User Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction in the App Sharing Economy: An Investigation Into Two-sided Mobile Fashion Reselling and Swapping Markets

There are a growing number of two-sided platforms providing innovative approaches to consuming fashion by means of sharing. However, the high failure rate of these entrepreneurial endeavours suggests that better knowledge of the barriers faced by these platforms is paramount. This chapter proposes a study of user satisfaction and dissatisfaction with mobile reselling and swapping platforms, which are conceptualized as being part of the sharing economy. By adopting the SERVQUAL measurement and extending it to mobile word-of-mouth user evaluations in app stores, this chapter identifies “app design”, “product portfolio”, “reliability”, and “structure” to constitute the key factors, which might promote or prevent interested users from adopting these new practices. By means of adopting content analysis on textual app reviews from the US iTunes app store, this chapter expands our understanding of the possibilities and pitfalls of working with this new form of naturally occurring data.