Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) second-hand e-commerce – online transactions conducted between consumers (Leonard, 2012) – has increased exponentially recently. For example, 69% of European Internet users purchased items through second-hand online marketplaces in 2019 (Eurostat, 2019). In addition to its economic relevance, buying second-hand products can help us achieve a more sustainable way of living by preserving natural resources (Edbring et al., 2016). Hence, research into topics such as competition in two-sided markets, consumer motivation, and consumer trust (e.g., Perren and Kozinets, 2018; Vila-Brunet and Llach, 2020; Yrjölä et al., 2021) has proliferated in recent years. However, this research stream has mainly focused on factors relevant to transactions; research on how customers experience the C2C second-hand online journey is missing.
Customer experience (CX) is generally defined as the customer’s spontaneous responses and reactions to offering-related stimuli throughout a customer journey (Becker and Jaakkola, 2020; de Keyser et al., 2020). Understanding the CX that emerges in C2C second-hand e-commerce is important because it extends attention from second-hand transactions to more holistic and multi-dimensional experiences that emerge throughout the entire customer journey. Furthermore, CX can influence customers’ attitudes and behaviors toward this more sustainable form of commerce. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to develop a conceptual framework for C2C e-commerce experience.
We adopt a conceptual approach to build a conceptual framework (cf. Jaakkola, 2020). We first delimited C2C second-hand e-commerce to online transactions of used products between consumers mediated by a platform. We then reviewed relevant articles from complementary research streams: C2C e-commerce, sharing economy, collaborative consumption, and circular economy. Next, we analyzed these articles through the CX lens. This resulted in a customer journey map that showed the most relevant stimuli to which customers respond, touchpoints, experiential responses, and individual and collective contextual factors that might influence these responses (cf. Becker and Jaakkola, 2020) throughout the customer journey. For example, we identified treasure hunting as affective experiential responses to finding items that are considered a treasure or a bargain, and urge to buy as a behavioral experiential response to the competitiveness with other customers in an online platform. While we cannot describe all the experiential responses here, we highlight the most important contributions to the literature.
We contribute to the CX literature by enriching understanding of the dynamic emergence of experiential responses. Our findings show that CX emerges as responses to the interaction between sellers, products, and platforms rather than to these elements separately. Furthermore, we show how CX evolves during the customer journey, from self-focused to other-focused experiential responses. We also contribute to the C2C e-commerce literature by going beyond motivations and transactions to mapping experiential responses throughout the whole customer journey. Finally, we identify understudied topics that allow us to build a research agenda. For example, research on touchpoints in the post-purchase of second-hand C2C e-commerce is almost non-existent. Overall, we aim to advance conceptual understanding and future studies in both domains: C2C e-commerce and CX literature.

The importance of temporal aspects in customer experience (CX) formation has been widely acknowledged in the past decades. Recently, its importance has been highlighted among service and marketing scholars. However, only a few studies have been devoted to analyzing and understanding temporal aspects of the CX. We therefore address the following research question: What are the essential contributions of the literature on CX temporality?
Therefore, the current study employs a systematic literature review using the TCCM framework. This review framework enables a rigorous review process and increases the breadth of the review by structuring, integrating, and relating the individual contributions through the lens of the dominant theories, context, characteristics, and methodology (TCCM).
We combine the qualitative review of 51 articles with a bibliometric analysis to uncover the evolution of the topic.
The bibliometric analysis revealed 2009, 2017 and 2020 being the most productive years so far. Moreover, Journal of Service Management and Journal of Service Research represent the most relevant journals, confirming the topic to be rooted in the service field with Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) as well as Payne, Storbacka and Frow (2008) being the most cited papers.
The TCCM framework analysis revealed the following: The few studies mentioning theories apply social theories (e.g., practice, structuration, assemblage theory) and psychological theories (e.g., flow, appraisal, uses and gratifications theory). What is missing in this regard, are theories, that explain how the structure of the journey is perceived by the customer (e.g., script, schema, or event segmentation theory) and link specific incidents in the customer journey to how they are experienced (e.g., affective events theory). Moreover, resource theories (e.g., conservation of resources theory) would contribute to better understand temporal dynamics of the CX from the perspective of time as a customer’s resource. With respect to context, studies consider experience varying in scope with a focus on service, customer, or brand experience tied to the customer journey or the relationship, in few studies, taking a wider scope. However, the referenced time frame (e.g., touchpoint, overall experience) for CX remains mostly ambiguous. We identified three groups of characteristics: variables related to the (1) temporal structure of the CX (e.g., encounters/touchpoints, episodes, phases), (2) temporal dynamics (e.g., tempo, rhythm), and (3) customers’ individual factors affecting the perception of time in the CX (e.g., time orientation, time sensitiveness). Regarding methods, most studies reviewed use a conceptual approach, reflecting the consolidation phase of the research field, aiming to compile a pivotal conceptual understanding of time and timing of the CX. Empirical studies are balanced between qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative methods (e.g., critical, or sequential incident technique) are used to gain an understanding of the phenomenon of CX temporality as a whole; quantitative methods (e.g., CFA, SEM) are used to explore single temporal aspects. From a methodological viewpoint, with a few exceptions, intensive longitudinal methods to cover individual subjective aspects over time are scant.
Thus, the TCCM framework guides in selecting potential theories and methods to investigate characteristics of the CX contextually.

Customer experience (CX) is increasingly present in B2B organizational strategies, as firms recognize that this concept offers new possibilities to differentiate themselves from their competition and achieve customer loyalty. Driven by the goal of providing great customer experiences, some firms have established CX management (CXM) functions and appointed dedicated CX managers. However, without more detailed knowledge about CXM, its full potential may remain unfulfilled.

CXM has often been approached in overly firm-centric ways that suggest CX can be engineered as a market offering. In this study, CX is understood as customers’ subjective, spontaneous, and multidimensional responses to their interactions with social and environmental stimuli. While firms cannot directly deliver experiences, they can affect CXs by monitoring, designing, and managing a range of stimuli at and across different touchpoints that constitute the customer journey.

This working paper investigates B2B service firms’ efforts to influence and strategically manage business customer experiences. More specifically, the aim of this paper is to explore different approaches to differentiation through CXM.

This study is based on 40 in-depth interviews with CX managers representing different B2B service industries. The study followed an abductive grounded theory approach to data analysis. The first stage of analysis consisted of identifying CXM activities in B2B, which revealed that the activities are part of two distinct processes. The second stage of analysis focused on tracing the sequences of activities to identify the stages of these processes.

The findings reveal two modes of CXM: a more reactive approach based on continuous CX improvement, and a proactive approach driven by an insight-based CX vision. The approaches differ in the ways they utilize CX insight.

In the first model, firms evaluate the present state of CX for different customer groups at different levels – from usage experiences to decision-maker experiences, using this information to identify pain-points where these experiences can be improved. This initiates a continuous improvement cycle, aimed at competing with better CX. Firms that follow this model are differentiating by developing capabilities to initiate and prioritize new development projects, adapt and re-design touchpoints and redirect journeys based on the continuous flow of CX insight. Overall, this approach emphasizes ad-hoc improvement of identified pain-points along the customer journey and the ability to manage unexpected occurrences at touchpoints.

The second model, which is much rarer and more proactive, involves using CX insight to discover strategic opportunities: things that the firm does especially well and the kinds of CX their customers value. This insight results in defining the desirable CX beyond "industry’s best", towards a vision that includes target experiences. This model involves (re)designing the range of internal and external touchpoints with the strategic goal of creating differentiating target experiences. In this model, competitive advantage is gained through meaningful experiences that are in line with a firm’s value proposition.

The initial findings suggest that the two models can co-exist, reinforcing and supporting one another. There are also some indications that the second model represents a further stage of maturity in CXM practice.

The purpose of this research is to explore social touchpoints and shared customer experiences from the customer-centric perspective. With these premises in mind, the study distinguishes and characterizes customer-to-customer (C2C) experience as a complementary approach to existing customer experience. Building on the extant C2C literature within marketing, but also the salient experience literature within the cultural research and social sciences, this paper integrates experience perspectives of marketing and cultural studies. The research distinguishes between individual and shared experiences and thus advances the conceptual understanding of the social dimension of customer experience exemplified in the context of the arts.

This conceptual research describes characteristics of shared C2C experiences that have received considerably less attention in earlier customer experience research, in terms of two dimension: social and collective experience. The research answers the question of how social touchpoints, and thus, influence of others affects the focal customer experience. The research also argues that there are shortcomings in both mainstream service and cultural research, as they emphasize the individuals and individual experiences based on the service encounter and a provider-centric perspective. In response, the paper reveals experiences in the customers’ world and highlights the importance of participatory culture and social touchpoints in shared art experiences.

The paper contributes to the customer experience research by highlighting the social mechanisms of customer experience. It also provides a foundation for developing the conceptual and empirical understanding of shared C2C experiences. Managerially the research highlights the need to expand the scope of services to the C2C context and customers’ lifeworld. The research also highlights the importance of understanding the art experiences for both the arts and culture context as well as the service sector more generally.

Since marketing scholars have encouraged researchers to further examine the customer context and C2C touchpoints within the customer domain, this paper responds to the many calls and turns the attention toward shared C2C experiences as an emergent research topic. The paper shifts the focus of customer experience as an existential-phenomenological phenomenon to a social phenomenon.

Keywords: Customer experience, C2C, shared experience, collective experience, social experience, customer-centricity