Title: An exploration of online shopping convenience dimensions and their associations with customer satisfaction

Authors: Sergio Palacios; Minjoon Jun

Addresses: Management and Marketing Department, Greehey School of Business, St. Mary's University, One Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, TX 78228, USA ' Department of Management (MSC 3DJ), College of Business, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to extend our understanding of shopping convenience and customer satisfaction in the context of online shopping. Employing the critical incident technique, the authors content-analyse 1,134 customer-generated reviews regarding 31 US online retailers' service performance. This study uncovers 51 original categories and further refines them into nine dimensions of online shopping convenience: access, search, evaluation/selection, configuration/customisation, transaction, delivery, possession/in-use, service recovery, and post-purchase communication convenience. Our findings indicate that, of the nine service convenience dimensions, four dimensions, such as delivery, service recovery, transaction, and possession/in-use convenience, tend to be the main sources of customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction.

Keywords: online shopping convenience; customer satisfaction; qualitative research; content analysis; customer reviews; online retailers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEMR.2020.106431

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2020 Vol.11 No.1, pp.24 - 49

Received: 08 Dec 2017
Accepted: 30 Apr 2018
Published online: 07 Apr 2020 *

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