Buyer Insight and Satisfaction on E-Store Shopping

Introduction

E-Shopping is a relatively a new business mode and are growing rapidly in developing countries like India. With the enthralling life and dearth of time, now the consumers are searching for their preferred products in e-stores. As many shoppers are shopping online, the importance of e-stores is growing with the passage of time. The buyers can get benefit through comparing prices at different online stores at the same time which they can’t do in a physical store. Online shopping environments are therefore playing an increasing role in the overall relationship between online stores and their customers (Koo, Kim, & Lee, 2008). Today the online buyers have more control and bargaining power than physical store buyers because the internet offers more interacts between buyers and products/service providers as well as greater availability of information about products and services.

Due to technological innovations, the traditional way of shopping has become insufficient for individuals. Individuals now prefer easy ways to reach brands and stores and it can be said that “The Internet has fundamentally changed customer's notions of convenience, speed, price, product information and service.” As a result, it has given marketers a whole new way to create value for customers and build relationships with them (Kotler and Armstrong, 2012). E-stores have been growing in a highly competitive market, and frequently high competition is increasing over the customer’s demands, needs and switching, so there is a need to be informative about the factors that influence the customers. A fundamental understanding of factors impacting online customer satisfaction is vitally important for e-stores (McKinney, Kanghyun & Zahedi, 2002).

Satisfaction is important to the individual buyer as it falls down an optimistic outcome from the specific resources and the fulfillment of unmet wants and needs (Oliver, 1997; Bearden & Teel, 1983). Buyers’ satisfaction is defined as the consumer’s fulfillment response. It is a judgment that the product or service provides a pleasurable level of consumption related fulfillment, including levels of under or over fulfillment (Oliver, 1980). The rapid growth of e-stores in India emphasizes the significance of focusing on the issue of buyers’ satisfaction as a key factor to establish any e-stores. As per (Armstrong & Kotler, 2009) customer satisfaction is, “The extent to which a product's perceived performance matches a buyer's expectations”. If the performance match customers’ expectation, they are satisfied and if performance exceeds the customers’ expectation then customers are highly satisfied or delighted. The drivers of customer satisfaction are perceived value, company image, customer expectation, product quality and service quality.

E-shopping is a recent experience in the field of E-Business and is definitely going to be the future of shopping in the world. Most of the organizations are operating online portals to sell their products/services to the customers. E-Shopping is one such marketing service which is available to the consumers uninterrupted for 24 hours a day/7 days a week/365 days from any location where you have the internet access. In addition to improvement of payment methods, availability of wide range of products and services, progress in shipping facilities, return and refund policies, and also use of customer loyalty programs such as reward cards, discounts and coupons have attracted more and more customers to shop online. Now-a-days, security and privacy are not a big issue any longer, since e-marketers have made terrific developments on such issues. Buyers are increasingly being educated on, how to shop safely through online together with improved security technology which results in more buyer making online purchases.