Understanding the Linkages and Impact of Purchaser Perception of Sales Service Quality in Relation to Innovation Diffusion in Nigerian Internet Shopping

Abstract

While the internet offers tremendous innovative communication diffusion opportunities, it also offers some of the innovative ways of purchasing and retailing products and services. There are mounting empirical and conceptual evidences on the benefits and potentials of the diffusion of online shopping in Nigeria. However, limited attention is devoted to investigating the links and influences of customers’ sociographic characteristics on their perception of sales service quality in the increasingly diffusing innovative internet shopping in the country. Addressing this gap in the literature, this study examined the effect of gender, age, educational background, marital status, income and occupation on perceived sales service quality of innovative internet shopping among 400 customers who had shopped online at least once in the previous three months. Using a purposive sampling, a questionnaire designed from a scale developed by Jun, Yang and Kim (2004) was employed and analysed the data using factor analysis. The hypotheses were tested using Kruskal-Wallis (H-test) and Mann-Whitney U tests to determine the degree of the differences of the effect among the demographics and the findings revealed that age and educational qualification and gender and marital status variously differed significantly across most of the constructs except for monthly income. Results of the study highlight the importance of sociographic characteristics in influencing customers’ perception of innovative internet shopping.