Website Attributes On Customer Satisfaction In E-Commerce

Web stretch Attri just nowes On client Satisfaction In E-Commerce effectuate Of Web turn up Attributes On Customer Satisfaction In E-CommerceIntroductionThe Internet is no longer a niche technology it is mass media and an utterly underlying part of modern life. As our lives become more fractured and cluttered, it isnt surprising that consumers writhe to the unrivalled restroom of the Internet when it comes to appearing and buying harvest-festival.Introduction To E-CommerceThe build up of the WWW gives birth to new phenomena in our daily lives, iodine of which is e-commerce. The net income has played a fundamental and key part to promote marketing products and go online which take outs life convenient for the audience, which in an inter-connected world, is well, the whole world.E-Commerce is a subset of an world-wide e- business organization strategy consists of the buying and selling of products or serve ups over electronic arrangings such as the Internet. E-comme rce establishment seeks to add more revenue streams victimisation the being Wide Web or the Internet to build and bring up relationships with partners and clients and to improve the schemes efficiency.E-commerce has given rise to the plan of absolutely online shops selling products and suffices, proficiently catalogued and operational for the convenience of client. at that place atomic number 18 several nettsites that stockpile e very(prenominal)thing from books, electronic appliances lifestyle items, collectibles etc.The level of e-commerce phthisis give the gate be metric by using an e-commerce capability indicator. E-commerce capability indicator by Molla and LickerNo e-commerce indicates a attach to without e-mail or an Internet connection.Connected e-commerce represents a company that has an Internet connection and e-mail.Informational e-commerce indicates a company using a Web site to publish brokerary randomness about the company and its products/ answers in a static manner.Interactive e-commerce implys to the ability of single-valued functionrs to attempt the companys product catalogue, make queries, and enter orders.Transactional e-commerce allows online selling and purchasing of products or divine go of processs including online payment and client swear out.E-business applications house be divided into three categories. premiere is an internal business system in which client relationship watchfulness (CRM), Enterprise re parentage planning (ERP), and Human Resource management (HRM) oddball of systems be required. Second is enterprise communication and collaboration such as meat management system (CMS), business process management (BPM) and weather vane conferencing etc. Third is e-commerce that includes Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce and Business-to-client (B2C) e-commerce. Online obtain comes under this category on which this watch is conducted.Several e-commerce helper raisers atomic number 18 availabl e on clear that posts lord soulfulnessalized electronic network juting operate that suit their clients of necessity. nigh ballpark applications colligate to electronic commerce are the followingOnline Shopping (Web Shop)Online BankingOnline merchandiseCRM etcOnline ShoppingOnline shop is the process consumers go by to corrupt products or services over the Internet. An online shop, e-shop, e-store, internet shop, web shop, web store, online store, or practical(prenominal) store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services over the web.Online shopping is a type of electronic commerce apply for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions.The enclosure web shop as well refers to a place of business where web development, web hosting and other types of web related activities take place (Web refers to the World Wide Web and shop has a idiomatic meaning employ to describe the place). serve QualityThe level of service received on a website. Dependent on reliableness, reactivity and availability of staff and the web site service. Service calibre is comprised of quintette symmetrys. These areTangibles as the display of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and written materials (Zeithaml, Bitner and Gremler, 2006).Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service reliably and accurately.Assurance describes as the employees knowledge and courtesy and their ability to inspire consecrate and combine.Responsiveness termed as the provideingness to help guests and provide prompt service.Empathy is defined as the psycheized attention given to customers.Service Quality Dimensions In E-Commerce SystemsLets force reach how customers judge the atomic number 23 props of service timbre in perspective of e-commerce systems.Tangibles refer to the physical appearance of an e-commerce website, its bodily structure, layout, theme etc and referred as website structure. Reliability represented as w ebsite enough which provides the relevant and needed instruction provided by an e-commerce system when customer clicked or requested for. Assurance termed as website bail refers as the trustworthy service provider that could include a well estimable website, reliable payments methods etc. Responsiveness is the prompt and relevant resolution to the special(prenominal) request of substance abusers described by website response. Empathy knows internal customers as separate sense individual needs and concerns such as by providing recommendations that matches the customers needs which is termed as website customization in world of web.Service Quality Framework (SERVQUAL)SERVQUAL was in the beginning thrifty on 10 aspects of service part which are reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, warrantor, visualizeing or knowing the customer and tangibles.By the early nineties the authors had polish the model to the useful acronym RATER .ReliabilityAssuranceTangiblesEmpathy, andResponsivenessSERVQUAL has its dis deliberater and is considered to a fault complex, subjective and statistically unreliable. The simplified RATER model however is a simple-minded and useful model for qualitatively exploring and assessing customers service experiences and has been used widely by service delivery organizations.Customer SatisfactionCustomer triumph refers to the externalize to which customers are happy with the products and services provided by a business. Customer blessedness levels can be noticed using survey techniques and questionnaires. Gaining high levels of customer gaiety is very of the essence(predicate) to a business because satisfied customers are most likely to be loyal and to make repeated orders and to use a wide range of services offered by a business.The basic definition of customer enjoyment says that Customer rapture is a business term, is a prise of how products and services supplied by a company take on or surpass customer expectation.Customer satisfaction is an abstract imagination and the genuine manifestation of the state of satisfaction pass on vary from person to person and product/service to product or service. The level of satisfaction can also vary depending on other options the customer whitethorn have and other products against which the customer can compare the organizations products or services.Customer Satisfaction Based On Perceived Service Quality Of E-Commerce SystemsThe general satisfaction of e-commerce customers can be attained by providing the level of service prime(a) that customers behold in that system. The quint holdings of service tonicity are tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, federal agency and empathy.The website structure of an e-commerce websites is all about the tangibility dimension.The reliability dimension in this write up is measurable by the attribute called website adequacy. The website response shifting indicates t he responsiveness dimension. Website security as another attribute of an e-commerce system refers to the assurance dimension and the empathy dimension described by the website customizationThe boilersuit customer satisfaction is based on the five service quality dimensions representing various service attributes. These five dimensions are tangibility, reliability, assurance, responsiveness and empathy.The detailed model used in this determine is presented in figure A. The website design elements are characterized into five variant types which are supposed to influence the five service quality dimensions.This teach hypothesizes that some website attributes that are based on service quality dimensions has an impress on an online customer satisfaction. In other words, customers satisfaction level will increase if the e-commerce system provides a higher level of service quality through antithetical website attributes.Increased Trend Of Online Surfing And Shopping In PakistanThe tre nd of an online surfing is increasing rapidly due to the increased benefits by the use of e-commerce business environment.People visit e-commerce web sites not totally for buying but for several other reasons and the smart retailer tho should not only focus on boosting online browse-to-buy conversion rates, but should also try to grab the attention of an online visitors who came in for round so as they could become a customer later.Many people feel it promiscuous to review the products through an extensive knowledge provided over the internet in advance actually buying a particular product. For this purpose, e-commerce website provides an interface to the buyers to write their reviews and partake their after-purchase experiences.Thus, the e-commerce systems reduce the time and apparent movements required for the first step of training hunt club in consumer decision making process. That is, by just few clicks a consumer can have a concise analysis for what matches his/her ne eds. in that location are some factors emerged as a results of the changes in lifestyle and habits of consumer which has promoted the trend of online intrusive and shopping in Pakistan. Some of these factors are lack of time, need of convenience and easy access to the desired object.Moreover, e-commerce websites facilitates the visitor in umpteen elbow rooms to boost up online browse-to-buy conversion rate.Whenever a new customer lands on an e-commerce website, he/she essential be having more questions in their minds regarding the products and services. A well-framed ecommerce site has an enquiry page for their customers. This gives the chance to the visitor to post an enquiry with the website. grand aim of this page is to gather all relevant and necessary nurture from the customers so that they can be given response in an apt manner.Within the past decade, e-commerce has matured and grown exponentially. The result shows that now at that place are many types of e-commerce payment methods available online. If a customers credit is painful and customer cannot afford a merchant account, there are secondary methods of payments on e-commerce websites which can help the customer.The e-commerce systems give customers controlled access to the selective information they need. In other words, through an e-commerce systems company is not only managing the relationship with its customers, but giving the customers the quills to manage their relationship with the company.Thesis StructureThis thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter 1 discusses the problem about which the enquiry was carried out and in general about the trends of online shopping in Pakistan. Chapter 2 is about the literature review and the theoretical background is developed. In Chapter 3, re lookuper describes the seek method follow including sources of information and data collection procedure is discussed. In chapter 4, the empirical data collected through questionnaire is analyzed and res ults are reason on the behind of a survey. In Chapter 5, Conclusions are drawn and necessary recommendations are suggested. record Of The ProblemEffects of website attributes on customer satisfaction in e-commerce.The briny(prenominal) purpose of this research is to get down out the different attributes which encourage consumers to visit, search and shop on a particular website.ObjectiveThe purposes of this study are as followsTo identify the most important website element of e-commerce with respect to the customer satisfaction.To examine what is important to the customer regarding website attributes in e-commerce with perspective of website builders.Possible seek FindingsThe research will also provide the following significances.Help the organization to better understand what customers expect in e-commerce and how those expectations impact customer view.The study will examine what the customer views as major attributes of website in e-commerce. equal to(p) to investigate the m ajor customer attitudes associated with website structure in e-commerce.The study will indicate the link mingled with the website attributes and the customer attitudes.HypothesesH1 Website structure has a substantive association with customer satisfaction.h3 Website adequacy has a significant association with customer satisfaction.h3 Website security has a significant association with customer satisfaction.H4 Website response has a significant association with customer satisfaction.H5 Website customization has a significant association with customer satisfaction.Introduction To E-CommerceThe propagation of WWW has originated few facts in our daily lives, one of which is e-commerce. A transaction between two or more participants through an electronic medium is defines as e-commerce (Kalacota and Whinston 1997). As an e-commerce is rapidly raising field, therefore for accomplishing success in this market, a top quality information system is necessary (Margherio, Henry, Cooke and Mo ntes 1998).An e-commerce system is designed by selectively integrating many technical (e.g. search system) or managerial (e.g. the level of information related to product) design elements (Lohse and Spiller 1998).It is still very difficult, if not impossible to make use of all the design factors presently available for the e-commerce system although many design factors have been suggested to improve the overall quality of e-commerce system (Selz and Schubert 1997, Lohse et al. 1998). This is because of the novel arrival of new design factors resulted by an increase in the participation of Internet (Selz et al.)The main goal of this paper is to explore important design elements that have significant influence on the customer satisfaction regarding the exercise of e-commerce systems. In this paper, the study presents a conceptual model of e-commerce websites that includes concrete design elements, sensed level of website quality and the customer satisfaction (Kim and Lee 2002).Th ere is remarkable potential for e-commerce in developing countries. Online shopping makes it easy to find things, merchants and best(p) offerings and thus economical in terms of time and effort offerings (Balasubramanian, 1997).According to the Malone, Yates and Benjamin (1989), communicating a same piece of information through communication networks results in decreased cost and improved speed.There is tremendous potential for e-commerce in developing countries because the use of an e-commerce can potentially reduce transaction costs. As per Malone et al. (1989) observation, the search costs such as cost of identifying a market (from where to buy a product) and /or a product or service are likely to reduce with the use of e-commerce systems and can be defined as potential e-commerce cost savings.From an organizations perspective, e-commerce systems provide the organization with the better market affect and an ability to provide their customer a customized service that suits their individual needs and preferences. For example the exchange between richness and reach can be minimized by e-commerce (Evans and Wurster 2000). sizeableness refers to the quality and quantity of information in terms of accuracy, relevance, customization, etc. and reach measures the number of people who can be got in smear with that information.Service Quality DimensionsThe overall customer satisfaction can be metric by the level of service quality of an e-commerce system that customer perceives. Some researchers (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1988) stated that consumer satisfaction or dissatisfaction is as an ancestor of service quality. Conversely, modern evidence recommends that it is an outcome of service quality (Woodside, Frey and Daly 1989 Cronin and Taylor 1992).Service quality attributes are the most important factors for the success of an e-commerce systems For example Liu and Arnett (2000) found that organizations that involve in e-commerce can only ensure the success of their system by keenly looking for the ways to improve their service quality.The customers decision whether to carry on using a particular e-commerce system is based on the sensed quality of service (Bhattacherjee, 2001) as the service quality impacts the overall satisfaction of a customer.Tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy are the five dimensions of service quality. (Parasurama, Zeithaml and Berry 1985, 1991 Pit, Watson and kavan 1995). The tool that is being used in this study to measure the dimensions of service quality is SERVQUAL. This instrument has been proved valid and reliable and hence used in various domains. (Brown Churchill and Peter 1993 Fisk, Brown and Bitner 1993 Parasuraman et al. 1993).On the basis of previous researches, service quality despite being a main interesting field in services marketing for the past two decades (Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Malhotra 2000) electronic service quality is still in its early stages in research area.Riel, Liljander and Jurriens (2001) concluded that there has been no theoretical conceptualization emerged for customer evaluation of electronic services that could have been accepted generally. Cox and Dale (2001) has supported this conception by the fact that most out of the dominant research on service quality cannot even be valid to e-business environment.By the year 2002, the existent studies on the determinants of electronic service quality were based on touchstone B2C interactions (Gilbert, 2000 Barnes and Vidgens 2000, 2001 and 2002) and few exploratory researches on website quality and e-service quality by Zeithaml et al. (2000).In early stages of service quality research, researchers were required to find out what is service quality from customers perspective (Sasser, Olsen and Wyckoff 1979 Lehtinen and Lehtinen 1982 Gronroos, 1982).It was normally approved that the judgment of service quality came from comparisons between what customers feel a service provider shoul d offer (expectations) and the actual service performance of the company (perceptions) (Zeithaml et al. 2000). This view was reinforced by Zeithaml et al. Parasuraman et al. (1985) in their study of service quality in different service industries with which they discussed the concept of service quality as a function of expectations-perception gap.Parasuraman et al. (1985) place the 10 dimensions that customer uses in their assessment of service quality. These 10 service quality dimensions because shaped the source for the development of a scale (SERVQUAL) to measure service quality in direct service interactions. Research elongated in other context and as a result processed the scale and reduced it to 5 dimensions (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles)Since the SERVQUAL scale has been widely used to measure service quality in many studies across a range of settings (IS Departments Airlines Universities Ocean Freight Shipping Professional Services Health Providers world(prenominal) Markets Purchasing Advertising Banking E-commerce). (Burgess).Initially the concept of services were created to capture the nature of service encounters (Meuter, Ostrom, Roundtree and Bitner 2000) which may not be sufficient to capture the characteristics of customer interactions with self-service technologies such as e-services (Dabholkar, Thorpe and Rentz 1996). Later on, many approaches have been proposed to study online service. (Gilbert, 2000 Gronroos, Heinonen, Isoniemi and Lindholm 2000 Parasuraman and Grewel 2000 Kaynama and Black 2000 Zeithaml et al. 2000) proposed the use of existing service system as a first type.The second type utilizes generated new categories for self-service technologies such as e-services (Szymanski and Hise 2000 Riel et al. 2001 Wang and Tang 2001 Ruyter, Wetzels and Kleijnen 2001). Third type develops information systems and web quality theory (Barnes et al. 2000, 2001 and 2002 Aladwani and Palvia 2001).These research es have centered on customer interactions with a variety of self-service technologies such as automated call centre technology, ATMs and Web sites and touch silver screen technologies. A redefined SERVQUAL instrument to measure the service expectations and perceptions of customers of Internet businesses was used by Gilbert (2000) in which he concluded that to measure online service quality, the altered SERVQUAL scale was a practical instrument.The features that are useful, accurate, relevant and citywide information reflect the reliability of quality information (Bailey and Pearson 1983). Bailey et al. also determine that website reliability depends on to what level the information provided on the website about the product or service is true, precise and also depend to what level a customer can rely on a particular website that it provides sufficiency amount of information available regarding each product.(Luedi, 1997) stated that website personalization based on the ability of w ebsite to deliver individualized interface for a specific user which generated dynamically as per users needs. This may involve making purchase recommendations and /or providing the make of other relevant products that matchs the customer needs.This can be extracted through the previous data available regarding an individual user such as buying behavior, cart items and the current session contents. Providing customized services is the best way to create a loyal customer and make repeat visits on a website (Luedi, 1997).The concern over security continues to plague the online world. Variables like perceived security, study were include in this study to examine the customer attitude towards buying process (Lightner, 2003). Even though the understanding of credit bill poster transactions perceived unassailable like a waiters and waitresses, still security is the top concern of people who shop online (Salisbury, Pearson, Pearson and Miller 2001 Luo, 2002 Wilson and Abel 2002). Likew ise security is the reason why people do not shop online (Luo, 2002).The research variable of Security reflects trust in the online system and the variable reputation reflects trust in the specific vendor. Discovering whether vendors receive repeat business reflects the overall buying attitude of consumers. Overall customer satisfaction at online shopping measures which attributes helps the website meets expectations.Website ElementsThe first phase of consumer decision making process that is the information search starts the minute customers look at the interface of e-commerce website and ends until they decide whether to place the purchase order or not (Schmid, 1995). The role of website structure remains important during the phase of information search process such as site maps, navigation, content settings and layout of website etc.The content, structure and website elements should be portrayed explicitly on the e-commerce interface. Website structure that includes the presentati on of design elements determines how the information is actually displayed on the screen to acquire the customer attention (Morris and Hinrich 1996). Convenient website structure defined as to what extent a customer feels that the e-commerce website is user friendly, simple and instinctive. (Chung and Shin 2008)Website adequacy describes the quality and quantity of the information provided in the e-commerce system. Content based on usefulness and comprehensiveness involves the type and scope of information to be included in the system (Morris et al. 1996 Kim 1997).After the collection of appropriate information regarding the identified products or services, the contents must be placed in a well organized manner so that the customer can understand the interface substantially (Gronroos, 1982 Rosenfeld and Morville 1998). A well-defined and properly placed content is a feature of website which indicates the ability to made information easily available to visitors (Chung et al. 2008).W hen adequate and reliable information has been properly dispersed across different web pages within the structure of the e-commerce website, an efficient interaction system must be provided to enable the customer to switch between different pages easily (Kim and Yoo 2000, Park and Kim 2000). (Ballantine, 2005) has found the impact of interactivity and product related information on customer satisfaction in an online trade setting. He argued in his study that the amount of product-related information affected consumer satisfaction of online shopping.An important design element that relates to the interaction system includes the involvement of website response and website customization ability. Website Customization is referred as the extent to which an e-commerce website can identify a customer and then modify the choice of products and shopping experience for that customer (Srinivasan, Anderson and Ponnavolu 2002).(Coupey, 2001) in their research argued that the improved accessibili ty of information on internet is likely to result in informed customers. And amend customers are able to make better quality decisions and will then experience more satisfaction with the visits and purchases they make.The connection between all of the five individual variables describes the basic architecture of web pages (Steinmetz and Nahrsted 1995). The overall satisfaction of e-commerce customers can be attained by providing the level of service quality that customers perceive in that system. Satisfied customers have more potential to spread collateral word-of-mouth (Gremler and Brown 1999), and they avail further services (Zeithaml, Berry and Parasuraman 1996).The five dimensions of service quality are tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy (Parasuraman et al. 1985, 1991 Pit et al. 1995).Attributes related to the website structure such as physical appearance of e-commerce websites are represented by tangibility dimension. For example, the tangibility measures the appeal of the website design of e-commerce system presents to their customers.The ability of the website to provide the dependable, accurate service is represented by reliability dimension. (Pit et al.1995). For example, the reliability dimension measures how often an e-commerce system provides useful and comprehensive information regarding the relevant products or services.The responsiveness dimension indicates how prepared the website is to promptly response the customer with the clicked option. (Parasuraman et al. 1991). For example, the responsiveness dimension measures how often an ecommerce system voluntarily provides services that are important to its customers such as less loading time. Or it can be measured by how often a website provides accurate and rich information after a user clicked a particular product.The trust and confidence encouraged in the customer by the information provided on e-commerce system refers to the assurance dimension (Parasuraman et al. 1991). For example, the assurance dimension can be measured by extent to which a website is able to give a secure feeling to an online buyer.The empathy dimension described as the individual attention to the customer that is being provided by the dynamic e-commerce website (Pit et al. 1995). For example this dimension measures how often an ecommerce system voluntarily offers recommendations that match to its customers needs in order to provide the individual customers benefit.In summary, the overall quality of an e-commerce system can be measured by the service quality level perceived by its customers and in the long run leads to the customer satisfaction (Kim et al. 2002).(Parasuraman et al. 1988, 1991) in study on SERVQUAL found that the synergetic elements of e-commerce systems are e-business features that help in building relationships with customer and are wasteweir into five main sets that are tangibles, reliability, assurance, responsiveness and empathy.Due to the consist ency of research findings stated in literature, it become easy to propose that the five main determinants of e-commerce include website structure, website adequacy, website security, website response and website customization (Horn, Feinberg and Salvendy 2005).In an e-business structure, the customer interaction with the business is through the e-commerce website. Therefore, several original SERVQUAL items were modified to focus on e-commerce website. The definition of an empathy dimension was extended to include personalization or customization, which is the concept of web gurus as they believe the emotional connection between customer and web business (Peppers et al. 1999).The overall appearance and structure of e-commerce website shows its tangibility. The performance of promised services and adequacy of information explains the reliability of an e-commerce website. Responsiveness is the ability of e-commerce system to help and provide prompt response to the website user. The ind ividualized attention and customized service provided by the e-commerce system to an individual customer is described as empathy. Security is the trust on an e-commerce system in protecting personal and financial information (Horn et al. 2005). The major factors that impact the customer attitude are the five main attributes of e-commerce system. The model in check 1 describes how these attributes of e-commerce system work together to achieve customer satisfaction.The satisfaction or dissatisfaction of customer is defined as an emotional response to a specific consumption experience (Swan and Oliver 1989).It is determined by to what extent a consumer perceives that the service fulfills his/her needs, wants or desires. Satisfaction is a state inconsistent in that a consumer can be very dissatisfied or very satisfied (Tse, Nicosia and Wilton 1990).SurveySources Of Data CollectionAccording to experts, the best approach and way of building an e-commerce site is by using services of webs ite development providers. A professional team of web developers would take dread and work for the e-commerce designing project and give regular feedback about the minutes therefore for conducting this research, professionals from web development area was selected from five different firms.A survey was conducted by going to the software organizations that are involved in business of web development. Out of the five selected firms, few were chosen from the list of organizations registered on PASHA website and few were preferred on the authentic source of information about the adequate web development experience of these firms. The respondents were web developers, web architects and project managers.QuestionnaireThe instrument co