How e-tailing attributes affect perceived quality: The potential impact of customer demographics and online behaviors
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report results from an experimental study in which participants rank e-tailer quality on the basis of descriptions involving five attributes (reputation of retailer, site usability, security, delivery and customer support). The paper further explores how the relative importance of these attributes to perceived e-tailer quality is impacted by customer demographic and behavioral characteristics (such as gender, age, frequency of online purchasing and use of online reviews).
Design/methodology/approach
Individual-level conjoint models are estimated to determine the relative importance of these five attributes to perceptions of e-tailer quality.
Findings
The relative importance of these five attributes to perceived e-tailer quality are impacted by customer specific characteristics and online behaviors, namely, age, the frequency of prior online purchasing, the frequency of use of online reviews and the importance attached to the availability of a large number of online product reviews.
Research limitations/implications
Managerial implications that help e-tailers develop more effective, targeted strategies for enhancing the quality of their websites and increasing customer loyalty are presented.
Originality/value
The use of conjoint analysis for decomposing overall judgments of e-tailer quality to derive the relative importance of specific e-tailing attributes offers a realistic way to understand how online customers perceive and evaluate e-tailer quality.
Keywords
Citation
Tamimi, N. and Sebastianelli, R. (2016), "How e-tailing attributes affect perceived quality: The potential impact of customer demographics and online behaviors", The TQM Journal, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 547-560. https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-04-2015-0048
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited