Digital Consumer Vulnerability: A New Theoretical Framework Through a Systematic Literature Review

This paper aims to analyze the literature on consumer vulnerability in the digital market to shed light on emerging factors that activate e-vulnerability and its consequences, to help interpret consumer reactions to forms of unfair e-commercial practices, and to identify future research avenues. Given the gaps and the generality of the literature on the topic, to achieve our objectives, we carried out a systematic literature review; using Scopus and Web of Science for our analysis, we selected 40 sample articles. This study revealed that e-vulnerability is a dynamic, relational, and architectural process based on data and a multidimensional model. The analysis identifies three interconnected digital triggers (personal, external, and behavioral factors) and four digital consequences (technological, relational, personal, and based on the market). Moreover, a theoretical framework for digital consumer vulnerability is proposed. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a new theoretical framework for understanding digital consumer vulnerability. The focus on the digital context allows specific triggers and consequences of consumer vulnerability to be drawn out in e-platforms.