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E-loyalty: elusive ideal or competitive edge?

Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce has grown at a phenomenal rate and the best may be yet to come. The steady growth of B2C e-commerce over the last three holiday seasons is indicative of the remarkable potential of online retailing as an alternative to the traditional bricks-and-mortar mode of shopping. However, many consumers are hesitant to adopt this new way of doing business. Their satisfaction with and loyalty toward online shopping have been stalled by multiple episodes of frustration with online transactions, as illustrated by the following quote from an industry publication: “Last season’s troubles were many. Some retail sites buckled under the weight of traffic, resulting in pages that loaded slowly or not at all. Others couldn’t keep up with customer service requests. Still others were spotty in fulfilling orders on time—Toysrus.com had to issue gift certificates when toys weren’t delivered in time for Christmas” [7]. Thus, while there seems to be a surge in online traffic, there is also a general consumer wariness about electronic shopping. For businesses, the equation is further complicated by high customer acquisition costs, low customer retention, and negative cash flows in B2C electronic commerce—all of which highlight the need to better understand customer interactions. This article aims to provide insights into the critical factors that create online customer loyalty. Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, stated that creating a compelling online experience for cyber customers is the key to attaining competitive advantage on the Internet [11]. Our focus in this article is on consumer experience with online shopping. Using a paired sample approach in which customers’ online shopping experience is contrasted with their conventional shopping experience, we address the dimensions along which they perceive similarities and differences between the two modes of shopping. We aim to accomplish three objectives: