An examination of the effects of service quality and satisfaction on customers' behavioral intentions in e‐shopping

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of service quality and satisfaction on three consumer behavioral intentions, namely word‐of‐mouth, site revisit, and purchase intentions in the context of internet shopping.

To achieve this objective 240 online interviews were carried out (response rate 24 percent) from a randomly generated sample of 1,052 online shoppers using the database of a leading Internet provider in Greece as the sample frame.

Data analysis involved the comparison of three rival models using structural equations modeling. The prevailed model reveals that e‐service quality has a positive effect on e‐satisfaction, while it also influences, both directly and indirectly through e‐satisfaction, the consumer's behavioral intentions, namely site revisit, word‐of‐mouth communication and repeat purchase.

The results confirm that cognitive evaluations precede emotional responses and that quality is a strong antecedent of satisfaction. However, the findings highlight the importance of the interaction experience with the e‐shop on perceived quality. Moreover, the study underlines the crucial impact of the four key e‐service quality drivers on the entire cycle of buying, including post‐purchase behavior, confirming existing evidence in both off‐ and on‐line context.

Practitioners should carefully consider their web site's attributes. They should make their sites easy‐to‐use and easy‐to‐navigate and place extra emphasis on providing fast, accurate, and uncluttered information through their web sites. Also they should direct marketing activities with the aim to enhance satisfaction from e‐shopping, particularly regarding the service encounter incidents.

The paper makes a scholar contribution by examining the notion of e‐service quality and how it relates with e‐satisfaction while exploring unexamined consumers' behavioral intentions and both their direct and indirect antecedents.