How do bidders’ organism reactions mediate auction stimuli and bidder loyalty in online auctions? The case of Taobao in China

Currently, it is critical to nurture bidder loyalty in the highly competitive online auction business. This study investigated the mediating effect of consumer perceptions between technological/brand stimuli and bidder loyalty to an online auction website by applying the traditional and evolutionary stimulus–organism–response models. We tested these models using 449 bidders from Taobao, an online auction service provider in China. Based on the results of covariance-based structural equation modelling, we showed that consumer perceptions fully mediate technological stimuli, but only partially mediate brand stimuli, and bidder loyalty. These results can be used to further improve the related research and practice.