بررسی رفتار مشتریان آنلاین: یک نگرش خدمت محور

Retailers’ websites are an important interface between retailers and their customers. The various features and elements that retailers include on their websites play a critical role in attracting customers and ensuring their satisfaction with the online shopping process. By conducting a three-phased study, we identify how the elements of a website shape customers’ salient beliefs. These salient beliefs, in turn, determine the level of customers’ satisfaction with the website. This study provides both theoretical insights into the beliefs of online shoppers and practical insights for retail website operators. Specifically, we argue that when retail websites are constructed to include several specific elements that appeal to the key salient beliefs of information quality, service quality, and system quality, retailers will increase customers’ satisfaction with the online shopping process.

Products and services are increasingly being marketed online. Designing effective websites that include advanced information technology is vital to the success of many retailing ventures (Pavlou & Fygenson, 2006). Effectively designed websites enable retailers to cultivate better relationships with their customers – and also to initiate relationships with potential customers (Kumar & Benbasat, 2006). Websites have become a highly valuable channel for retailers, one that enables them to sell products and services to customers, as well as to interact and communicate with those customers during each phase of the sales process (Song & Zahedi, 2005). The importance of websites is particularly important as the world transitions to a more service-oriented economy (Rai & Sambamurthy, 2006) where the Internet can be used as a channel to provide both services and product-service bundles to customers. Poorly designed websites, inadequate information provided by retailers, and fears of inadequate security of personal information are but a few reasons why some retail websites have yet to fulfill their potential (Song & Zahedi, 2005). In light of the importance of retail websites, and in light of the numerous failures that have taken place, there is a critical need to examine how to improve customers’ satisfaction with the online shopping experience. Helping online customers assimilate information and effectively utilize the available technologies are only partial answers. Researchers must also help practitioners understand how customers’ beliefs and attitudes impact the shopping experience. An understanding of these beliefs and attitudes has the potential to help retailers increase the stickiness of their websites and also to help increase customers’ willingness to purchase products from them. Therefore, we investigate the following two research questions. First, “What are the salient beliefs of customers that determine their level of satisfaction?” A related second question is, “How do the different design elements and technological features of websites influence customers’ salient beliefs?” As we address these research questions, we endeavor to make three contributions. First, we examine the salient beliefs of customers in online environments to provide the IS research community with an empirically supported understanding of what belief constructs influence satisfaction and should therefore be considered in e-commerce research. Second, we review and identify important elements of retailers’ websites that influence customers’ salient beliefs. Our identification provides a comprehensive and sophisticated way to understand what information should be included on retailers’ websites. Third and finally, our results explain how retailers should design or redesign their websites. Our theoretically grounded approach and our empirical results provide a foundation that suggests additional research projects as well as guidelines for practitioners. The paper proceeds as follows. In the next section, we present the theoretical background for our study, explain our research model, and develop our hypotheses. As we develop our hypotheses, we argue that various elements of websites impact customers’ salient beliefs, and then that that these salient beliefs influence customer satisfaction. The proposed hypotheses are then tested using survey data collected during a three-phase study. Data is analyzed using structural equation modeling and we find strong support for our model. Finally, we discuss the findings and their implications for research and practice.

In e-commerce, websites play a critical role in attracting and maintaining potential customers. Websites are important channels of communication between customers and sellers. At present, there is lack of certainty about the roles that the elements of retail websites play in improving customers’ satisfaction. This deficiency was the motivation for this study. To address it, we started with the goal of investigating research questions about which web elements reinforce customers’ salient beliefs, what beliefs are most important in buying products from online stores, and how elements and beliefs lead to customers’ attitudes. The first contribution of this study is to explain the effects of web elements on customers’ beliefs. To accomplish this, we identified important Web elements. Websites have become an increasingly important interface between many companies and their customers, therefore a large amount of information must be presented there. By categorizing the elements into manageable groups, we were then able to investigate their impacts. Our second contribution is to integrate consumers’ salient beliefs into our comprehensive model of buyer behavior. Our study could be a template for future studies in terms of the selection of beliefs to be investigated. Also, we have expanded theories about satisfaction studies by investigating customers’ salient beliefs and the relationships among those beliefs. This approach provides a basis for investigating the linkage between web-based IT activities and customer attitudes. Third and finally, our findings have important implications for practitioners. Our approach provides retailers with ways to think about the information and services they provide on their websites. Retailers should consider and examine what elements are implemented on their web interface and how those elements provide information and services. Well-designed systems and well-presented information reduces customers’ time and mental effort when they browse retailers’ websites. Excellent design and thorough information also enhance the stickiness of the site. We believe that the application of our findings will provide value to retailers and enhance the value they provide to customers.