Taking into consideration technology acceptance factors, website service quality and specific holdup cost factors, this research explores how shopping websites to establish their competitive advantages through these dimensions. We begin with an examination of the literature on shopping websites about its competitive advantages upon which we propose a conceptual framework. Then this research adopts the fuzzy TOPSIS as the analytical tool that determines the weights of each criterion. Fuzzy theory provides a proper tool to encounter with uncertainties and complex environment. The purpose of this paper is to use the fuzzy TOPSIS method based on fuzzy sets in solving MCDM problems. From our research results, the security and trust are the most important factors for improving the competitive advantage of shopping website. Moreover, the PCHome and Yahoo Taiwan rank the first two positions for shopping websites. This paper draws on the research results for implications of managerial practice, and then suggests some empirical tactics in order to enhance management performance for the website shopping industry.
Based on International Telecommunication Union (ITU) data, the worldwide online population was 870 million, which represents 14% of the universal population at the end of 2004 (ITU, 2005). The advent of the Internet over the last decade has meant radical changes for retail trading for many goods markets. The fact that e-commerce itself can be classified as a kind of information technology and that many business activities are done through the computer and Internet, including product transactions, advertising, selling services, etc., reveals the core issue of how Internet businesses can make themselves the customers’ most trusted and shopped websites.
Previous studies have emphasized that the issue of consumer purchase process is important (i.e., Butler and Peppard, 1998, Dan et al., 2008 and Rita and Henriette, 2004). Particularly, shaped during the online purchase process, consumers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding convenience and security concerns have significant effects on their intention to purchase online (Limayem, Khalifa, & Frini, 2000). Shanker, Smith, and Rangaswamy (2000) also contended that service provided during and following the purchase is essential to e-consumers’ repeat purchases.
On the other hand, while a number of studies have documented the significant role of website technology factors and service quality in influencing competitive advantage of online shopping website (i.e., Anderson and Srinivassn, 2003, Devaraj et al., 2002, Flavian et al., 2006, Ribbink et al., 2004, Shih, 2004 and Szymanski and Hise, 2000), little is so far known about the reflection of customer-related factors in the same regard. Hence, this research will move forward to another perspective and discuss how factors such as specific holdup cost or habit issue, together with external factors, affect the competitive advantage of online shopping website as a whole.
In the literature, there is no fuzzy logic method aimed at prioritizing the shopping websites. The main purpose of this paper is to provide practitioners with a fuzzy point of view to traditional research for dealing with imprecision and at obtaining the prioritization of criteria measurement dimensions. We take the shopping websites of Taiwan for pursuing our case purposes. This research invites 12 experts that evaluate different shopping websites via the proposed fuzzy TOPSIS method. The fuzzy TOPSIS is used to determine the weights of evaluation criterion and rank the alternatives of four shopping websites. This research looks forward to provide some empirical tactics in order to enhance management performance for the website shopping industry.
The reminder of this paper is as follows: Section 2 reviews the prior research that relates the advantage of shopping websites. Section 3 presents the methodology, fuzzy TOPSIS. Section 4 introduces the research design, which includes the research framework, research procedure, and empirical results. Section 5 presents some managerial implications and ways of improving efficiency. Limitation and future research direction are discussed in Section 6.
The topic discussed in this study is still developing at present; it is hoped to be continually explored with the addition of other factors such as cultural and social factors affecting competitive advantages, thus enriching the research contents. Therefore, we hope that succeeding studies can adopt a wider range of constructs to make the whole study share more benefits. Finally, Internet products’ distinctions can also affect customers’ decisions to shop on the websites or not. From a management perspective, consumers in fact treat high-involvement and low-involvement products with different behavioral models. The product’s unit price influences the desires of consumer for Internet shopping as well. Thus, we propose that much research is needed to discover the effects of different product characteristics on customer e-shopping.
