Assessing Factors for Designing a Successful B2C E-Commerce Website Using Fuzzy AHP and TOPSIS-Grey Methodology

Ran Li,Tao Sun

doi:10.3390/sym12030363

Abstract

The recent hype in online purchasing has skyrocketed the importance of the electronic commerce (e-commerce) industry. One of the core segments of this industry is business-to-consumer (B2C) where businesses use their websites to sell products and services directly to consumers. Thus, it must be taken care of that B2C websites are designed in a way which can build a trustworthy and long-term relationship between businesses and consumers. Thus, this study assesses and prioritizes factors for designing a successful B2C e-commerce website. The study employs multi-criteria decision making (MCDM), and to minimize any ambiguity and greyness in the decision-making, it integrates fuzzy and grey respectively with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to form FAHP and TOPSIS-Grey. Initially, the study conducts a thorough literature survey to screen important factors reported in past studies. Five main factors and nineteen sub-factors were selected for further prioritization. Later, FAHP prioritized factors based on their importance. Finally, based on the FAHP results, TOPSIS-Grey ranked five alternatives (e-commerce websites). FAHP revealed “service quality” as the most successful website designing factor, while TOPSIS-Grey reported “Website-3” as the most successful website, having incorporated the factors required to design a successful website.

Highlights

The essence of marketing has changed with contemporary advancement and the development of the internet world, which have positively boosted the e-commerce trend [1]
Researchers have determined that various important factors enhance the success of e-commerce businesses, and many companies or business owners are investing a gigantic amount of money on e-commerce websites
The Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and TOPSIS-Grey methodology has been presented in a TOPSIS‐Grey approach: real-life case study

Summary

Introduction

The essence of marketing has changed with contemporary advancement and the development of the internet world, which have positively boosted the e-commerce trend [1]. E-commerce enables both consumers and companies to buy or sell products and offers varieties of services online, accessible quality products, and services that do not just save time but that maximize profit or bargaining for both consumers and companies [2] In this digital era, the e-commerce trend is increasing among people who want to buy and sell any products or services; and many researchers are interested to know in which way the success of e-commerce businesses inspires the consumers to buy and sell online. Many companies are trying hard to design a B2C e-commerce website that attracts their customers to buy and sell any product or service [3] It is still very hard for many business owners to assess the success of B2C e-commerce websites, since various factors are involved. It is important to assess and prioritize the B2C e-commerce websites since this is very vital for both customers and companies

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion