An Empirical Study on the Effect of Relationship Benefit on Customer Stickiness in Online Shopping

Abstract

Relationship marketing is one of the most important parts in business. As the core idea of relationship marketing, relationship benefit is considered of great value in customer retention. The objective of this study is to examine the connection between relationship benefit and customer stickiness in online shopping. Additionally, we also test the mediating effect of emotional attachment between them. Based on the existing literature, we classify the relationship benefit into four dimensions, including confidence benefit, economic benefit, personalization benefit and honor benefit. A questionnaire is designed and 393 valid questionnaires are collected to derive the results. The results indicate that confidence and personalization benefit have significant and positive impact on customer stickiness. The influence of economic and honor benefit on customer stickiness, is positive but not significant. That implicates that personalized service is being paid more and more attention by customers nowadays, while economic benefit is not considered as one of the most important factors as it was in a few years ago. Besides, the role of emotional attachment, as a mediator between relationship benefit and customer stickiness, is supported by the data.