The impacts of service quality and customer satisfaction in the e-commerce context

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the impacts of service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty in the e-commerce context, in particular from a triad view of customer-e-retailer-3PL (third party logistics) provider. A literature review is primarily used to determine the conceptual model and to develop the measurement scales. Data were collected through online questionnaire survey conducted in China. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the collected data and test the proposed research hypotheses. The results indicate that both e-service quality and logistics service quality are strongly linked with customer satisfaction. The research results shown that practitioners (e-retailers) should not only focus on e-service quality, but also the logistics service quality. This research validates the proposed service quality framework with two dimensions (e-service quality and logistics service quality) in ecommerce context. Second, it highlights the impact path of service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty.