More than Shared Ethnicity: Shared Identity’s Role in Transnational Newcomers’ Trust in Local Consumer-to-Consumer E-commerce

Transnational newcomers, i.e., foreign-born populations who move to a new country, rely on consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce (C2C e-commerce) to access local resources for adaptation. However, with low trust among transnational newcomers who enter a new country, they often face difficulties in the adaptation process, and little is known about which determinants affect their trust in C2C e-commerce. Because social identity is often complicated in transnational newcomers’ adaptation process, our work focuses on unpacking shared identity, a key trust antecedent in C2C e-commerce. We interviewed 12 transnational newcomers in the United States to identify the determinants of their shared identity in C2C e-commerce. Our preliminary results suggest that shared identity determinants include geographic proximity, ethnic background, life stage, and socio-economic status. We also uncovered ways that shared identity determinants influence transnational newcomers’ trust in local C2C e-commerce. Our work contributes two research implications to future studies on transnational newcomers’ technology use.