<![CDATA[Customer-based brand equity theory treats a strong brand image as a dependable driver of loyalty, and marketplace platforms invest accordingly. This study tests that premise where its assumptions may not hold: Indonesian e-commerce, where consumers hold several marketplace applications at once and reallocate each transaction at near-zero switching cost. Survey data were collected from 96 Shopee-using students of the Faculty of Economics, Universitas Asahan, North Sumatra, sampled accidentally, with size set by the Lemeshow formula for an unknown population. Ordinary least squares regression of summed five-point Likert scales showed that brand image, trust, and customer satisfaction jointly explained a large share of loyalty variance, F(3, 92) = 44.436, p < .001, R² = .592, adjusted R² = .578. Satisfaction dominated (b = 0.599, β = .576, t = 7.061, p < .001) and trust contributed modestly (b = 0.168, β = .199, t = 2.436, p = .017), but brand image was not significant (b = 0.118, β = .120, t = 1.512, p = .134) despite a substantial zero-order correlation with loyalty; its unique contribution was 1.0% of variance. The null is theorised as a boundary condition on customer-based brand equity: where symbolic associations converge across competing platforms, they shape the consideration set rather than choice within it, and experiential constructs absorb their explanatory weight. Marginal investment in fulfilment reliability and price-promise accuracy should therefore outperform investment in brand salience.]]>
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