Customer satisfaction and competitiveness in the Chinese E-retailing: Structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to identify the role of quality factors

Nachiappan Subramanian, Angappa Gunasekaran, Jie Yu, Jiang Cheng, Kun Ning

Research output: Journal PublicationArticlepeer-review

99 Citations (Scopus)
44 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper attempts to study the impact of customer satisfaction and the Chinese electronic retailers (E-retailers) competitiveness using quality factors. Two conceptual models based on asset-process-performance (APP) competitive theoretical framework have been proposed. The proposed models include E-retailers strategic factors such as logistics, quality and customer satisfaction equivalent to asset, process and performance entities of the APP framework. Using an empirical survey from a young population, this study, with the support of structural equation modeling (SEM) identifies reliability in service quality and purchasing experience in e-service quality as dominant customer satisfaction factors. This study uses both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and suggests that to be competitive Chinese E-retailers have to focus more on the delivery of products (logistics) compared to other intangible service quality factors. On theoretical front, this study is a novel attempt to validate the APP framework for E-retailers' competitiveness. On the practical front, the outcome of the study would be highly beneficial to the Chinese E-retailers to fine tune their strategy to satisfy the growing demand. Furthermore, this study can supplement government policy makers to regulate the growing volatile market.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)69-80
Number of pages12
JournalExpert Systems with Applications
Volume41
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Keywords

  • Competitiveness
  • Customer satisfaction
  • E-retailing
  • Quality factors

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Artificial Intelligence

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