confidence and acquiescence, two phases for successful e-commerce

confidence and acquiescence are essential ingredients for successful business relationships in business-to-consumer electronic commerce. yet there is little research on confidence and acquiescence in e-commerce that takes a longitudinal approach. drawing on three primary bodies of literature, the theory of reasoned action, the extended valence framework, and expectation-confirmation theory, this study synthesizes a model of consumer confidence and acquiescence in the context of e-commerce. the model considers not only how consumers formulate their prepurchase decisions, but also how they form their long-term relationships with the same website vendor by comparing their prepurchase expectations to their actual purchase outcome. the results indicate that confidence directly and indirectly affects a consumer's purchase decision in combination with perceived risk and perceived benefit, and also that confidence has a longer term impact on consumer e-loyalty through acquiescence. thus, this study extends our understanding of consumer internet transaction behavior as a three-fold (prepurchase, purchase, and postpurchase) process, and it recognizes the crucial, multiple roles that confidence plays in this process. implications for theory and practice as well as limitations and future directions are discussed.