significant with a reliability of 95%, so that hypotheses in the model are supported.Results also validated the indirect influences of e-trust on repurchase intention.We observed the roles of e-trust for mediating eservice quality and e-satisfaction with repurchase intentions.Our analysis shows that customer e-trust positively mediates the influences of e-service quality and e-satisfaction with repurchase intentions.Source: Data processed with WarpPLS E-service quality (ESQ) has a positive impact on e-trust (ETR).This shows that Tokopedia provides services that can increase consumer confidence.Consumers are confident that Tokopedia can be reliable in meeting their service demands.e-satisfaction (EST) positively affects e-trust (ETR).e-satisfaction is an evaluation after the transaction, related to how well the provider of products and services in meeting consumer expectations.Tokopedia can meet consumers expectations so that consumers' confidence in Tokopedia increases.e-trust (ETR) has a positive influence on repurchase intention (RPI).Consumer confidence in Tokopedia increases consumer desire to make purchases again in the future.e-trust (ETR) formed due to servers and ability to meet consumer expectations, which indirectly can stimulate consumer desire to do more shopping at Tokopedia.

Conclusions
First, we find that there is a positive influence of e-service quality on e-trust, e-satisfaction on e-trust and e-trust onrepurchase intention.Second, the mediating role of e-trust has proven statistically significant in predicting the influences of e-service quality and e-satisfaction on repurchase intentions of Tokopedia's female cunsumers.
The limitations of this research is the relatively small sample size and the data are collected from a single online shopping store.Conclusions from this study may not generalize well to the entire online shoppinge.The generalization of the model and findings to other online stores requires additional research.Our findings imply that the consumer's e-trust is possibly as antecedent of female cunsumers repurchase intention in online vendors.
Online repurchase intention is currently a critical research topic because most of the online population has online shopping experience.This study not only contributes to future theoretical research, but also guides practitioners in the development of their e-commerce models.Through empirical study, the research results can help e-commerce companies or online vendors to fully understand the crucial factors that determine the customer's repurchase intention behavior, which will allow them to improve their managerial and IT strategies, and increase profits.

Table 1 .
Results Summary for Reflective Outer Models Figure 1.The Structural Equation Modeling Result Tabel 3. Direct and Indirect Effect on The Path Coefficient