Title: Website satisfaction: role of user and website characteristics

Authors: Asmita Shukla, Sanjeev Swami, Narendra K. Sharma

Addresses: Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune-411027, India. ' Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra -282005, India. ' Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur-208016, India

Abstract: The present research aimed at examining whether user characteristics and website characteristics have an influence on website satisfaction. The user characteristics comprised user information and entertainment profiles, and website characteristics comprised website information and entertainment profiles. The study also investigated whether a particular category of site has any influence on the respective category of user. Findings of the study indicated that website characteristics namely informativeness, organisation of information elements, entertainment properties, and organisation of entertainment elements predicted website satisfaction. Sensation seeking tendency, a user characteristic, also predicted website satisfaction. Findings further revealed a that particular category of users prefer a respective category of sites. These findings suggest that the user and website characteristics are an essential link between the users and their satisfaction with the website in web-based shopping environments.

Keywords: websites; user satisfaction; website characteristics; entertainment profiles; user categories; informativeness; information organisation; sensation seeking; respective categories; shopping environments; world wide web; internet; electronic marketing; e-marketing; electronic retailing; e-retailing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEMR.2010.032869

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2010 Vol.3 No.2, pp.114 - 131

Received: 04 Sep 2008
Accepted: 24 Aug 2009
Published online: 26 Apr 2010 *

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