Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Online convenience
3- Online convenience dimensions and relationships analysis
4- Method
5- Results
6- Conclusions and implications
7- Limitations and future research
References
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to identify which dimensions of online convenience affect consumers’ intention of using online shopping and explore a conceptual model to measuring consumer perceptions of online shopping convenience in order to surpass the shortcomings of previous studies that did not examine the consequences of convenience shopping experience. A sample of 250 Portuguese young individuals participate in the empirical study. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and a covariance-based Structural Equation Model (CB-SEM) were used to validate the measurement model and to test the relationships in the model. The results reveal that Possession, Transaction, and Evaluation are the dimensions with more influence in online shopping convenience. The outcomes of this study extend previous works on online convenience and help to understand which factors drive online satisfaction and enhance behavioral intentions and e-WOM. Contributions to the body of knowledge and the implications for e-commerce retailers are presented. In face of the findings, retailers should be conscious that customer expectations of online convenience have increased as a natural response to the service innovations introduced by website managers and marketers. Therefore, frequent monitoring of consumers’ perceptions and expectations about online convenience is a prerequisite for achieving continuous improvement in rendering highly convenient online service.
Introduction
Consumer decision making is significantly influenced by both the speed and ease with which consumers can contact retail outlets. Many consumers turn to the Internet to reduce the effort associated with making a decision (Beauchamp and Ponder, 2010). While shopping consumers spend time and effort to complete multiple tasks and since today's customer is more time-starved than ever, it is appropriate to consider the benefits of providing online shopping convenience. Online convenience has been one of the principal promoters of customer's predisposition to adopt online purchasing (Jiang et al., 2013). Seiders et al. (2000) argue that the importance that customers put on convenience prompts retailers to redesign store operating systems and emphasize the efficiency of the service provided. At another level, retailers should focus on the increase of mobile apps and how they helped fuel and define how consumers value time and energy. The present study argues that consumers favor retailers that save them time and energy. Online retailers are certainly able to supply more convenience as store location becomes irrelevant and consumers may now shop from any location, 24 h a day, seven days a week (Beauchamp and Ponder, 2010). Therefore, companies must develop a more precise understanding of the impacts of online convenience. The main goal of the present study is to explore how consumers evaluate the dimension of convenience in the context of online retail, by focusing on the consumer experience with global retailers’ websites. The research gap emerges from the need to validate the research by (Jiang et al., 2013) and from questions which were not answered by later studies by Mpinganjira (2015), Mehmood and Najmi (2017), Haridasan and Fernando (2018) and Pham et al. (2018) namely the meaning of attentiveness convenience and the relationship with behavioral outcomes.