B2C e‐commerce web site quality: an empirical examination

Abstract

Purpose -To identify what constitutes web site quality or what makes a web site effective. Design/methodology/approach -This article examines and integrates four sets of factors that capture e-commerce web site quality using an IS success model: system quality, information quality, service quality, and attractiveness. A questionnaire survey was conducted to verify the measures of web site quality. Based on TAM, a framework is also developed relating web site quality to customers' beliefs (perceived usefulness and ease of use), attitudes (preferences for the site), and intentions (to revisit the site). Findings -A set of instruments of web site quality has been developed and empirically validated by factor analysis.Research limitations/implications -The research is based on a sample of students browsing several book web sites and they may not sense the web site quality across different B2C commercial web sites such as music, computer, travel, clothes and flowers. Data in these domains should be collected in any future research to examine further the measures developed here. Practical implications -Guidelines for web interface design are proposed. Originality/value -This paper fulfils the identification of web site quality and the development and validation of its measures and offers a framework and practical guidelines for e-commerce managers and web designers.

An Investigation of Factors and Measurements for Successful e-Commerce Websites

“…Service quality can be measured by the effectiveness of on-line support capabilities, such as answers to frequently asked questions or responsiveness in the e-commerce environment (DeLone & McLean, 2004). This is confirmed by (Cao et al, 2005), where responsiveness is a construct with 5 items. So "Responsive to customers' inquiries" with code F9D7 is added to F9.…”

“…F3 got a small average score difference of 0.11 and a relatively small standard deviation of 0.139, which suggests that the dimensions for this factor are well defined. For example, "Search facility" was highlighted in (Cao et al, 2005) and it was included in F3D6. The difference for F9 is 0.45, which is the second largest.…”

“…The small standard deviation 0.075 suggests that the proposed dimensions may only focus on certain aspects of this factor. The dimensions for F6 show that some popular dimensions like "use video demonstration" (Cao et al, 2005) are missing, thus, it is added to code F6D5, and, similarly, "use customer testimonial" with F6D6 is added. For F7, the average score of F7D4 is much lower than the others, suggesting that F7D4 may not belong to this factor.…”

“…When these frameworks are applied to a specific website, further interpretations or refinements are required. An empirical study was conducted to develop a set of instruments of B2C ecommerce website quality (Cao et al, 2005). The instruments covered some aspects of service quality, such as responsiveness, information quality, and information accuracy.…”

Website Credibility Assessment: An Empirical - Investigation of Prominence-interpretation Theory

“…One stream of early academic research into online consumer behavior focused on factors such as trust, the perceived usefulness of the website, and the website's user friendliness (see, e.g., Gefen, Karahanna, & Straub, 2003). Another stream of early research focused instead on attributes of the e-commerce website itself, such as the website's perceived quality (Cao, Zhang, & Seydel, 2005) or its perceived credibility .…”