Who Is to Blame? How Fulfillment and Integrity Harms Relate to Trust in Sellers and Platforms

This study examines how different types of experienced harm influence trust in sellers and platforms in secondhand, platform-mediated markets. Drawing on attribution theory, we distinguish between fulfillment harm and integrity harm and investigate how these two forms of harm differentially affect seller trust and platform trust. Using data from the Consumer Market Evaluation Index on secondhand marketplaces, we find that both fulfillment and integrity harm are negatively associated with seller trust and platform trust compared to no-harm experiences. When both types of harm occur together, trust deterioration becomes more pronounced. Importantly, fulfillment harm is primarily associated with lower seller trust, whereas integrity harm is more strongly related to platform trust. These findings indicate that trust redistribution depends on attributional evaluations regarding causal locus and controllability. This study contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating how attribution processes allocate trust among multiple market actors and by revealing how different types of failures are attributed to these market actors. Moreover, the findings provide practical guidance for platform governance and seller behavior by highlighting the importance of targeted safeguards in sustaining trust in platform-mediated marketplaces.