Effect of online shopping experience on customer loyalty in apparel business-to-consumer ecommerce

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to identify major dimensions of customers’ online shopping experience and to examine their impacts on customer loyalty. Customer experience dimensions were firstly searched from the reviewed literatures, and the five dimensions, that is, website, product, service, brand, and emotional experience, were deemed to be relevant to the apparel business-to-consumer ecommerce by experienced shoppers through in-person interviews. Online shopping experience data were then collected through an online questionnaire surveyed in two timeframes, generating two datasets that have 306 and 369 valid samples, respectively. The reliability of the measurement scale was assessed with the two datasets by Cronbach’s alpha coefficients; the scale’s construct validity was verified with the first dataset by the exploratory factor analysis, and the confirmatory factor analysis was performed with the second dataset to evaluate the fit indices, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the scale. Lastly, the correlation and regression analyses were conducted to establish an experience–loyalty model. It was found that the effects of customer experience decreased in the order from product, brand, service, emotional, and website experience. The factor loadings of the scale items indicated that (a) accurate product information had the strongest effect on website experience, (b) product quality had the strongest effect on product experience, (c) product return and exchange processes had the strongest effect on service experience, (d) apparel brand had the strongest effect on brand experience, and (e) shopping journey had the strongest effect on emotional experience.