EXPRESS: The Perfect Storm: The Marketplace Conduction Model of Consumer Vulnerability (MCM-CV)

While consumer vulnerability can be a temporary or situational state, some consumers are more susceptible to enduring and recursive vulnerability occurrences. In this manuscript, the authors develop the Marketplace Conduction Model of Consumer Vulnerability (MCM-CV) to explain how vulnerability emerges, evolves, and persists across marketplace interactions. Drawing on the lived experiences of consumers with non-apparent (i.e., non-visible, invisible, or hidden) disabilities, the authors identify asymmetric disclosure requirements—the expectation that some consumers must reveal personal and often stigmatized information to obtain equitable access—as a distinctive vulnerability trigger within marketplace systems. The authors propose that responses to disclosure-triggered vulnerability shape both immediate and future marketplace experiences through recursive feedback processes operating across micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. By conceptualizing responses along a strengths- and deficit-based continuum, the model highlights how marketplace actors can reinforce vulnerability trajectories or facilitate more inclusive and equitable participation.