Investigating the mediating role of customer e-satisfaction on e-service quality and E-loyalty: An empirical evidence of Indian online shopping

Abstract

The proliferation of the online shopping market in India has thrown open a multitude of new opportunities and avenues for marketers and consumers alike. In a country like India, it implies a major transition from shopping a touch and feel real experience involving physical activity to a virtual passive activity. The advantages that online shopping offers can very well allure a vast customer base to switch over from the traditional shopping modes. In this context of burgeoning online shopping, marked by rapidly evolving customer dynamics, marketers are greatly interested in fathoming the same. Customer dynamics here are represented by the concepts of 'electronic-service quality', 'customer e-satisfaction' and 'customer e-loyalty' each of which leads to the other in that order. Every business fundamentally aims to bolster these very concepts, instill 'loyalty' through 'satisfaction' by offering 'quality' in the product and service repertoire. The paper attempts to study these concepts as comprising marketing objectives in online shopping in the Indian context. The data is collected online using a questionnaire which delves into customer opinion on online shopping. The study empirically reaffirms the role of Customer E-Satisfaction as a mediator between E-Service Quality (E-S-QUAL) (A. Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Malhotra, 2005) and Customer E-Loyalty in online shopping environment.