Customer gratitude is a new construct that has been found to play an important role in buyer-seller relationships. Recent studies on relationship marketing have investigated customer gratitude, but none of the extant literature has examined customer gratitude in an online shopping context. The purpose of this study is to investigate the antecedents and consequences of customer gratitude in the context of online shopping. Based on the social exchange theory's reciprocity norm, our theoretical framework considers customer loyalty as a consequence of consumer gratitude. We also consider relationship benefits to be an antecedent of customer gratitude. More importantly, we incorporate customer loyalty into attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, which are measured via customer survey data and purchase record data, respectively. Using data gathered from members of an online shopping platform, the results of this research show that, among the three types of relational benefits (i.e., confidence, social benefits, and special treatment), social benefits have the largest impact on customer gratitude. The analysis further shows that the personality trait of gratitude moderates the path between confidence benefits and customer gratitude.
