2008:070

MASTER'S THESIS

The Impact of Website Quality on

Customer Satisfaction
- A Research on Iranian Online Bookstores

Laleh Nosrati

Luleå University of Technology

Master Thesis, Continuation Courses

Marketing and e-commerce
Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences
Division of Industrial marketing and e-commerce

2008:070 - ISSN: 1653-0187 - ISRN: LTU-PB-EX--08/070--SE

 MASTER'S THESIS

The Impact of Website Quality on

Customer Satisfaction
A Research on Iranian Online Bookstores

Supervisors:
Dr. Seyed Hessameddin Zegordi
Dr. Albert Caruana

Referee:
Dr. Mohammad Mehdi Sepehri
Dr. Anne Engstrom

Prepared by: Laleh Sadat Nosrati

Tarbiat Modares University Faculty of Engineering

Department of Industrial Engineering

Lulea University of Technology

Division of Industrial Marketing and E-Commerce

Joint MSc PROGRAM IN MARKETING AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

March 2008
Abstract

The daily growth of the internet and e-commerce has changed the way of
marketing and selling products and services. As a result of development in electronic
information resources and the evolution of the “digital age” product sellers and
information service providers face many new challenges. Internet is changing the way
corporations conduct business with their consumers who are increasingly expecting
higher services, becoming time saved, and wanting more convenience. In addition e-
service quality is an essential strategy to gain success, according to the results of previous
literatures, probably more important than a low price for online companies. Since one of
the main duties of the internet as a communication channel is how to manage service
quality, which holds a significant importance to customer satisfaction, the purpose of this
research is to gain a better understanding of the impact of web site quality factors on
customer satisfaction. Also, through literature it is clear that there is a relation between e-
trust, satisfaction and quality. For this reason based on a detailed literature review, and in
order to find the impact of website quality factors on customer satisfaction, a model with
four website quality factors was selected to be tested in online bookstores in Iran, and
also e-trust item is added to this model in order to examine the relation of this factor with
satisfaction and quality. Then a quantitative research was conducted and data were
gathered through an online survey.

The results in our research suggest that quality has a strong impact on satisfaction
and also e-trust has a reasonable impact on quality and through quality affects
satisfaction. Our findings indicate that reliability is the most important indicator of
quality from the Iranian online book shoppers’ perspective. In addition, since customer
service is the only factor that directly affects satisfaction; it is a key strategy to increase
the level of satisfaction straightaway.

The results presented in this research will help companies to locate their position
against competitors, pin point their weak points and determine which website
characteristics will improve their performance and also it can provide an evaluation of the

1
extent to which information and services comprehensible for all users and to extent to
which the features and functions are necessary to provide an effective and efficient web
site to meet the needs of a divers population of users.

Keywords: e-commerce, impact of websites, customer satisfaction, quality, evaluation,

online service quality, bookstores, trust, e-trust.

2
Acknowledgments

This thesis has been written for a Master of Science Degree in Marketing and e-
Commerce. Many people have helped me during the process to whom, I would like to
extend my appreciation and regard.

I would like to thank the division of Industrial Engineering of Tarbiat Modares

University and the department of Marketing and e-Commerce at Lulea University of
Technology.

I wish to especially express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Seyed

Hessameddin Zegordi and Dr. Albert Caruana for their valuable supports and guidance.
Completion the research was impossible without their continuous assistance.

I would like to thank all the participants who contributed to my work, especially
my friends in Marketing and e-Commerce courses for their helps and comments during
my study.

Finally, I wish to express my profound gratitude and thanks to my father and

mother and also my sister, for their love, affection, trust, support and encouragements
throughout my life.

Laleh Nosrati

March, 2008

3
Table of Contents

1. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ................................................................10

1.1 Background ..............................................................................................................11
1.1.1 E-Commerce ................................................................................................12
1.1.2 E-Commerce in Iran .....................................................................................13
1.1.3 Internet Retailing .........................................................................................13
1.1.4 Customer Satisfaction ..................................................................................14
1.1.5 Service Quality .............................................................................................14
1.1.6 E-service Quality ..........................................................................................15
1.1.7 Measuring Online Service Quality................................................................16
1.1.8 Online Trust ..................................................................................................16
1.2 Problem Discussion .................................................................................................17
1.3 Research Objective & Research Questions .............................................................18
1.4 Research Deposition ...............................................................................................19

2. CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................20

2.1 Customer Satisfaction ..............................................................................................21
2.1.1 Satisfaction Foundations...............................................................................22
2.1.2 Different Models of Customer Satisfaction ..................................................24
2.1.2.1 Continues Growth in Customer Satisfaction Models..............................24
2.1.2.2 The Model of Proposed Drivers of Customer Satisfaction and Future
Intentions ....................................................................................................24
2.1.2.3 Antecedents and Customer Satisfaction of Cyber Shopping Store.........25
2.1.2.4 Updated Delon & Mclean IS Success Model for End User Satisfaction 26
2.1.2.5 E-Commerce Success Model for E-commerce Customer Satisfaction...26
2.1.2.6 The Model for Expectation Disconfirmation Effects on Web Customer
Satisfaction ................................................................................................27
2.1.2.7 Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction
Decisions ....................................................................................................28
2.2 Service Quality and Satisfaction..............................................................................29

4
 2.2.1 The Link between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction ..................29
2.2.1.1 The Link between Satisfaction and Traditional Service Quality ...........29
2.2.1.2 The Link between Satisfaction and Service Quality in E-commerce .....30
2.3 Service Quality.........................................................................................................31
2.3.1 Traditional Service Quality Definitions .......................................................31
2.3.2 Dimensions of Traditional Service Quality .................................................32
2.4 E-Service Quality ....................................................................................................36
2.4.1 Definitions of E-Service Quality .................................................................36
2.4.2 Dimensions of E- Service Quality ...............................................................36
2.4.3 Different Models of Online Service Quality Dimensions ............................40
2.5 E-Trust ....................................................................................................................47
2.6 The Conceptual Framework ....................................................................................49
2.7 Chapter Summary ...................................................................................................52

3. CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...................................54

3.1 Research Purpose ....................................................................................................55
3.1.1 Exploratory Research....................................................................................55
3.1.2 Descriptive Research ...................................................................................55
3.1.3 Explanatory Research ..................................................................................56
3.2 Research Approach ..................................................................................................56
3.2.1 Deductive Approach .....................................................................................57
3.2.2 Inductive Approach ......................................................................................57
3.2.3 Quantitative Approach ..................................................................................57
3.2.4 Qualitative Approach ....................................................................................58
3.3 Research Strategy ....................................................................................................59
3.3.1 Survey ...........................................................................................................60
3.4 Sample Selection......................................................................................................60
3.5 Data Collection ........................................................................................................63
3.6 Statistical Analysis ..................................................................................................64
3.7 Validity and reliability .............................................................................................64
3.7.1 Reliability......................................................................................................65

5
 3.7.2 Validity ........................................................................................................66
3.7.3 Factor Validity of Questionnaire .................................................................67
3.8 Chapter Summary ....................................................................................................67

4. CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS .............................................................68

4.1 Cronbach’s Alpha ...................................................................................................69
4.2 Descriptive Statistics................................................................................................70
4.3 Condition of Quality Variables................................................................................71
4.3.1Condition of Quality Variables According to One-Sample T-Test ...............72
4.4 Factor Validity of Questionnaire ............................................................................72
4.4.1 Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis ........................................................73
4.5 Inferential Statistics .................................................................................................76
4.5.1 Regression and Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Quality ..........................77
4.5.2 Regression an Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Satisfaction .....................82
4.5.3 Regression and Confirmatory Factor Analysis for E-Trust ..........................84
4.5.4 Regression and Confirmatory Factor Analysis among Quality,
Satisfaction, and E-Trust................................................................................86
4.5.5 Direct Impact of Quality Factors on Satisfaction ........................................88
4.6 Comparing the Quality Dimensions according to the Number of Purchasing ........90
4.7 Condition of Satisfaction and Trust in the Sample ..................................................92
4.8 Chapter Summary ...................................................................................................94

5. CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION..................................95

5.1 Theoretical Implications .........................................................................................96
5.2 Managerial Implications ..........................................................................................98
5.3 Limitations of this Research ...................................................................................102
5.4 Suggestions for Future Research .............................................................................103
5.5 Discussion ...............................................................................................................103

REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................105
Appendix A. List of Bookstores ..........................................................................................116

6
Appendix B. Questionnaire ................................................................................................119
Appendix C. Statistics Models ............................................................................................123
Appendix D. Descriptive Statistics .....................................................................................146

7
List of Tables:

Table 1 Dimensions of Service Quality ................................................................................33

Table 2 Summary of Service Quality Dimension .................................................................39
Table 3 Research Strategies ..................................................................................................59
Table 4 Overall Cronbach’s Alpha Test................................................................................66
Table 5 Cronbach’s Alpha Test.............................................................................................69
Table 6 Sample Demographics .............................................................................................70
Table 7 One-Sample Statistics ..............................................................................................71
Table 8 One-Sample T-Test ..................................................................................................72
Table 9 Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis ...................................................................73
Table 10 Results of Component Matrix and Extraction Communalities ..............................74
Table 11 Results of Hypothesis Test for Quality ..................................................................78
Table 12 Results of Hypothesis Test for Satisfaction ...........................................................82
Table 13 Results of Hypothesis Test for E-Trust .................................................................84
Table14 Results of Hypothesis Test for the Relations between Trust, Quality, and
Satisfaction ............................................................................................................86
Table 15 Results of Hypothesis Test for the Direct Impact of Quality Factors on
Satisfaction ............................................................................................................88
Table 16 Comparison Based on the Number of Purchasing ................................................91
Table 17 Independent T-Test ...............................................................................................91
Table 18 Results of Independent T-Test ...............................................................................92
Table 19 One-Sample T-Test ...............................................................................................93
Table 20 Percentage of People with High and Low Satisfaction..........................................93
Table 21 The Importance of Quality Dimensions according to the Amount of Satisfaction
................................................................................................................................93

8
List of Figures

Figure 1 Dependence between Quality, Satisfaction & Profitability ...................................21

Figure 2 Expectation – Disconfirmation Model ..................................................................22
Figure 3 Proposed Drivers of Customer Satisfaction and Future Intensions .......................24
Figure 4 Antecedents of Customer Satisfaction in Cyber Shopping Store ..........................25
Figure 5 E-Commerce Success Model for E-Commerce Customer Satisfaction .................27
Figure 6 Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction Decision28
Figure 7 Relationships between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction ......................30
Figure 8 Measuring E-Commerce Effectiveness Using a Combination of User
Satisfaction and Service Quality............................................................................31
Figure 9 E-Service Quality Model ........................................................................................41
Figure 10 Conceptual Models for Delivering a Quality Website to Satisfy the Customer...43
Figure 11 The Relationship Among Overall Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction And
Purchase Intension .................................................................................................44
Figure 12 A Framework for Evaluating E-Commerce Website Quality ..............................45
Figure 13 Modeling E-Tail Quality as a Higher Order Factor..............................................46
Figure 14 Research Model (1) ..............................................................................................52
Figure 15 Research model (2)...............................................................................................77
Figure 16 Conceptual Model (1)...........................................................................................77
Figure 17 Conceptual Model (2)...........................................................................................78

9
Chapter 1
Introduction

1. Introduction

This chapter presents a background of the research area; it contains the general
idea of e-commerce, e-commerce in Iran, internet retailing, customer satisfaction, service
quality, and e-service quality, measurement of online service quality, and e-trust. This
has been followed by the research problem, research objective as well as research
questions. Finally the deposition of thesis has been delivered.

10
1.1 Background

Now days, the competition among online retailers has become more intensive
(Yang et al., 2003). Therefore, more and more businesses are trying to gain competitive
advantages by using e-commerce to interact with customers (Lee and Lin, 2005).
According to Yang et al., (2004) it is much easier to compare the technical features and
prices of products online than it is through traditional channels. So, people become more
informed about optimal prices when seeking products and services. To offset price
transparency disadvantage competitors have utilized three primary strategies (Chen and
Hitt, 2000): geographic differentiation, service quality differences, and modest level of
switching costs. On the other hand, by growing the online shopping the role of the
physical geography and some implicit costs has reduced for many consumers. In short,
the importance of service quality differentiation, in attracting and retaining customers has
advanced (Zhang and Tang, 2006).

Today’s companies have moved their focuses from products and sales to customer
oriented marketing and understanding customers has become more important issue of
marketing because of the hard condition of competition in the market place (Lin,2003).
Moreover, businesses over the time more realize that the key determinant of the success
or failure is the electronic service quality (Yang, 2001; Zeithaml, 2002). Customer
service is an organization’s ability to supply their customers’ needs and wants and
improving customer service involves learning both what customers’ needs and wants are,
and also developing action planes and process to give customers what they really want
and need (Hanson, 2000). With the increased importance of service quality, Hoffman and
Bateson (2002) state that customer’ perceptions of service quality are drowning a major
concern by both business managers and researchers.

Jessica (2003) believes that e-service quality can not only potentially increase the
attractiveness, hit rate, customer retention, and positive word of mouth, but also
maximize the online competitive advantages of the e-commerce. Thus, the e-service
quality has become one of the key determinants of the success for online retailers (Jun et
al., 2004). In addition, most online service providers’ problems and challenges in

11
conducting online service quality are due to service providers’ lack of experience in
operations of the recent challenges and their limited understanding of online customers’
usage behaviors (Mols, 2000). Practitioners and academics eagerly like to measure
service quality in order to better understand its essential antecedents and consequences,
and, finally, establish methods for improving quality to achieve competitive advantage
and build customer satisfaction (Palmer and Cole, 1995).

1.1.1 E-Commerce

With increasing the number of internet users and rapid developing the network
technologies, the e-commerce is perceived as one of the most important applications of
the computer and communication technologies (Zhang & Tang, 2006 referred to: Manvi
and Venkataram, 2005). Zwasse’s (1996) definition of e-commerce is adopted describing
internet commerce as: “the sharing of business information, maintaining business
relationships and conducting business transactions by means of Internet-based
technology”. The e-commerce improves communication channels and provides a virtual
interactive environment where the suppliers and customers can exchange information and
products (Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2005). Also, Evans and Wurster, (1997) acknowledge
that e-commerce allows both customers and suppliers to reduce the transaction costs
significantly and enables information to reach more people without sacrificing the
richness of the content. Moreover, they believe that e-commerce improves the
communications among partners along a value chain and offers an integrated business
model by which companies can be more responsive and flexible to the changing markets
and customers’ requirements (Zhang and Tang, 2006). The most common and
popularized use of e-commerce is the replace or enhance traditional market channels by
opening web-based storefronts. In this type of e-commerce, which referred to as
“business to customer e-commerce”, organizations offer their products and services on
the web and generate revenue from the actual sales of those products and services to their
customers (Molla & Licker, 2001). In the last few years we have witnessed a substantial
growth of internet based services, both from pure internet businesses and from traditional
companies that are developing online services (khalifa and Liu, 2003). According to
Molla and Licker (2001) satisfaction becomes an important issue while corporations

12
introduce service online. The technology of e-commerce determines what can be offered
to customers, but only customers determine which those technologies will be accepted
(Chia Chi Lin, 2003).

1.1.2 E-Commerce in Iran

Although, there is not any credible statistics in the e-commerce context in Iran,
but most of the information indicates that the volume of e-commerce in Iran is low. For
example in a research done by Economist Information in 2004, among 60 countries,
about facility index and the amount of availability of e-commerce, Iran occupies the 58th
stage. According to Iran Daily in September 19, 2006, the lightening pace of change is set
to continue and the only way for Iran not to stay behind such a growing current in the
world would be to come up with efficient and practical executive solutions at the earliest.
Just like the rest of the world the Iranian officials have also started to take notes of the
socioeconomic advantages of electronic trading and commerce. They have also taken a
wide range of measures to set up and develop electronic trading facilities and venues
across the country. Obviously, e-commerce is something new in our country and in order
to help Iranian firms to reach the world standards there is a need to do many researches in
different contexts of e-commerce such as online retailing in order to utilize opportunities
and avoid the risks. Since based on Chia Chi Lin (2003) the key to success of e-
commerce lies in knowing customers, studying customers’ point of view is very
important.

1.1.3 Internet Retailing

Internet retailing continues to be the fastest growing retail channel (Hwan Kim
and Kim and Lennon, 2006). Also, they report that in 2005, total internet retail sales
increased 22 percent from 2004, and accounted for $172 billion, representing 5 percent of
total retail sales. According to Forrester Research (2004) internet sales are projected to
reach $316 billion and represent 13 percent of overall retail sales by 2010 (DMNews,
2006). According to the report of shop.org (2004) 73 percent of shoppers who use
traditional stores prefer to research their purchases online and are more likely to purchase

13
items in-store that they have seen on the retailer’s website. King et al., (2004) believe that
with the continued internet retail sales, Internet retailing is becoming a fast growing
indispensable element in current competitive retailing environments.

1.1.4 Customer Satisfaction

During the last four decades, satisfaction has been considered as one of the most
important theoretical as well as practical issues for most marketers and customer
researchers (Jamal, 2004). Ho & Wo (1999) state that customer satisfaction is a critical
issue in the success of any traditional or online business system. To fulfill this goal we
need to know the definition of satisfaction by customers. According to Homburg et al,
(2006) previous research has recognized that both cognition and affect significantly
predict satisfaction. Process definitions of satisfaction emphasize on the disconfirmation
paradigm and according to that paradigm, customers form expectations to which they
compare performance; and this comparison will result in confirmation or disconfirmation
(Oliver and Desarbo, 1988). A broad definition of satisfaction is that it is an emotional
response to the use of a product or service; and it is also a complex human process which
involves cognitive and affective processes as well as other psychological and
physiological influences (Oliver, 1981). Early concepts of satisfaction research have
typically defined satisfaction as a post choice evaluation judgment concerning a specific
purchase decision (Oliver, 1980; Oliver and Desarbo, 1988).

In addition, Pitt et. al., (1995) believes that service quality is the key to measure
user satisfaction. Thus, researchers have paid much attention to the close relationship
between service quality and customer satisfaction (Bitner et al., 1990; Parasuraman et al.,
1985; Parasuraman et al., 1988).

1.1.5 Service Quality

A basic agreement emanating from a wide range of literature on service quality

and customer satisfaction is that service quality and customer satisfaction are
conceptually distinct but closely related constructs (Parasuraman et. al., 1994; Dabholkar,
1995; Shemwell et al., 1998). Morre, (1987) believes that attention to service quality can

14
lead an organization and gain a lasting competitive advantage. Therefore, service quality
has become a popular area of academic investigation, and has become recognized as a
key factor in differentiating service products and building competitive advantage
(Zeithaml et al., 1996). There are two main streams of research into the dimensions of
service quality: the first is the Nordic perspective (Gronroos, 1982, 1984), which uses
global, terms to define service quality in terms of functional quality and technical quality
and the second is the US perspective (Parasuraman et al., 1988) which uses service
encounter characteristics such as reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance and
tangibles to describe service quality. Service quality according to Parasuraman et al.,
(1994a, p. 202) is “the degree of discrepancy between customers’ normative expectations
for the service and their perception of the service performance”. Also, according to
Santos (2003) two main conceptualization of service quality exist in the literature: one
based on the disconfirmation approach and the other based on the performance-only
approach. Among different researchers such as Gronroos (1983) and Parasuraman et al.,
(1985) and Pitt et al., (1999) who tried to discover the attributes of service which are
more relevant to quality assessments the work of Parasuraman et al., (1985) has been
regarded as the most prominent which reveals ten dimensions of the service quality:
tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, communication, credibility, security, competence,
courtesy, understanding the customer, and access. After 18 years, these 10 dimensions
purified to 5 dimensions and based on these 5 items a measurement tool for service
quality was made which called SERVQUAL.

Moreover, because the dimensions of measuring service quality differ between e-

commerce and physical marketplace, more attention has been paid by researchers on
service quality via internet (Parasuraman and Grewal, 2000).

1.1.6 E-Service Quality

As online retailing grows, service quality by influencing consumer’s online

shopping experiences has become an important factor in determining the success or
failure of online retailers (Yang, 2001). Santos, (2003) believes that e-service quality can
potentially increase attractiveness, hit rate, customer retention, stickiness, and positive

15
word of mouth, and also it can maximize the competitive advantages of electronic
commerce. Although, lots of researchers talk about the dimensions of the e-service
quality (Zeithaml et al., 2000; Cox and Dale, 2001; Jun and Cai, 2001; van Riel et al.,
2001; Yang et al., 2001; Kaynama and Black, 2002; Madu and Madu, 2002;
Parasuraman, 2002; Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2002; Yang and Jun, 2002; Zeithaml et al,
2002; Santos, 2003; Yang et al., 2003; Parasuraman et al., 2004; Lee and Lin, 2005),
online retailers fail primarily due to the poor quality services, which are rendered to their
customers (Zeithaml, 2002). E-service quality is important for two reasons: (1) it greatly
influences customers’ satisfactions and intensions to shop online, and (2) the e-service
quality is critical in attracting potential customers (Cai and Jun, 2003). Zeithaml (2002)
believes that online companies should focus on all aspects of e-service quality before,
during and after the transaction. According to his definition, e-service quality is “the
extent to which a website facilitates, efficient and effective shopping, purchasing and
delivery”.

1.1.7 Measuring Online Service Quality

Different and unique service delivery process in online services cause the
traditional service quality dimensions can not directly apply to online services. Zeithaml,
Parasuraman, and Malhotra (2000) provided the first formal definition of web site service
quality or e-SQ, to study how customers judge e-service quality. Liu and Arnett (2000)
identified e-service quality as second important factor, involve quick response, assurance,
empathy and follow up. Lociacono and Watson (2000) established a scale called
WEBQUAL with twelve dimensions. Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2002) developed a scale
named .comQ with four factors through focus group studies and online survey.
SITEQUAL with four dimensions is another instrument for measuring online retailer’s
websites quality.

1.1.8 Online Trust

Evidence suggest that, the principal reasons why people do not purchase via the
internet are related to online security and policy, reliabilities of companies (Gefen, 2000),

16
and website technology (Chen and Barnes, 2007). The role of trust could be even more
important in an e-commerce setting, since e-customers do not deal directly with the
company, or its staff (Papadopoulou et al., 2001; Urban et al., 2000). Online trust is an
important determinant for websites to succeed in market place (McKnight and Chervany,
2001). A high degree of trust not only stimulates and meets consumer’s high expectations
of satisfying transactions but also eliminate uncertainty, perceived risks and
interdependences in most online transactions (McKnight and Chervany, 2001; Pavlou,
2003). In addition, according to Gefen and Straube (2004) with increasing the level of
consumers’ trust, we will have an increase in the degree of purchase intentions of
consumers and it is easier for companies to retain customers. Moreover, Pavlou (2003),
and Gefen and Straub (2004) believe that online trust plays a key role in creating satisfied
and expected outcomes in online transactions.

Furthermore, as mentioned before one of the main challenges for online

companies is retaining customers so, loyal customers are very important for them and
next to satisfaction which is one of the main steps to achieve this goal, trust has been
brought forward as a precondition for patronage behavior (Pavlou, 2003) and the
development of long term customer relationships (Papadopoulou et al., 2001). Also, the
quality elements of the e-service are expected to affect e-trust directly (Gronroos et al.,
2000) because they represent trust cues that convey the trustworthiness of the site and the
system to customers (Crritore et al., 2003). Furthermore, Corritore et al., (2003), call
websites objects of trust and suggest that navigational architecture and design elements
have a direct effect on trust.

1.2 Problem Discussion

According to Yang et al., (2003), competition among online retailers has become
fiercer and fiercer thus, in such a competitive market place many companies realize it is
more difficult to make their physical products differ from their competitors than before,
so, based on Kotler, (2003) delivery superior service in order to make differentiation and
in order to gain profitability is one of the important ways. This high service quality is the
main step to have satisfied customers which has an important effect on customer

17
retention (Patterson et al., 1997; Sedon, 1997). Khalifa and Lui, (2003) acknowledge that
retention is a major challenge particularly in internet based services, because customers
can easily switch from one service provider to another at low cost and also, van Riel,
(2001) state that acquiring new customers brings high costs and many online companies
face high customer turnover. In addition, online trust is an important determinant for
websites to succeed in market place (McKnight and Chervany, 2001). In order to satisfy
customers’ needs, many companies have to setup websites that provide quality
information and services to customers (Saha and Zhao, 2005). More research is needed to
determine the dimensions of e-service quality and these studies also need to be conducted
for different types of e-services (Zeithaml et al., 2000). Online retailers in our country
like other online retailers in all around the world in order to survive in new electronic
market need to move toward customer oriented marketing.

Also, regarding the expanded and varied website quality factors in different
countries and in different industries and with attention to what discussed above, there is a
critical need to measure online service quality and the importance of quality factors in our
country and from Iranian customers’ perspective. Moreover, with regard to the important
role of e-trust in customer retention and its relationship with satisfaction and quality there
is a need to recognize the relation of e-trust, satisfaction, and quality.

1.3 Research Objective and Research Questions

Based on the above problem discussion the research objective is formulated as:

To get a better understanding of website quality factors that affect

customer satisfaction

In order to cover this research objective the following research questions have been
developed:

- What are the website quality factors in Iranian online bookstores that affect
customer satisfaction?
- What is the importance of website quality factors from customers’ point of view?
- What is the effect of quality and quality factors on satisfaction?

18
- What is the relation between quality, satisfaction, and e-trust in Iran?

1.4 Research Deposition

This thesis consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1: the first chapter presents a background of the research area and it is
followed with the problem discussion, research objective and research questions.

Chapter 2: theories and previous studies related to our research area will be
presented in this chapter. The last part of chapter two is the research frame work which
will be explained the road map of the study.

Chapter 3: methodology of research will be brought in this chapter which

explains all the things about sampling and data collection method as well as reliability
and validity tests of measurement tool.

Chapter 4: all the statistical tests such as constructs reliability and validity
assessments and results of regression analysis and hypotheses tests will be delivered in
this chapter.

Chapter 5: the theoretical and practical implications of research results and also
limitations and suggestions for future research will be offered in this section.

19
Chapter 2
Literature Review

2. Literature Review

This section consists of relevant literature and models used in previous studies. In
this chapter, various concepts of customer satisfaction, formation and determinants of
customer satisfaction, the relation between service quality and satisfaction and also
traditional service quality dimensions, online service quality dimensions, as well as trust
and e-trust will be presented.

20
2.1 Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a collective outcome of perception, evaluation, and

psychological reactions to the consumption experience with a product or service (Yi,
1990). According to Kottler (2000, P.36) “satisfaction is a person’s feelings of pleasure
or disappointment resulting from comparing a product perceived performance or outcome
in relation to his or her expectations”. Early concept of satisfaction research has typically
defined satisfaction as a post choice evaluation judgment concerning a specific purchase
decision (Churchill and Sauprenant, 1992; Oliver, 1980). Yang and Fang, (2004) believe
that online customers still demand many services available through traditional channels
even if they choose pure Internet-based suppliers with basic customer services. Although
expectations seem to be of lesser importance as a comparison standard in e-commerce
(Zeithaml et al., 2000), customers appear to use experience-based norms (Cadotte et al.,
1987) and traditional services as comparison standards for e-services (Van Riel et al.,
2001). Establishing and achieving customer satisfaction is the main goal of businesses
nowadays because there is a strong relationship between the quality of product, customer
satisfaction and profitability (Fecikova, 2004) (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Dependence between Quality Satisfaction and Profitability

(Source: Fecikova, 2004)

In order to achieve customer satisfaction, Companies should measure it because

according to Ho, (1995) you can not manage something that you can not measure it.
There are two principal interpretations of satisfaction within the literature, satisfaction as
a process and satisfaction as an outcome (Parker and mathews, 2001). Solomon, (1991)
recognizes customer satisfaction as the overall attitude of the individual toward the
bought product. Also, customer satisfaction is defined as a customer’s overall evaluation
of the performance of an offering to date. This overall satisfaction has a strong positive
effect on customer loyalty intentions across a wide range of product and service
categories (Gustafsson, 2005). Kottler (2003, p.36), states that there is a general

21
agreement that satisfaction is a person’s feelings of pleasure or disappointment resulting
from comparing a product perceived performance (or out come) in relation to his or her
expectations.

2.1.1 Satisfaction Foundations

In different literatures related to customer satisfaction there are some different

theories which are used as a base for different models of customer satisfaction. The
disconfirmation theory is considered as the primary foundation for satisfaction models.
According to this theory, satisfaction is determined by the discrepancy between perceived
performance and cognitive standards such as expectations and desires (Khalifa and Liu,
2003). Before studying different satisfaction models some of these theories are presented
to make a better understanding of the structure of customer satisfaction models.

Expectation-Disconfirmation:

According to expectation-disconfirmation theory contributed by Oliver (1980),

satisfaction is a function of disconfirmation which in turn is a function of both
expectations and performance. Figure 2 shows this approach.

Expectation

Disconfirmation Satisfaction

Perceived
Quality

Figure 2: Expectation-Disconfirmation Model

(Source: Oliver referred to in Anderson and Sullivan, 1993 p.127)

This model suggests that the effects of expectations are primarily observed
through disconfirmation, but they also have an effect through perceived performance as
many studies have found a direct effect of perceived performance on satisfaction (Spreng

22
and Page, 2001). Perceived quality may either confirm or disconfirm pre-purchase
expectation. Satisfaction is positively affected by expectations and the perceived level of
disconfirmation. Disconfirmation and perceived quality also has strong impact on
satisfaction (Oliver, 1980).

Norm Theory:

According to the Latour and Peat (1979) Norm Theory, norms serve as reference
points for judging the product, and dissatisfaction comes into play as a result of
disconfirmation relative to these norms. A good example of these norms is the hypothesis
of Moharrer (2006) who states, leisure satisfaction is determined by the consumer's
perceived disparity between actual leisure experiences as well as the perceptions of
internal and external barriers that prevent the consumer from achieving the desired
experience.

Value Percept Disparity Theory:

Value percept disparity theory (Westbrook and Reilly, 1983), which was
developed in response to the problem that consumer, could be satisfied by aspects for
which expectations never existed (Yi, 1990). This theory views satisfaction as an
emotional response triggered by a cognitive-evaluation process (Parker and Mathews,
2001). In other words, it is a comparison of the “object” one values (needs and wants)
rather than an expectation.

Perceived Performance Theory:

According to a perceived performance theory of Tse and Wilton (1988), consumer

dissatisfaction is only a function of the actual performance, regardless of consumers’
expectations. It means that the actual performance and initial expectations should be
considered independently, rather than comparing performance with past experiences.

23
2.1.2 Different Models of Customer Satisfaction

Many researchers, using a variety of diverse models have so far made their best
efforts to classify and introduce different structures forming customer satisfaction, some
of which are presented here in this part.

2.1.2.1 Continuous Growth in Customer Satisfaction Model

According to Zairi (2000), in order to have continuous improvement in customer

satisfaction there is a cycle consisting of four parts: 1) listening to the voices of
customers, 2) analyzing their comments, 3) developing actions and 4) implementing and
monitoring.

2.1.2.2 Proposed Drivers Model of Customer Satisfaction and Future

Intentions

This model suggests that perceived service quality and perceived value influence
satisfaction which in turn, influences future intentions. In this model perceived service
quality is viewed as consisting of two primary dimensions: core quality, the basic service
“contracted” for or promised and relational quality, the way in which service is delivered
(Gronroos, 1985; Morgan and Piercy, 1992) (Figure3).

Core Quality Switching

Intentions
Customer
Relational Satisfaction
Quality
Loyalty
Intentions
Perceived
Value

Figure 3: Proposed Drivers of Customer Satisfaction and Future Intentions

(Source: Piercy, 1992)

24
 Perceived value is viewed as benefits received relative to costs (Zeithaml, 1988).
Customer satisfaction is viewed as the overall assessment of the service provider, while
future intentions are the started like hood of returning to the service provider. The model
parallels the “tripartite model” where the antecedents of satisfaction are the observed
variables leading to an inferred state, satisfaction, leading to observed variables of future
intentions (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993). Test of the model shows that the nature or
characteristics of service influence the relative importance of the drivers of customer
satisfaction (Piercy, 1992).

2.1.2.3 Antecedents and Customer Satisfaction of Cyber Shopping

Store (CSS)

According to this model there are five antecedents of customer satisfaction which
are appropriate for online shopping on the Internet. According to Ho and Wu (1999),
customer satisfaction has five factors: 1) logistical support means quick response to
customer’s needs, providing communication channels, quickly delivering goods, and
providing after sales services. 2) Technological factors indicate modern computer and
network facilities and well structured information systems. 3) Information factors means
reliable output information and secure transaction. 4) Home page presentation includes
ease of use of interface and detail information of goods and lower prices of goods. 5)
Product characteristics indicate a variety of goods and lower prices for goods (Saha and
Zhao, 2005, referred to: Ho and Wu, 1999) (Figure 4).

Logistical support

Technological characteristics

Information characteristics Customer

satisfaction
Home page presentation

Product characteristics

Figure 4: Antecedents of Customer Satisfaction in Cyber Shopping store

(Source: Saha and Zhao referred to: Ho & Wo, 1999, p.4)

25
2.1.2.4 Updated Delone and Mclean IS Success Model (2003) for End
User Satisfaction

The updated Delone and Mclean information system success model can be
adapted to the measurement challenges of the new e-commerce world. This model is
based on the updated Delon and Mclean (2003) original success model. In this model
each of the dimensions contains some measurement variables:

• System quality: adaptability, availability, reliability, response time, usability

• Information quality: completeness, ease of understanding, personalization,
relevance, security
• Service quality: assurance, empathy, responsiveness
• Use: nature of use, navigation patterns, number of sites visits, and number of
transactions executed
• User satisfaction: repeat purchases, repeat visits users surveys
• Net benefits: cost savings expanded markets, incremental additional sales,
reduced search costs, and time savings

Based on Saha and Zhao (2005) this model describes system quality, information quality,
service quality singularly and jointly affect both use and user satisfaction. Furthermore
the amount of use can affect the degree of user satisfaction positively or negatively.

2.1.2.5 E-Commerce Success Model for E-Commerce Customer

Satisfaction

E-commerce success model by Molla and Licker (2001) proposed based on the
Delone and Mclean information system success model (Figure 5). System item and
information quality components in Delone and Mclean model are replaced by e-
commerce system and content quality regularly. In addition, user satisfaction is replaced
by customer e-commerce satisfaction and also two additional factors which are trust and
service are added to capture the transactional and customer support components of e-
commerce systems and customer e-commerce satisfaction (Molla and Licker, 2001)
(Figure 5).

26
 EC System Use Trust
Quality

Customer E-
Commerce Support and
Content Satisfaction Service
Quality

E-commerce
Success
Figure 5: E-Commerce Success Model for E-Commerce Customer Satisfaction
(Source: Molla and Licker 2001, p.136)

2.1.2.6 The Model for Expectation-Disconfirmation Effects on Web

Customer Satisfaction (EDEWS)

Mckinney et al., (2002) present a model based on proposed models by Delone and
Mclean (1992) and Spreng et al. (1996), and also based on the nature of website
development for online shopping; and they state that web customer satisfaction has two
distinctive sources: satisfaction with the quality of a web site’s information content and
satisfaction with the web sites system performance in delivering information; And these
two factors affected by customers’ prior expectations, possible discrepancies between
such expectations, and the perceived performance of the web site (Saha and Zhao, 2005).

So, based on this paradigm, customer satisfaction has three main antecedents:
expectation, disconfirmation, and perceived performance. Mckinney et al. 2002 identified
five information quality (IQ) dimensions: (1) relevance, (2) timeliness, (3) reliability, (4)
scope, and (5) perceived usefulness. In addition they identified four system quality (SQ)
dimensions: (1) accesses, (2) usability, (3) navigation, and (4) interactivity. Mckinney et
al., 2002 defined web information quality as the customer’s perception of the quality of
information presented on a web site and web system quality as the customer’s perception
of a web site’s performance in information retrieval and delivery (Saha and Zhao, 2005).

27
2.1.2.7 Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of
Satisfaction Decisions

Disconfirmation

Expectation Satisfaction

Attitude Attitude

Intention Intention

Disconfirmation period
Figure 6: Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction Decision
(Source: Oliver, 1980)

The model shows correlations existing among expectation, disconfirmation,

satisfaction and the traditional criteria of attitude and purchase intention that has been
performed to date. This model shows that the effect of expectation and disconfirmation
on satisfaction and also post usage ratings of satisfaction appear to be the function of a
linear combination of an adaptation level component (expectation or prior attitude) and
disconfirmation. According to Oliver (1980) in this model, disconfirmation only occurs
after product exposure and that subsequent cognitive reactions probably follow soon
thereafter. In this model satisfaction is measured at a point in time subsequent to and
separate from the disconfirmation assessment. The disconfirmation effect is at least as
potent as the effect attributed to expectation.

In order to measure satisfaction in this model, all items were emotional in content
(Hunt, 1977), and included references to the respondents’ outright satisfaction, regret,
happiness, and general feelings about their decision.

28
2.2 Service Quality and Satisfaction

Among academics the satisfaction construct is recognized as being distinct and

has developed along fairly independent lines from service quality (Oliver, 1980). As a
process in time, service quality takes place before, and leads to overall customer
satisfaction. Service quality has been found to be an important input to customer
satisfaction (Caruana, 2002). Hoffman and Bateson, (1997), state, there is this agreement
among experts that customer satisfaction is a short-term transaction specific measure,
whereas service quality is an attitude formed by a long-term overall evaluation of a
performance. Although, service quality and customer satisfaction are separate constructs
but according to Parasuraman et al., (1988) there is a close relationship between them.

2.2.1 The Link between Satisfaction and Service Quality

There are some different models showing the relation between customer
satisfaction and service quality. In this part, two models will be introduced. One of them
shows such relation in a traditional service quality perspective while the other one
discusses such relation in the e-commerce world.

2.2.1.1 The Link between Satisfaction and Traditional Service Quality

According to Jamali, (2005), customer satisfaction measures both cognitive and

affective components. The cognitive components involve an assessment of the quality
dimensions (which can be based on objective or subjective data), while affective
assessment include other variables known to contribute to satisfaction, such as emotions,
attributions, and perceptions of equity (Dean and Kiu, 2002). In other words, customer
satisfaction is initially affected by a cognitive comparison between expectations and
perceptions of basic service quality dimensions; and it confirms the point that satisfaction
and quality can be separated even though they are related. Thus; we should measure
service quality in order to measure satisfaction (Figure 7).

29
 Figure 7: Relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Service Quality
(Source: Jamali, 2005)

2.2.1.2 The Link between Satisfaction and Service Quality in E-

Commerce

According to Pather, Ervin, and Remenyi (2003), the relation between satisfaction
and service quality lies in delivering an online service; the customer is essentially being
delivered an information system product. Thus, they proposed a model incorporates both
measurement of user satisfaction and measurement of service quality to measure the
quality of the information systems product (Figure 8).

30
 Measuring e-commerce effectiveness implies measuring the quality of the IS
products and the quality of service

Measuring User Measuring Service

Satisfaction Quality
A B

E-Customer has Service is delivered

expectations of E-Business Website mainly via internet
service through and supported trough
use of e-commerce call-centers, etc.
system
C

Measuring GAP indicating level of service quality

through satisfaction of use
(C - D)
Figure 8: Measuring E-Commerce Effectiveness Using a Combination of User satisfaction and Service Quality
(Source: Saha and Zhao referred to: Pather, Erwin,and Remenyi, 2003, p.149)

According to the authors, this model provides an appropriate basis to investigate a

relevant scale to measure effectiveness in the e-commerce environment by providing a
basis for an evaluation of how relevant dimensions of traditional service quality scales
are (Saha and Zhao, 2005, p. 15).

2.3 Service Quality

A better understanding of traditional service quality and online service quality

dimensions will be discussed in this part which will also be followed by different models
respectively.

2.3.1 Traditional Service Quality Definitions

According to Gronroos (1982), total service quality is customer’s perception of

difference between expected service and perceived service. Later in 1984, he has

31
described service quality of the service encounter as two different dimensions: one is
technical or output quality and the next one is functional or process quality.

Similarly, Gefan (2002) defined service quality as the subjective comparison

between the quality of the service that they want to receive and what they actually get.
Parasuraman et al., (1988) also believe that service quality is determined by differences
between customer’s expectations of service provider’s performance and their evaluation
of the services they received.

In addition, Page and Spreng (2002), believe that performance is a much stronger
indicator of service quality than expectation, and performance-only measure is superior,
because it is more reliable and defensible.

2.3.2 Dimensions of Traditional Service Quality

Many researchers have tried to uncover different attributes of services that

significantly related to quality assessments in the traditional service environment (e.g.
Hedvall and Paltschik, 1989; Kettinger and Lee, 1997; Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988;
Paulin and Perrien, 1996; Pitt et al., 1999; Sasser et al., 1978).

Brady and Cronin (2001) have developed a third order factor model comprised of
interaction quality, physical environment quality, and outcome quality. These dimensions
draw on the work of Gronroos (1982), Rust and Oliver (1994), and others who have
suggested that exploring both what is delivered (Gronoos’ technical quality) and how it is
delivered (Gronroos’ functional quality) are important aspects of service quality.

Berry and Parasuraman identified 5 dimensions to cover the human elements in

service quality. These dimensions for service quality are:

• Tangibles: deals with the appearance of physical facilities, equipment,

personnel and communication materials.
• Reliability: deals with the dependability, and accuracy of service.
• Responsiveness: deals with the ability to provide prompt services and
support to customers.

32
 • Assurance: deals with the trust and confidence with the service provider
based primarily on the knowledge and courtesy of employees.
• Empathy: deals with the provisions of caring and individualized attentions
to customers.

Furthermore; Johnston (1995) provides 18 service dimensions and their

definitions: access, aesthetics, attentiveness, availability, care, cleanliness/tidiness,
comfort, commitment, communication, competence, courtesy, flexibility, friendliness,
functionality, integrity, reliability, responsiveness, and security.

Among different studies in the service quality field, the work done by
Parasuraman et al. (1985) is more common. They reveal ten detailed dimensions through
focus group studies: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, communication, credibility,
security, competence, courtesy, understanding the customer, and access. Later, these ten
dimensions were purified and distilled to five: tangibles, reliability, responsibility,
assurance, and empathy, which constitute the base of a global measurement for service
quality, SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988).

When Parasuraman et al., (1988) purified and distilled these ten dimensions to
five, the researchers based on these five dimensions developed 22-item service quality
scale. On an operational level service quality research has been dominated by the
SERVQUAL instrument which commonly groups quality determinants into five basic
clusters illustrated in table 1 (Parasuraman, et al., 1985; Ghobadian et al., 1994; Curry
and Herbert, 1998; Wisniewski, 2001):

Table 1: Dimensions of Service Quality

Quality cluster Requirement Description Example from the

postal sector
Consistency of
service/dependability Next day delivery first
i.e. the ability to class mail and
Reliability Reliability
provide the service on delivery of mail in
time, accurately and good condition
dependably
Willingness/readiness of Dealing quickly and
employees; i.e. the ability effectively with a
Responsiveness Responsiveness to deal effectively with customer’s inquiry or
complaints and promptness complaint
of services

33
 Table 1: Dimensions of Service Quality (continued)
Quality cluster Requirement Description Example from the
postal sector
The extent to which
the service is believed
A positive reputation
and trusted; involves
Credibility for prompt mail
honesty,
Assurance handling and delivery
trustworthiness and
believability
The politeness,
respect, consideration Welcoming customers
and friendliness and attending to their
Courtesy
shown to the needs with a positive
customers by the attitude
contact personnel
A feeling of physical
The freedom from
safety, financial
Security danger, risk, and
security and
doubt
confidentiality
The possession of
Providing best advice
staff of the necessary
to customer regarding
skill, knowledge and
Competence mail option based on
information to
good knowledge of
perform the service
product portfolio
effectively
Convenient opening
The ease of hours, convenient
Empathy Access approachability and location, and
contact reasonable queuing
time
Listening to customer Explaining the
and keeping them service, its costs and
Communication
informed about the trade-offs between
service service and cost
Providing
Trying to understand
individualized
Understanding the the customers needs
attention to customers
customer and specific
and recognizing
requirements
regulars
Appearance of Maintaining clean
personnel and physical facilities and
Tangibles Tangibles
condition of equipment in good
equipment state

(Source: Parasuraman et al., 1985; Ghobadian et al., 1994; Curry and Herbert, 1998; Wisniewski, 2001)

In addition, a conceptual model of service quality which includes five gaps is

proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1985), and Zeithaml et al. (1988). In their model Gap
one is about managers’ perceptions of customers’ expectations on service quality.

34
Managers think they know what customers really want, but actually there is a gap
between customers’ expected service and management perceptions of customers’
expectations. Gap two is about service quality standards. Because there is no clear-cut
approach that managers can use to translate their perceptions into service quality
standards, a gap is inevitable. Gap three is the difference between service quality
standards and the level of service actually delivered. Gap four is the difference between
service providers’ service delivery and service providers’ promises through external
communications. And gap five is the difference between expected service and perceived
service from customers’ points of view. This conceptual model is useful in that it is easy
for practitioners to understand service quality components.

Gronroose (1982) then introduced the notion of “total service quality” as being
the perception by a customer of the difference between the expected service and the
perceived service. Gronroose (1982) argue that service quality should include three
dimensions:

1. The technical quality of outcome. That is the actual outcome of the service
encounter.
2. The functional quality of the service encounter. This element is concerned
with the interaction between the provider and the recipient of the service and
is often perceived in a subject manner.
3. The corporate image. This is concerned with consumers’ perceptions of the
service organization. This image depends on: technical and functional quality,
price, external communications, and physical location, appearance of the site
and the competence and behavior of service firm’s employees (ibid).

While extensive research has been conducted on service quality in traditional

retailing settings (Gronroos, 1982; Parasuraman et al., 1988), service quality in online
retailing is a relatively new topic. Whereas traditional service quality refers to the quality
of service based on human interactions and experiences in non-web-based settings, online
service quality encompasses interactions between humans and technology, so in the next
section the quality dimensions in e-commerce will be discussed.

35
2.4 E-service Quality

In this part, definitions of e-service quality and e-service quality dimensions will
be presented.

2.4.1 Definitions of E-Service Quality

With the increasing amount of research in internet marketing and electronic

commerce, service quality in online environments has become recognized as an important
factor as determining the success or failure of electronic commerce (Yang, 2001). E-
service can be defined as the role of service in cyber space (Rust and Lemon, 2001).
Based on Santos (2003), e-service quality can be defined as the consumer’s overall
evaluation and judgment of the excellence and quality of e-service offerings in the virtual
market place. Van Riel et al., (2001) believe that in contrast to customers’ evaluation of
traditional service offerings, customers are less likely to evaluate each sub-process in
detail during a single visit to a website and they prefer to perceive the service as an
overall process and outcome. According to Zeithaml, et al. (2000), e-service quality is
comprehended both from pre-and post-web site service perspectives. They defined online
service quality as “the extent to which a website facilitates effective and efficient
shopping, purchasing, and delivering of products and services”. Parasuraman (2000)
proposed flexibility, convenience, efficiency and enjoyment as examples of major
positive themes in the online environment.

2.4.2 Dimensions of Online Service Quality

Previous studies have revealed that service quality in online environments is an

important determinant of the effectiveness of e-commerce (Yang, 2001; Janda et al.,
2002). Increased e-service quality on the web can make online companies more effective
and appealing, and can help them to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction and
retention (Gronroose et al., 2000). How ever, little research has been done on the quality
determinants of e-service. A commercial web site must compete with thousands of other
sites on the web (Santos, 2003).

36
 Dholakia and Rego (1998) suggested a list of features that they considered to be
important for effective web sites:

• Frequency of changes
• Number of links to and from a website
• Complexity and extensiveness
• Number of pictures ( especially clickable pictures)
• Enhancements (for example, Java applets and gift animations)
• Number of advertising banners of other firms

Yang (2001) proposed the 7 potential factors of online service quality that align
with those of the SERVQUAL instruments: reliability, responsiveness, access, ease of
use, attentiveness, credibility, security.

Moreover; Zeithaml et al. (2000) have developed E-SERVQUAL with eleven

dimensions in a series of focus group interviews: access, ease of navigation, efficiency,
flexibility, reliability, personalization, security / privacy, responsiveness, trust /
assurance, site aesthetics, and price knowledge to measure online service quality. In their
research, they found the core dimensions of regular service quality like efficiency,
fulfillment, reliability, and privacy were the same as online; and at the same time, they
offer that responsiveness, compensation, and real time access to help as core dimensions
of service recovery for online services. In addition, they noted that empathy was less
important online unless there were service problems happened (ibid).

Yang et al. (2004) have uncovered six key online service quality dimensions:
reliability, access, ease of use, attractiveness, security, and credibility-employed by
internet purchasers to evaluate e-tailors’ service quality. The descriptions of these factors
are as follow:

1. Reliability: it consists of correctness of order fulfillment, prompt delivery, and

billing accuracy.

2. Attentiveness: It is included individualized attention, personal thank-you notes

from online retailers and availability of message area for customer questions
or comments.

37
 3. Ease of use: It is related to well organized, well structured, and easy to follow
catalogues, site navigability, and concise and understandable contents, terms
and conditions.

4. Access: It is included the list of the company’s street and e-mail address, phone
and fax number, accessibility of service representatives, availability of chat
room, bulletin board and other communication channels.

5. Security: It is included security of personal information and minimal online

purchase risks.

6. Credibility: It refers to the business history of online retailers, special rewards,

and referral banners on other website.

In the first attempt to adapt the SERVQUAL dimensions to e-services, Kaynama

and Black (2000) subjectively evaluated the online services of 23 travel agencies and
seven dimensions derived from SERVQUAL : responsiveness, content and purpose
(delivered from reliability), accessibility, navigation, design and presentation (all derived
from tangibles), background (assurance), and personalization and customization (derived
from empathy).

In addition, Madu and Madu (2002) proposed 15 dimensions of online service

quality based on literature review: performance, features, structure, aesthetics, reliability,
storage capacity, serviceability, security and system integrity, trust, responsiveness,
product / service differentiation, and customization, web store policies, reputation,
assurance and empathy.

Yang and Fang (2004) identified online service quality dimensions and their
relationship with satisfaction: their proposed factors are: reliability, responsiveness, ease
of use, and competence.

Griffith and Krampf referred by Zeithaml (2002) found that the access and
responsiveness of the website are the key indicators of service quality delivered through
the web. Liu and Arnett (2000) identified information and service quality, system use,
playfulness, and system design quality as key dimensions of web site quality. Huizingh
(2000) named two types of web quality: content and design. Wan (2000) recognized four
categories of web site quality attributes: information, friendliness, responsiveness, and

38
reliability. Misic and Johnson (1999) suggested such web-related quality criteria as
finding contact information (e.g. e-mail, people, phones, and mail address), finding main
page, speed, uniqueness of functionality, ease of navigation, counter, currency, wording,
and color and style. It is clear that the range of online service quality dimensions is really
expanded.

Saha and Zhao (2005: 20), compare traditional service quality dimensions with
online service quality dimensions among the researchers who worked on both of them the
results of their comparison are shown in table 2:

Table 2: Summary of Service Quality Factors

Online service Service

Dimensions Authors
quality quality
Parasuraman et al., (1985)
Zeithaml et al., (1988,2002)
Reliability Y Y Yang and Fang (2004)
Liu and Arnett (2000)
Riel et al. (2001)
Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Zeithaml et al. (1988, 2002)
Kaynama and Black (2000)
Responsiveness Y Y Delone and Mclean (2003)
Yang and Fang (2004)
Arnett (2000)
Riel et al. (2001)
Competence Y Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Accessibility Y Y Kaynama and Black (2000)

Courtesy Y Parasuraman et al. (1985)

Communication Y Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Credibility Y Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Security Y Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Understanding the Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Y
customer
Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Tangibles Y
Zeithaml et al. (1988)
Content Y Kaynama et al. (2000)
Accuracy Y
Easy of use Y Y Yang and Fang (2004)
Timeliness Y Zeithaml et al. (2002)
Efficiency Y Zeithaml et al. (2002)

39
 Table 2: Summary of Service Quality Factors (continued)
Dimensions Online service Service
Authors
quality quality
Fulfillment Y Zeithaml et al. (2002)
Privacy Y Zeithaml et al. (2002)
Compensation and
Y Zeithaml et al. (2002)
contact
Navigation Y Kaynama and Black (2000)
Page design and
Y Kaynama and Black (2000)
presentation
Background Y Kaynama and Black (2000)
Personalization
Y Kaynama and Black (2000)
and customization
Zeithaml et al. (1988)
Delone and Mclean (2003)
Assurance Y Y
Arnett (2000)
Riel et al. (2001)
Zeithaml et al. (1988)
Delone and Mclean (2003)
Empathy Y Y
Arnett (2000)

(Source: Saha and Zhao, 2005, P. 20)

2.4.3 Different Models of Online Service Quality Dimensions

Superior service quality measurably increases a firm’s overall profitability, its

price premium, and its perceived and actual market share (Zeithaml et al., 1996).
However, most organizations have limited understanding of how to design a customer-
centered web site that can help them establish better commercial relationships with their
customers and to secure the success of their e-Business initiative. Most organizations
would like to understand more closely the nature of the influence of quality aspects of
their web sites on purchasing decisions of web consumers so, different researches by
providing different models have tried to show these relationships. Smith and Merchant
(2001) believe that e-commerce firms depend on people visiting their sites, purchasing
their products, and, more importantly, becoming repeated customers.

There is a model which presented by Santos, (2003) that provides a

comprehensive framework of e-service quality and its determinants. The author by using
focus group interviews and insight from previous researches found a conceptual model of

40
e-service quality. The model proposed that e-service quality consists of an incubative
dimension and an active dimension. The incubative dimension and the active dimension
each consist of five or six related (and potentially) overlapping determinants. Customers
often divide service-quality dimensions into various sub-dimensions (Carman, 1990), and
a hierarchical conceptualization of service quality is appropriate (Brady and Cronin,
2001). The findings from the focus group research implied that the active dimensions are
as important as the incubative dimensions. The sequence of determinants in both the
incubative dimensions and active dimensions are presented according to their importance
as they emerged from the focus groups, either explicitly or implicitly (Figure 9).

Figure 9: E-Service Quality Model

(Source: Santos, 2003)

The incubative dimensions are defined as the proper design of a web site, how
technology is used to provide consumers with easy access, understanding, and attraction

41
of a web site. The majority of elements in the incubative dimensions can be developed
before a web site is launched. The active dimensions are defined as the good support, fast
speed, and attentive maintenance that a web site can provide to its customers. The active
dimensions must be achieved consistently throughout the period that a web site remains
active. It can increase customer retention and encourage positive word-of-mouth referral
(Santos, 2003).

Perhaps the most empirically grounded of the scales that focus specifically on the
website interface is WebQual (Loiacono et al., 2002). By interviewing both consumers
and website designers and using undergraduates to rate e-commerce sites, Loiacono et al.
identified 12 dimensions of website quality which they claimed have sufficient
discriminate validity: informational fit-to-task, interactivity, trust, response time, ease of
understanding, intuitive operations, visual appeal, innovativeness, flow/emotional appeal,
consistent image, online completeness and better than alternative channels.

Another scale that measures the website interface is Yoo and Donthu’s (2001)
SITEQUAL. The authors find a mere four rather than twelve dimensions; ease of use,
aesthetic design (site creativity with multimedia and color graphics), processing speed
(promptness of online processing and interactive responsiveness to consumer requests)
and security of personal and financial information.

Chen and Wells (1999) suggest a measure of web site success that they term
“attitude toward the site” or AST. The measure is global and includes five attributes
rather than developing factors or dimensions: website relationship building, intentions to
revisit, satisfaction with service, comfort in surfing, and the judgment that surfing the
website is a good way to spend time. While the measure is reliable, the authors concede
that AST is unlikely to convey a complete picture concerning online buyers’ judgments
of their online experiences.

Liu and Arnett (2000) surveyed webmasters, asking about factors critical to
website success. They found that webmasters believe that information and service
quality, system use (including ease of use and privacy), playfulness and system design

42
quality (including processing speed and balance between security and ease-of-use for
payment method) are important for a successful website.

Cox and Dale (2002) detail the key quality factors (KQFs) and then puts forward
a categorization of the KQFs in the form of a conceptual model for delivering a web site
to satisfy customer requirements. Then they have been grouped these KQFs into four
categories that each category relates to a different part of the web site experience and
serves to enhance customer satisfaction to the extent that the customer will return (Figure
10).

Figure 10: Conceptual Model for Delivering a Quality Web Site to Satisfy the Customer
(Source: Cox and Dale, 2002)

43
 In that model, this can be considered as a guide, that how to define the value
proposition of the web site before deciding which KQFs are appropriate in the
assessment.

Lee and Lin (2004), used the revised SERVQUAL scale items to establish
dimensions of e-service quality through web site design, reliability, responsiveness, trust,
and personalization. The relationship among the e-service quality dimensions, overall
service quality and customer satisfaction is hypothesized and discussed (Figure 11).

Web site design

Overall
service quality
Reliability
Purchase
Responsiveness Customer intention
satisfaction

Trust

Personalization

Figure 11: The Relationship among Overall Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, and Purchase Intension
(Source: Lee and Lin, 2004)

Liu and Arnett (2000) derive a framework from IS and marketing literature. They
identify four factors that are critical to web site success in e-commerce: information
quality, system use, playfulness and system design quality. They use following
framework to relate web site quality to customers’ perceived usefulness and perceived
ease of use, and further to customers’ preference and intention to reuse the site. The
framework is built upon TAM, SERVQUAL and the concept of trust (Delone and
McLean, 1992; Parasuraman et al., 1985; Davis, 1989; Lin and Lu, 2000; Chen et al.,
2002) (Figure 12).

44
 Figure 12: A Framework for Evaluating E-Commerce Web Site Quality
(Source: Cao, Zhang, and Seydel, 2005)

In addition, Kim and Kim and Lennon (2006) identify online service attributes
that facilitate efficient and effective shopping, purchasing, and delivery based on the
modified E-S-QUAL scale (Parasuraman et al., 2005) and, evaluate the extent to which
current online retailers provide such service attributes as an objective measure of service
performance. Since, their study identifies an extensive list of all available online service
attributes encompassing the consumers’ entire shopping process, the E-S-QUAL scale
provides a useful framework to categorize comprehensive service quality attributes
provided by online retailers.

The last model in this section which we are going to study and is considered as
one of the most completed models in this part is Wolfinbarger and Gilly model (2003).

Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003) offers important implications for the measurement
of consumer perceptions of an online purchase experience. Their analyses suggest that
judgments concerning the quality of an online site are most strongly related to website
design factors and fulfillment/reliability. In their model 14 items chosen, measure the
four factors at a global level. Most surprising is the role of security/ privacy, which is not

45
significant in predicting quality, except among the most frequent buyers at the website.
Their findings show that inferences of security/privacy are initially obtained from other
quality factors, particularly website design, when shoppers are new to a website. They
claim that it also, appears initially consumers’ judge security/privacy based on elements
such as the professional look and feel of the website, as well as functionality of a website,
and company reputation. Their eTailQ scale can be compared to the SERVQUAL scale
(Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988). According to writers, an overarching difference
between them is that consumer perceptions of employees play a central role in
SERVQUAL, while the company as an entity is the focus of eTailQ. The dimensions
themselves also have key differences. Website design is a new dimension that strongly
affects consumer perceptions of their buying experience. Reliability as defined in
SERVQUAL entails consistency of performance and dependability. In contrast,
fulfillment/reliability in eTailQ focuses on the accuracy of the depiction of the product on
the website, the accuracy of the order and on-time delivery, attributes peculiar to e-
tailors. Privacy/security does not come into play in SERVQUAL, although trust (in
employees rather than firms) is one attribute of their assurance dimension. Because of
fears such as identity theft and spam, e-tail consumers are particularly sensitive to privacy
and security in ways that differ from how consumers develop trust in individual service
employees (Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003).

E-tail
Quality

Fulfillment Customer
/reliability service
Website Privacy /
design security

Figure 13: Modeling E-Tail Quality as a Higher Order Factor

(Source: Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003)

The four factors extracted in Wolfinbarger and Gilly model are defined as follow:

46
 • Fulfillment/reliability is (a) the accurate display and description of a
product so that what customers receive is what they thought they ordered,
and (b) delivery of the right product within the time frame promised.
• Website design includes all elements of the consumer’s experience at the
website (except for customer service), including navigation, information
search, order processing, appropriate personalization and product
selection.
• Customer service is responsive, helpful, willing service that responds to
customer inquiries quickly.
• Security/privacy is security of credit card payments and privacy of shared
information.

2.5 E-Trust

In e-commerce context, loyal customers are considered extremely valuable. And

loyalty generally attributed to satisfaction with the quality of service (Ribbink, van Riel,
Liljander and Streukens, 2004). Also they believe that since, online transaction involves
many uncertainties for the customers, trust is a condition for exchange. In business
studies, trust has been found to be important for building and maintaining long-term
relationships (e.g. Rousseau et al., 1998; Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000). A research done
by Lewicki et al., (1998, p. 439), associated trust with a “confidence in the other’s
intentions and motives”. Another definition which is suitable in offline and online
services defines trust as the “degree of confidence or certainty the customer has in
exchange options” (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000, p. 327). Ribbink, van Riel, Liljander and
Streukens (2004), state that e-trust is defined as the degree of confidence customers have
in online exchange or in online exchange channel. Moreover Mayer et al., (1995) define
trust as “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based
on the expectations that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor,
irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party”.

Gefen (2003), summaries the conceptualization of trust from prior research as

follow:

1. A set of distinct beliefs consisting of integrity, benevolence, and ability;

2. A general belief or trusting intentions that another party could be trusted, or
“the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another” (Mayer
et al.,1995, p. 712);

47
 3. “Feelings of confidence and security in the caring response of the other party”
(Rempel et al., 1985, p. 96); and
4. A combination of these factors

Yoon (2002) describes the mechanisms of online trust as: security assurance,
reputation, web searching, fulfillment (i.e. willingness to customize), presentation (i.e.
web quality), technology, and interactions (e.g. e-forums). These mechanisms are
categorized into three dimensions of online trust:

1. Technical-based: web searching, technology and presentation;

2. Uncertainty of transactions and security: security assurance; and
3. Competency-based: reputation, fulfillment, and interactions.

Also according to Mukherjee and Nath (2007), online trust is different from
offline trust on the following parameters:

• Physical distance between buyer and seller, absence of salespeople, and

• Separation between buyer and products (Yoon, 2002);
• Absence of simultaneous existence in time and space;
• Absence of human network attributes (i.e. audio, video, and sensual); and
• Absence of feedback and learning capability (Nohria and Eccles, 1992).

According to Sultan et al., (2002), there are some factors in order to building
trust:

• Navigation: it is clarity in website layout and browsing, for example it

should be easy for customers to navigate and access the target web page.
• Advice: it is useful recommendations-questions asked for preferences in
the website, for example introducing any product that customer may need
based on his/her previous purchase.
• No errors: it is no busy server massages or no errors or crashing in the
website.
• Order fulfillment: it is order confirmation (via e-mail) and delivery
options available, for example this process should be in a way that
customer feel comfortable about the whole purchase to delivery process.
• Community: it is about chat rooms or bulletin-boards available in the
website, for example customers should be able to communicate together
to find out more about the website and product news.
• Privacy/security: it means easy to understand policy-use of consumer
information explained, privacy is to explain the privacy policy and the use
of customer information explicitly and clearly and security means to

48
 guarantee the security of payment process or personal information
transmission.
• Trust seals: it presents third party ratings.
• Brand: it is quality of advertised brands consistent with company quality-
carrying reputable brand names.
• Presentation: artistic or creative site – engaging site.

It should be mentioned that there are different types of trust and a distinction
needs to be made between a person’s disposition, or propensity to trust, system based
trust and interpersonal trust (Grabner-Krauter and Kalusha, 2003). Dispositional trust
plays a particularly important role in the interaction between unfamiliar actors (Bigley
and Pearce, 1998), and is therefore essential for the initial use of electronic retailers
(Grabner-Krauter and Kalusha, 2003), as well as for purchases of goods and services that
score high on credence and experience qualities. System-based trust equals e-trust and
deals with customer’s trust in purchasing or searching for good/service information
online. According to Geyskens et al., (1996), customer satisfaction is closely related to
interpersonal trust (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999). Satisfaction with a specific application
of the system the (e-tailor) will increase confidence in the system as a whole. It is
therefore expected that electronic satisfaction directly and positively affects e-trust
(Pavlou, 2003). On the other hand, Gummerus et al., (2004), develop four dimensions
that come out to be important to all online services: the quality of the user interface,
responsiveness, need fulfillment, and security. They believe if these four dimensions
fulfilled, then the customer trusts the online service or company which can lead to
satisfaction and finally loyalty.

2.6 The Conceptual Framework

This part aims to provide a conceptual framework coupled with theoretical

overview by explaining the key factors, variables, and relationships among theories or
models in order to give a better understanding of the process in this research.

The main purpose of this research is to find the impact of website quality on
satisfaction of website users in general and website quality factors in particular. It is also
intended to find the importance of such factors from an Iranian customer’s perspective.

49
 Based on the literature review in the last part of this section, it was mentioned that
quality and customer satisfaction are conceptually distinct but closely related structurally
(Parasuraman et. al., 1994; Dabholkar, 1995; Shemwell et al., 1998). On the other hand,
the continuous growth of competition in the market place has highlighted the
understanding of customers as an important issue in marketing. So, today’s companies
have shifted their focuses from products and sales to customer oriented marketing (Lin,
2003), in order to survive in such a highly competitive world. Also, there is an increasing
pressure to better understand the issue of online quality since with consumer experience;
expectations of online businesses are increasing (Yoo & Donthu, 2001). In addition;
having customers satisfied primarily depends on the balance between customer's
expectations and experiences with the products and services (Zeithaml et al., 1990).
Because customers have ever increasing expectations, it is necessary for companies to
continuously improve their quality and hence, customers’ experiences with the company.
Companies offer quality to satisfy their customers (Dale, 1999). As a Website is part of
the connection between a company and its customers, it is evident that it should reflect
the quality efforts that are in place throughout the company.

Besides this reason, there is another reason why companies should provide high
quality Websites to its customers: there is no human contact through Web sites. The
interaction via the Internet between a company and a customer is always through
technology. This means that the “moment of truth” between a company and a customer is
the Website. Although, companies may try to emulate human behavior through
technology, the interaction remains different because some aspects of human interaction
cannot be replaced with technology, e.g. courtesy, friendliness, helpfulness, care,
commitment, flexibility and cleanliness (Cox and Dale, 2001, 2002). The absence of such
aspects of human interaction which are normally delivered to customers through quality
will have to be compensated by a better performance on other quality factors or by
excellent performance on “new” specific Web quality factors. Moreover; a website
should reflect the value proposition and address whether it is trying to satisfy the
customers' needs to ensure frequent visits from the customer in the hope of gaining
customer loyalty. The result should be a common ground between the goals sought by the

50
website and the customers' goals leading to a pleasant experience on the part of the
customers (Creative Good, 2000).

In the last part, different satisfaction models and also website quality models have
been introduced. It is clear that in most cases, we can see a combination of satisfaction
and quality, as the separation of these two structures can be a bit difficult in e-commerce.
However, Oliver (1980) states that, these structures are separate therefore; we have tried
to focus on the models independently in order to measure satisfaction and quality
respectively. To this effect, the model presented by Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003) has
been selected to measure quality. The reason behind this selection is the fact that this
model, from the researcher's point of view, is considered as one of the most complete
models which just measures the quality of websites for online retailing. In their model
website quality consists of four factors:

1. Website design: with five sub dimensions about the elements of the
consumer’s experience at the website such as navigation, information
search, order process, personalization and product selection.
2. Fulfillment/reliability: with three sub dimensions about the accurate
display and description of a product and delivery of the right product with
in the time frame promised.
3. Security privacy: with three sub dimensions about the security of credit
card payments and privacy of shared information.
4. Customer service: with three sub dimensions about responsive, helpful
and willing service that responds to customers inquiries quickly.

For customer satisfaction, the model presented by Oliver (1980), has been used as
it is amongst models which tries to measure satisfaction separately from service quality
and expectations. To this end, he has used some emotional questions, and these questions
included references to the respondents’ outright satisfaction, regret, happiness, and
general feelings about their decision. In this part we have 12 questions.

Also, customer satisfaction, according to literature review, is closely related to

interpersonal trust (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999). Moreover; as many of antecedents of
trust are common with website quality items, the relationship of e-trust with satisfaction
and quality is also examined in our research. For this section, a part of vanRiel et al.,
(2004), questionnaire for e-trust has been used.

51
 So, the proposed conceptual model to find the impact of website quality on
customer satisfaction has been shown in figure 14:

Website satis 1
Design
satis 8
satis 2
Reliability E-tail Customer satis 9
Quality satisfactio
satis 3

Security satis 10
satis 4
E-trust
satis 11
Customer satis 5
Service satis 12
satis 6
E-trust E-trust E-trust E-trust E-trust
1 2 3 4 5
satis 7

Figure 14: Research Model (1)

In this model, various relations existing among the process components of the
impact of website quality on satisfaction including website design, reliability, security,
customer service and e-trust as an added factor have been hypothesized and examined.

2.7 Chapter Summary

The first section of this chapter dedicated to literature review as related to our
research context. The literature review starts with a general definition of e-commerce,
online retailing, customer satisfaction, satisfaction foundation and satisfaction models,
the link between service quality and satisfaction as well as traditional service quality,
online service quality and e-trust. Model of Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003) called E-tail
quality; the definition of Oliver (1980) for satisfaction and the definition of vanRiel et al.,
(2004), for e-trust have been chosen in this research.

52
 The second part of this chapter delivers a conceptual framework for the thesis and
further shows the models examined followed by the hypotheses and structures of model
used in this research.

53
Chapter 3:
Research Methodology:

3. Research Methodologies:

This chapter will present detailed idea about how the research will be conducted,
and which method and techniques will be implemented for conducting this research.
Research method is defined as the collection of rules, tools, and reliable and well ordered
ways to study the realities, to disclose the passivity, and to acquire the solutions (Khaki,
2000: 201). This includes the purpose of the research, research approach, research
strategy, sample selection methods, data collection methods, and data analysis methods.

54
At the end of this part validity and reliability issues will be discussed to follow the quality
standards of the research.

3.1 Research Purposes:

According to Yin (2003), a research purpose is to state what should be

accomplished by conducting research and how the results from the research can be used.
Research purposes can be classified in various ways. Accordingly Saunders, Lewis, and
Thornhil (2003) stated that they are most often classified as exploratory, descriptive, or
explanatory. On the other hand Cooper and Schindler (2003) categorized it in descriptive
and causal. If the research is concerned with finding out who, what, where, when or how
much, then the study is descriptive and in a causal study we try to explain relationships
among variables.

3.1.1 Exploratory Research

Exploratory research is useful when the research questions are vague or when
there is little theory available to guide predictions. Also it is useful at times; researcher
may find it impossible to formulate a basic statement of the research problem.
Exploratory research is used to develop a better understanding (Hair, Babin, and Money
& Samouel, 2003). Exploratory studies are a valuable means of finding out what is
happening, to seek new insight, to ask questions, and to assess phenomena in a new light.
It is particularly useful if researcher wish to clarify the understanding of a problem. There
are three principal ways of conducting exploratory research: a search of the literature,
talking to experts in the subject, conducting focus group interviews (Saunders, Lewis &
Thornhill, 2003).

3.1.2 Descriptive Research

Some researches have a purpose of describing different kinds of phenomena. For

example stages assurance, course of events and actions. A descriptive study presents a
complete description of a phenomenon in its context (Yin, 1994).

55
 The objective of descriptive research is to portray an accurate profile of persons,
events or situations (Martinson, 2005). It is necessary to have a clear picture of the
phenomena on which researcher wish to collect data prior to the collection of the data
(Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhil, 2003). In other words the who, what, where, why and
some times how aspects of the research should be defined. Moreover descriptive research
is often used when a problem is well structured and there is no intention to investigate
cause/effect relations (Paul & Eriksson, 1999). Descriptive research is recommended
when you search data often secondary, in order to describe a few aspects of a clearly
structured problem (ibid).

3.1.3 Explanatory Research

“Explanatory type of research is grounded in theory, and theory is created to

answer why and how questions. In business research we often find that the cause-effect
relationship is less explicit. We are more interested in understanding, explaining,
predicting and controlling relationships between variables than we are in detecting
causes. Explanatory studies go beyond description and attempts to explain the reasons for
the phenomenon that the descriptive study only observed. In an explanatory study, the
researcher uses theories or hypotheses to account for the forces that caused a certain
phenomenon to occur” (Darabi, 2007, p.46). Explanatory studies are designed to test
whether one event causes another (Hair, Babin, and Money & Samouel, 2003).

Our research purpose and questions reveal the fact that this study is descriptive. A
large scale survey has been applied to identify the impact of website quality factors on
customer satisfaction. The related data has been collected and analyzed to verify the
hypothesis of the research.

3.2 Research Approach

There are different types of approaches for conducting a research. The knowledge
claims, the strategies and the method all contribute to a research approach that tends to be
more quantitative, qualitative, or mixed (Creswell, 2003). On the other hand the research
project will involve the use of theories; and the extent to which a researcher is clear about

56
the theory at the beginning of the research raises an important question concerning the
design of the research project. This is whether the research should use the deductive
approach or inductive approach. Here chosen approach of this study will be presented.

3.2.1 Deductive Approach

In deductive approach, researchers develop a theory and hypothesis, and design a

research strategy to test the hypothesis. Deduction emphasizes scientific principals,
moving from theory to data, the need to explain causal relationships between variables,
the collection of quantitative data, the application of controls to ensure validity of data,
the operationalization of concepts to ensure clarity of definition, researcher independence
of what is being researched and the necessity to select samples of sufficient size in order
to generalize conclusion (Ghezelayagh, 2007, p.39).

3.2.2 Inductive Approach

In inductive approach, researcher would collect data and develop theory as a

result of data analysis. Induction emphasizes a close understanding of the research
context, the collection of qualitative data, and a more flexible structure to permit changes
of research emphasis as the research progresses, a realization that the researcher is part of
the research process and less concern with the need to generalize (Ghezelayagh, 2007,
p.39).

3.2.3 Quantitative Approach

Quantitative approach is one in which, the investigator primarily uses post

positivist claims for developing knowledge (i.e., cause and effect thinking, reduction to
specific variables, and hypothesis and questions, use of instrument and observation, and
test of theories), employs strategies of inquiry such as experiments and surveys and
collects data on predetermined instrument that yield statistical data (Creswell, 2003).

According to Newman and Benz (1998), quantitative research is frequently

referred to as hypothesis testing research. Characteristically, studies begin with

57
statements of theory from which research hypothesis are derived. Then an experimental
design is established in which the variables in question (the dependent variables) are
measured while controlling for the effects of selected independent variables. Subject
included in the study are selected at random in desirable to reduce error and to cancel
bias. The sample of subjects is drawn to reflect the population.

The nature of quantitative methodology is deductive, contributing to the scientific

knowledge base by theory testing. Because true experimental designs require tightly
controlled conditions, the richness and depth of measuring for participant may be
sacrificed. As a validity concern, this may be a limitation of quantitative designs
(Newman and Benz, 1998).

3.2.4 Qualitative Approach

Qualitative research is multi method in focus, involving an interpretive,

naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study
things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in
terms of the meanings people bring to them (Newman & Benz, 1998).

Qualitative approach is one in which the inquirer often makes knowledge claims
based primarily on constructivist perspectives (i.e., the multiple meaning of individual
experiences, meaning socially and historically constructed, with an intent of developing a
theory or pattern) or advocacy/participatory perspectives (i.e., political, issue oriented,
collaborative or change oriented) or both. It also uses strategies of inquiry such as
narratives, phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory studies or case studies. The
researcher collects open-ended emerging data with the primary intent of developing
themes from the data (Creswell, 2003).

The most important difference between the two approaches lies in the use of
numbers and statistics. Choosing a research approach technically depends on the
definition of research problems and the data needed to solve such problems. In this study,
the purpose is to understand the impact of website quality dimensions on customer
satisfaction and to elaborate on existing relations between customer satisfaction and

58
website quality factors. For this reason, quantitative approach is found to be more
appropriate.

3.3 Research Strategy

Research strategy will be a general plan of how researcher will go about

answering the research questions that has been set by researcher. It will contain clear
objectives, derived from research questions specify the sources from which researcher
intend to collect data and consider the constraints that researcher will inevitably have
such as access to data, time, location and money, ethical issues (Thornhill et. al., 2003).

According to 1) form of research questions 2) requires control over behavioral

events and 3) focus on contemporary events five research strategies were identified. They
consist of – experiments, surveys, archival analysis, histories and case studies (table 3).

Table 3: Research Strategies

Requires control Focuses on

Form of research
Strategy over behavioral contemporary
question
events events
Experiment How, Why Yes Yes
Who, What, Where,
Survey How many, How No Yes
much
Who, What, Where,
Archival analysis How many, How No Yes/ No
much
History How, Why No No
Case study How, Why No Yes

(Source: Yin, 1994, P.6)

Identifying the type of research question is the most important condition for
selecting research strategy. “who”, “what”, “where”, “how”, and “why” are the
categorization scheme for the types of research questions. Two possibilities need to
investigate by asking the “what” question. First some types of what questions are
justifiable for conducting some an exploratory study and the goal is to develop pertinent
hypothesis and propositions for further inquiry. Any of the five research strategies can be

59
used in that situation- exploratory survey, exploratory experiment, or an exploratory case
study. The second type of what question is actually form a “how many” or “how much”
line of inquiry and the outcomes from a particular situation. The survey or archival
analysis is more favorable than other strategies. If the researcher needs to know the
“how” question, the better strategy will be doing history or a case study (Yin, 1994).

Given the fact that the research questions in this study are What- question type in
nature and also the researcher may have no control over the actual behavioral events,
Survey, as one of the most appropriate tools for quantitative studies, is found to be a more
effective instrument in order to get a better understanding of the theme under study.

3.3.1 Survey

The survey strategy is a common strategy in business research that is usually

associated with the deductive approach. Questionnaire, structured observation and
structured interviews are different methods of this strategy (Thornhill et. al., 2003). In
this study a survey has been done.

3.4 Sample Selection

The basic idea of sampling is that by selecting some of the elements in a

population, researcher may draw conclusions about the entire population. Lower cost,
greater accuracy of results, greater speed of data collection, and availability of population
selection are different reasons for sampling (Cooper and Schindler, 2003).

Selecting the sampling method:

Selection of the sampling method to use in a study depends on a number of

related theoretical and practical issues. Therefore considering the nature of the study, the
objectives of the study, and the time and budget available are important. Traditional
sampling method can be divided into two categories: probability and non-probability
sampling (Samuel et. al., 2003).

60
 Probability sampling:

Probability sampling is most commonly associated with survey-based research

where, researcher needs to make inferences from the sample about a population to answer
the research questions or to meet research objectives (Saunders et. al., 2003). In
probability sampling, sampling elements are selected randomly and the probability of
being selected is determined ahead of time by the researcher. If done properly,
probability sampling ensures that the sample is representative (Hair et. al., 2003).

Non-probability sampling:

Provide a range of alternative techniques based on researcher subjective judgment

(Saunders et. al., 2003). In non-probability sampling the selection of elements for the
sample is not necessarily made with the aim of being statistically representative of the
population. Rather the researcher uses the subjective methods such as personal
experience, convenience, expert judgment and so on to select the elements in the sample.
As a result the probability of any element of the population being chosen is not known
(Samuel et. al., 2003).

According to Saha and Zhao (2005, p.33) refer to Samuel et. al., (2003), most
non-probability sampling methods are as follow:

Convenience sampling:

According to Hair et. al., (2003), Convenience sampling involves select sample
members who can provide required information and who are more available to participate
in the study. Convenience samples enable the researcher to complete a large number of
interviews cost effectively and quickly but they suffer from selection bias because of
difference of target population.

Judgment sampling:

Some times researcher’s judgment is used to select sample element and it involves
for a specific purpose. Group of people who have knowledge about particular problem

61
can be selected as sample elements. Sometimes it referred as purposive sample because it
involves a specific purpose. Judgment sampling is more convenience and low cost
involvement (Hair et. al., 2003).

Quota sampling:

Objective of quota sampling is to have proportional representation of the strata of

target population for the total sample and the certain characteristics describe the
dimensions of the population (Cooper and schindler, 2003). In quota sampling the
researcher defines the strata of the target population, determines the total size and set a
quota for the sample elements from each stratum. The findings from the sampling can not
be generalized because of the choice of elements is not done using a probability sampling
method (Samuel et al., 2003).

The purpose of this research is to find the most important website quality factors
in online shopping from the Iranian book shoppers’ perspective as well as finding the
impact of these factors on the level of their satisfaction from the website. So, our focus is
on online customers of bookstores. In order to get access, we needed a list of existing
online bookshops. As there existed no lists of online bookstores in Iran, a complete
search had been done through the Internet resulting in a list of 91 Iranian online
bookshops (appendix A). Having contacted and negotiated with all of them some 40
websites have been chosen as others were not active in selling books online. Due to the
fact that all 40 bookshops had no reliable databases of their customers, and some of them
could not load the questionnaire on their sites, 20 out of the 40 websites agreed to load
the questionnaire on their websites. As the size of the population under study is unknown,
the sample size has been determined using the following formula (Bazargan, 2001), for
unlimited population and thus, 240 questionnaires were gathered out which 219 were
eventually accepted.

1
z α 2 pq
(1 .96 ) 2 ( 0 .5 )( 0 .5 )
n= 2 2 = = 196
σ ( 0 .07 ) 2

62
3.5 Data Collection:

There are two major approaches to gather information about a situation, person,
problem or phenomenon. Sometimes information required is already available and only
need to be extracted. However there are times when the information must be collected.
Based upon theses broad approaches for information gathering, data are categorized as:
secondary data and primary data. Secondary data are collected from secondary sources
such as publications, personal records, census (Ranjit Kumar, 1996) and primary data are
collected through observation, interviews and/or questionnaire (Hair et. al., 2003).
According to Creswell (2003) data collection procedure in qualitative research involve
four basic types: observations, interviews, documents, and audio-visual materials.

In this study quantitative survey is used as data collection method. Based on our
research objective, a questionnaire was prepared to elicit customers’ experiences in
online book shopping. The questionnaire was developed based on our research questions
and framework of reference.

Measurement of the structures and pilot test:

The questionnaire consists of four parts (Appendix B). Part one gathered general
information about the respondents’ gender, age, education, the average amount of time
spent on the Internet, the average number of books bought through the Internet over a
period of one year, as well as their experiences in purchasing books from other websites.
Part two asked the respondents to answer 14 website quality questions, including website
design, fulfillment/ reliability, security/privacy, and customer service questions in order
to measure the amount of existing quality in a special website. Part three explores the
amount of respondent's satisfaction toward a website by asking 12 questions. Finally, part
four tries to measure electronic trust of respondents to a website through 5 questions.
Questions in parts two, three, and four were assessed using a seven point Lickert scale
with end points of ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘strongly agree’. Also the questions in the last
three parts were selected exactly the same as those in the valid questionnaires of the three
articles namely the questionnaire of Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003) for quality part, the

63
questionnaire of Oliver (1980) for satisfaction part, and a part of the questionnaire of van
Riel et al., (2004), for e-trust part.

Once the questionnaire was developed, it was translated into Farsi in order to
make the items compatible with Iranian business culture. Then a pilot test was conducted
to assess the questionnaire in order to eliminate possible problems created as a result of
translation. The preliminary questionnaire was administered to a group of students of
marketing and e-commerce and 5 managers of different online bookstores as well as 5
MBA students. As a result of the pilot test, several questions were reworded, and a few
statements were made more applicable to the Iranian environment. On the other hand,
before the questionnaire was widely distributed ,it was administered to 20 customers for
the second phase of the pilot test and as per their responses, further amendments with
regard to the Iranian culture was made in the questionnaire.

3.6 Statistical Analyses

After collecting the data the process of analysis begins. Analysis of data in this
research was done by using LISREL XIII, Which is one of the SEM techniques.
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) techniques such as LISREL are second generation
of data analysis techniques that can be used to test the extent to which information system
research meets, recognized standards for high quality statistical analysis (Gefen, 2000).
The capability of SEM for simultaneous analysis differs greatly from most first
generation of regression models, and enable researchers to answer a set of interrelated
research questions in a single, systematic, and comprehensive analysis by modeling the
relationship among multiple and dependent constructs simultaneously. The statistics
results will be presented with detail description in chapter 4.

3.7 Validity/ Reliability

In order to reduce the possibility of getting wrong answers, pay attention to

validity and reliability in designing the research is essential (Saunders et. al., 2003).

64
3.7.1 Reliability

Reliability refers to the degree to which data collection method or methods will
yield consistent findings, similar observations, or conclusions reached by other
researchers or the amount of transparency in how sense was made from the raw data
(Saunders et al., 2003). Cooper and Schindler (2003) have defined reliability as many
things to many people, but in most contexts the notion of consistency emerges. A
measure is reliable to the degree that it supplies consistent results. Reliability is a
necessary contributor to validity but is not a sufficient condition for validity.

Reliability can be assessed by the following questions (Easterby-Smith et. al.,

2002, p.53):

1. Will the measures yield the same results on other occasions?

2. Will similar observation be reached by other observers?
3. Is there transparency in how sense was made from the raw data?

According to Mostaghel (2005, p.54) SPSS software offers “reliability analysis

statistics”; Reliability analysis allows us to study the properties of measurement scales
and the items that make them up. The reliability analysis procedure calculates a number
of commonly used measures of scale reliability and also provides information about the
relations between individual items in the scale. The following models of reliability are
available:

1. Alpha (Cronbach): this is a model of internal consistency, based on the

average inter-item correlation.
2. Split-half: this model split the scale into two parts and examines the
correlation between the parts.
3. Guttman: this model computes guttman’s lower bounds for true reliability.
4. Parallel: this model assumes that all items have equal variances and equal
error variances across replications.
5. Strict parallel: this model makes the assumptions of the parallel model
and also assumes equal means across items.

The followings are the steps taken to ensure the reliability of this study:

1. Questionnaire was divided into four parts in order to enable respondents to

better concentrate on each question and to answer the questions with

65
 adequate knowledge and understanding of each single field of the
questions.
2. The theories selected for the study were clearly described.
3. Alpha Cronbach test has also been applied to all questions in addition to
that of each single section of questions. As shown in table 1, the result for
the whole questions is 0.920 which is more than 0.7 confirming the
reliability of questions.

Table 4: Overall Cronbach’s Alpha

Cronbach's
Alpha Based
On
Cronbach's Standardized
Alpha Items N of Items
.920 .934 33

Table 4: Overall Cronbach’s Alpha

A tool that has alpha Cronbach more than the minimum quantity level which
suggested through Nunnally (0.7) is considered reasonable from reliability aspect (Jamal
& Naser, 2002, p.154).

3.7.2 Validity

Saunders et. al., (2003) state that validity is concerned with whether the findings
are really about what they appear to be about. They defined validity as the extent to
which data collection method or methods accurately measure what they were intended to
measure. Cooper and Schindler (2003) believe that validity refers to the extent to which a
test measures what we actually wish to measure. There are two major forms: external and
internal validity. The external validity of research findings refers to the data’s ability to
be generalized across persons, settings, and times. Internal validity is the ability of a
research instrument to measure what is proposed to measure (Cooper and Schindler,
2003).

These are different steps were taken to ensure the validity of this study:

• Data was collected from the reliable sources, from respondents who are
experienced to purchase books online.
• Survey question were made base on literature review to ensure the
validity of the results.

66
 • Questionnaire has been pre tested by at least 20 persons before starting
the survey.
• Data has been collected through 4 weeks without any changes in the
websites.

3.7.3 Factor Validity of Questionnaire

Factor validity is a kind of Construct validity that is acquired through factor

analysis. Factor analysis is a statistical art that is applied extensively in humanities.
Indeed, use of this analysis is essential and necessary in the offshoots that are used in the
tests and questionnaires. The use of factor analysis distinguishes that whether the
questionnaire tests the proposed characteristics (Aghamiri, 2007). In this analysis,
questions that are planned to assess an indicator or a particular character; must possess
the joint factorial load. In the present research, about 14 questions were designed for
assessing website quality, 12 questions were designed for customer satisfaction, and 5
questions were designed for e-trust.

3.8 Chapter Summary

Quantitative research approach was adopted in this study, and then measurements
of constructs were developed according to prior studies. The pilot test was conducted and
target population was defined, a sample of 20 Iranian online bookstores was identified by
a complete research in the Internet. The contact persons were the customers of these
websites who had at least purchased once through their websites. In the first phase, 266
questionnaires were gathered and after invalid responses had been filtered, the number of
questionnaires decreased to 219. Cronbach’s Alpha and factor analysis were achieved
using SPSS, while LISREL was applied for statistical analysis. Multiple regression
(examining dependence relations) and confirmatory factor analysis were used to estimate
a series of interrelated dependence relations simultaneously.

67
Chapter 4
Data Analysis

4. Data Description and Analysis

Information analysis is considered to be the most important part of the research

process. This chapter presents the data that has been collected through quantitative
survey. In addition, the demographic and descriptive statistics, reliability and validity
assessment and the results of hypothesis tests are delivered. To analyze the collected
data, first Cronbach’s Alpha Method will be used to show the reliability of the
questionnaire, then descriptive statistics will be assessed to examine the sociological

68
variables including gender, age, education, the average number of books purchased
online over a year, as well as the experience of purchasing books from other websites.
Analytical statistics are prepared, in which, first the suitability of the measurement tool
of service quality with the application of substantial factor analysis (measurement model
in structural equations modeling) is confirmed. After calculating factors score, the study
is conducted on the relations among quality, satisfaction, and e-trust of online
bookstore’s customers by applying the structural equation modeling.

4.1 Cronbach’s Alpha

Cronbach’s Alpha method is applied to calculate the reliability of measurement

tool e.g. questionnaire or tests which measure different characteristics. According to
Jamal & Naser (2002:154) a tool with Cronbach’s Alpha greater than the minimum
quantity level 0.7 suggested by Nunnally (1987) is considered reasonable from reliability
aspect.

To assess the reliability of the questionnaire in this research, Cronbach’s Alpha

was used. The results of reliability test by using SPSS software for the whole
questionnaire is 0.93, which is more than the minimum level (0.7). The reliability
numbers for each factor of quality, customer satisfaction section, as well as e-trust section
have been presented in table 5:
Table 5: Cronbach’s Alpha Test
Cronbach’s Alpha based
Constructs and variables Number of items
on standardized items
All of the questions 0.934 33
Website design 0.815 5
Reliability 0.667 3
Security 0.835 3
Customer service 0.920 5
Satisfaction 0.732 12
E-trust 0.795 5

69
 Theses numbers show that the reliability of proposed questionnaire is high and it
is suitable, except for the reliability part which its Cronbach’s Alpha is 0.667 and it is less
than 0.7. For this reason one question in this section will be omitted in our factor
analysis. Thus, the Cronbach’s Alpha for reliability will increase to around 0.7.

4.2 Descriptive Statistics

In this section, the way of statistical sample distribution with regard to the
variables such as gender, age, education, the average number of books purchased on the
internet over a year, as well as the experience of purchasing books from other websites is
studied (Table 6).

Table 6: Sample Demographics

Measure Items Frequency Percent

Male 154 70.3

Gender Female 65 29.7
Total 219 100.0
X<20 29 13.25
20 - 24 87 39.72
25 - 34 75 34.25
Age
35 - 44 22 10.0
45 – 54 6 2.73
Total 219 100.0
Under diploma 19 8.7
Diploma, above 84 38.4
B.A. 85 38.8
Education
M.A. 24 10.9
PHD 7 3.1
Total 219 100.0

70
 Table 6: Sample Demographics (continued)
Measure Items Frequency Percent
X< 1 in year 81 37.0
2 – 4 in year 65 29.7
5 – 7 in year 26 11.9
Number of
8 – 10 in year 15 6.8
purchases
X > 10 in year 32 14.6
Total 219 100.0
Experience of One 89 40.6
shopping from More than one 130 59.4
different sites Total 219 100.0

According to table 6, 70.3% of respondents are men and 29.7% of them are
women. The highest frequency is related to the age group 20 to 24 and the lowest
frequency is related to the age group 45 to 54. Furthermore, 38.8% of them have B.A.
degree and the lowest frequency for education is related to those with PHD. Also, number
of purchases for the majority of respondents is 1 or less than 1 time in a year and 59.4%
of them have had the experience of shopping from more than one website.

4.3 The Condition of Quality Variables

In table 7, the condition of four quality variables with regards to descriptive

statistics have been shown.

Table 7: One-Sample Statistics

Std. Error
N Mean Std. Deviation Mean
EASE 218 5.2511 1.35506 .09178
RELI 217 5.5507 1.38601 .09409
SECU 215 5.1829 1.26402 .08621
CS 217 5.2258 1.43801 .09762

Note: EASE represents: website design

RELI represents: reliability
SECU represents: security
CS represents: customer service

71
 4.3.1 Condition of Quality Variables According to One-Sample T-
Test

Table 8 shows the results of one-sample t-test. This test is used to assess the
condition of quality variables in one population.

H0 : μ = 4

H1 : μ ≠ 4

Table 8: One-Sample T-Test

Test Value = 4
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Mean Difference
t df Sig. (2-tailed) Difference Lower Upper
EASE 13.633 217 .000 1.25115 1.0703 1.4320
RELI 16.481 216 .000 1.55069 1.3652 1.7361
SECU 13.722 214 .000 1.18295 1.0130 1.3529
CS 12.557 216 .000 1.22581 1.0334 1.4182

In order to find the position of each quality factor in the research model, as table
(7) shows, one sample t-test is used. According to this test since the significant numbers
for all the factors are zero and they are less than the error level which is 0.05, (H0) is
rejected. Also since all the lower and upper limits are positive, μ is greater than 4
( μ >4), and we can state that the condition of website design, reliability, security and
customer service are suitable in our model from the customers point of view.

4.4 Factor Validity of Questionnaire

Factor validity is a construct to assess the validity of questionnaires and it is

acquired through factor analysis. In each questionnaire, questions that are planned to
assess an indicator or a particular character, must possess the joint factorial load. Factor
analysis consists of four steps: (1) Preparation of correlation matrix: the number in the
main diameter of this matrix is called communality which is indicator of proportion of
communal variance between each variable and factor. Communality quantity varies

72
between 0 and 1. (2) Factors extraction: the aim of this stage is to get the main factor
which has caused changes in the proposed variables (Bazargan, Sarmadi, Hejaji, 2002:271-
72). The most common method for factor extraction is principle component method. The
factor loads for each item in this matrix show the role or the amount of correlation of
each question in a special dimension related to that question. (3) Selection and rotation of
factors: the aim of factor analysis is to explain the proposed phenomena with the first few
variables. In the first turn, the objective to determine the number of factors is that it will be kept
in the analysis. According to Kaiser’s basis, only factors are being kept, that their total factor
load square (special quantity) will be one or more. In the Kettle method, special quantity graph
is drawn for each factor; in this questionnaire Kaiser’s method is used. After selecting the
factors, their rotation in order to reach to a simple structure of them is necessary. (4)
Interpretation: finally the results of factor analysis will be acquired (Aghamiri, A., 2007).

4.4.1 The Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis

In this part, in order to measure the validity of questionnaire the results of the first and
second rank of exploratory factor analysis have been presented in tables 8 and 9:

Table 9: Results of Exploratory Factor analysis

Significant Cumulative total

Variables KMO
Bartlett’s test variance %
Website design 0.777 0.000 69.686
Reliability 0.611 0.000 76.700
Security 0.707 0.000 75.241
Customer service 0.744 0.000 82.021
Quality 0.785 0.000 69.426
Satisfaction 0.880 0.000 67.962
E-trust 0.725 0.000 77.451

KMO: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis
Note: Significant Level = 0.05 and Suitable KMO > 0.6

73
 KMO numbers and Bartlet’s test show that the data are reasonable for execution of
factor analysis for Website Design (KMO = 0.777 , sig = 0.000) , Reliability (KMO = 0.611 ,
sig = 0.000) , Security (KMO = 0.707 , sig = 0.000) , Customer Service (KMO = 0.744 , sig =
0.000) , Quality (KMO = 0.785 , sig = 0.000) , Satisfaction (KMO = 0.880 , sig = 0000) , and
E-Trust (KMO = 0.725 , sig = 0.000). As, for all of them KMO is bigger than 0.6 and
significant Bartlet’s test is smaller than significant level which is 0.05, that indicate correlation
matrix possessing significant information. In addition, the Total Variance shows that the
questions of website design totally form one factor which covers 69.686% of website design
variance, the questions of reliability totally form one factor which covers 76.700% of reliability
variance, the questions of security totally form one factor which covers 75.241% of security
variance, and the questions of customer service totally form one factor which covers 82.021%
of customer service variance. Furthermore, four quality variables totally form one factor which
covers 69.426% of quality variance. More over, the questions of satisfaction and e-trust form
two factors, the two factors of satisfaction totally cover 67.962% of its variance and the two
factors of trust totally cover 77.451% of e-trust variance.

Table 10 shows the ratio of questions communality and the results of exploratory factor
analysis to test the validity of questionnaire.

Also in this research simple mean method is used to acquire the extracted factor scores.

Table 10: Results of Component Matrix and Extraction Communalities

Communalities Factor loads

Variables
First Second
Component Matrixa

Website design 1 0.777 0.784 0.886

Website design 2 0.733 0.782 0.884
Website design 3 0.607 0.659 0.812
Website design 4 0.232 - -
Website design 5 0.602 0.562 0.750
Reliability 1 0.631 0.767 0.876
Reliability 2 0.719 0.767 0.876
Reliability 3 0.460 - -

74
 Table 10: Results of Component Matrix and Extraction Communalities (continued)
Variables Communalities
Factor loads
First Second
Security 1 0.786 - 0.887
Security 2 0.792 - 0.890
Security 3 0.680 - 0.824
Customer service 1 0.807 - 0.899
Customer service 2 0.807 - 0.898
Customer service 3 0.846 - 0.920
Website design 0.696 - 0.834
Reliability 0.788 - 0.887
Security 0.529 - 0.727
Customer service 0.765 - 0.875
Satisfaction 1 0.740 - 0.833 – 0.216
Satisfaction 2 0.723 - 0.833 – 0.170
Satisfaction 4 0.675 - 0.788 – 0.232
Satisfaction 6 0.502 - 0.681 – - 0.196

Rotate Component Matrixb

Satisfaction 7 0.812 - 0.863 – 0.260
Satisfaction 8 0.785 - 0.877 – 0.128
Satisfaction 11 0.660 - 0.767 – 0.268
Satisfaction 12 0.688 - 0.758 – 0.336
Satisfaction 3 0.586 - 0.082 – 0.761
Satisfaction 5 0.674 - 0.153 – 0.806
Satisfaction 9 0.748 - 0.274 – 0.821
Satisfaction 10 0.562 - 0.122 – 0.740
E-trust 1 0.679 - 0.662 – 0.490
E-trust 2 0.804 - 0.073 – 0.894
E-trust 3 0.736 - 0.243 – 0.823
E-trust 4 0.832 - 0.901 – 0.145

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis

a. Component Extracted / b. Rotation Converged in 3 Iterations
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

75
 The ratio of questions first communality is bigger than 0.50 for all the questions except
question four in the website design section which relates to the level of personalization and
question three in the reliability section which relates to the on time delivery, and it is the
indicator of suitability of rest of the questions. In the second rank of exploratory factor analysis
question four in website design section and question three in reliability part which has the
lowest communality, comparing the other questions, eliminated and factor analysis has been
done one more time. Also, questions number 3, 5, 9, and 10 in customer satisfaction part are
negative questions and during analysis they were changed to a positive form. Finally, the
results of component matrix show that which variables with which factor loads are related to
the constructs.

4.5 Inferential Statistics

In this part, after doing exploratory factor analysis and calculating factor loads for all
the research variables, we should be sure about the accuracy of our measurement tool by using
confirmatory factor analysis technique. Then we are going to test the research hypothesis by
using regression analysis via LISREL software. This part of research is done through structural
equation modeling, because there are some independent variables that may influence the
dependent variables, and Structural Equation Modeling is one of the basic methods for
analyzing the complex data structures. According to Hoyle (1995), Structural Equation
Modeling is a comprehensive statistical process for testing the hypothesis about the
relationships between observed and latent variables. Here, when the model is estimated,
software will produce statistical standards (RMSEA, standard error, t-value, and etc.)
about the proportional assessment of the model. If the model is credible but it doesn’t

have proportion to data, modification index ( χ ) that is a reasonable medium for

2

assessing proposed changes in model will be applied. According to Lavee (1988) the

model is suitable when χ is small, because it shows the difference between data and
2

model. Also the model is suitable when RMSEA which is one of the secondary indexes is
small, because it is a standard to show the difference mean between observed data and
model.

76
 Here, based on our research model, the results of hypothesis tests and
confirmatory factor analysis will be presented for each section of the model (Figure 15).

Website
Design
Fsatis 1

Reliability E-tail Customer

Quality Satisfactio

Security Fsatis 2
E-trust

Customer
Service

Fe-trust 1 Fe-trust 2

Figure 15: Final Research Model

4.5.1 Regression and Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Quality

In order to get a better understanding of relationships in different parts of research

model a conceptual model will be presented, and then the results will be shown in a table.

Figure 16: Conceptual Model

77
 Figure 17: Conceptual Model (2)

The conceptual models show that the relations between quality factors and their
sub dimensions have been assessed in Table 11, (see models in appendix C).

Table 11: Results of Hypothesis Test for Quality

Items Correlations T-values

Quality – website design 0.84 11.90
Quality – Reliability 1.07 13.99
Quality – Security 0.70 9.12
Quality – Customer Service 0.88 12.27
Website design – eas 1 0.84 -
Website design – eas 2 0.84 14.47
Website design – eas 3 0.77 12.81
Website design – eas 5 0.68 10.83
Reliability – reli 1 0.77 -
Reliability – reli 2 0.69 10.54

78
 Table 11: Results of Hypothesis Test for Quality (Continued)

Items Correlations T-values

Security – secu 1 0.81 -
Security – secu 2 0.90 13.09
Security – secu 3 0.65 9.70
Customer service – CS1 0.84 -
Customer service – CS2 0.84 13.10
Customer service – CS3 0.87 13.71

Chi – Square = 135.34

df = 50
P – Value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.088

Website Design - Reliability 0.94 24.07

Website Design - Security 0.51 8.29
Website Design –
0.73 16.98
Customer Service
Reliability – Security 0.74 13.41
Reliability –
0.92 22.13
Customer Service
Security –
0.71 15.55
Customer Service

Chi – Square = 119.26

df = 48
P – Value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.083

According to suitable statistics standards for the second rank of confirmatory factor
analysis, which have acquired as follow: 2.70 < 3 (authorized limit) and 0.088 < 0.1.

χ2 135 .34
= = 2.70
df 50
RMSEA = 0.088

79
the measurement tool is suitable and we can recover the model based on proposed
corrections by LISREL(Appendix C). Research hypotheses in this part are as follow:

Secondary Hypothesis:

1. There is a significant and positive effect between each of the quality factors and
their sub dimensions.

Main Hypothesis:

2. There is a significant and positive effect between quality and website design.
3. There is a significant and positive effect between quality and reliability.
4. There is a significant and positive effect between quality and security.
5. There is a significant and positive effect between quality and customer service.

In this section, Standard Estimation has been used to compare the influence rate of
each question in the questionnaire on website quality factors. Standard Estimate Model gives us
the possibility to compare the model’s variables because in this model the measurement units
of the variables are similar. Therefore, through acquired factors (correlation between variables)
among the website quality questions, questions 1 and 2 (ease1& ease2) have possessed the
highest percentage of correlation (0.84). It means that, (0.84)2 of website design variance will
be explained through questions 1 and 2. So, website design1 and website design 2 are the most
important questions, which are related to navigation and information search.

Among the reliability questions, reliability 1 (reli 1), which relates to the accurate
display and description of a product has possessed the highest percentage of correlation.

Also, security 2 (sec 2), among security questions and customer service 3 (cs 3), among
customer service questions have possessed the highest percentage of correlation, which
respectively related to safe feelings over the transaction and quick answer to inquiries.

Furthermore, among the quality dimensions: reliability, customer service, website

design, and security respectively have the highest amount of correlation. Therefore, quality of
an online bookshop strongly related to reliability and customer service in Iran.

80
 Moreover, a parameter should be significant and the acquired numbers for that
parameter should be coincidental by chance and opposed to zero in order to confirm the
hypotheses. For this reason, significant parameter model has been used. As it is obvious, in
table 11 all the models parameters are significant. It means that, the T-Value for each parameter
is bigger than 1.96. So, we can state that all of the main and secondary hypotheses in this
section of research model are confirmed.

For the first rank of confirmatory factor analysis according to suitable statistics
standards which have acquired as follow: 2.484 < 3 (authorized limit) and 0.083 < 0.1.
χ2 119 .26
= = 2.484
df 48
RMSEA = 0.083

the model is suitable from the point of evaluation of fit indicators view. Although, the
measurement tool is suitable but we can recover the model based on proposed corrections
by LISREL (Appendix C). Research hypothesis in this section of model are:

Main hypothesis:

6. There is a significant and positive effect between website design and reliability.
7. There is a significant and positive effect between website design and security.
8. There is a significant and positive effect between website design and customer
service.
9. There is a significant and positive effect between reliability and security.
10. There is a significant and positive effect between reliability and customer
service.
11. There is a significant and positive effect between security and customer
service.

According to correlation numbers in table 11, at first customer service and reliability,
and then website design and reliability, have possessed highest percentage of correlation (0.99
& 0.94).

In addition, according to t-values all of the models parameters are significant. It means
that the significant number of each parameter is bigger than 1.96. Therefore, all the hypotheses
are confirmed.

81
4.5.2 Regression and Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Satisfaction

Table 12 indicates the results of hypotheses tests for satisfaction part as well as
the first and second rank of confirmatory factor analysis of research model.

Table 12: Results of Hypothesis Test for Satisfaction

Items Correlations T- Values

Fsatis 1 – satis 1 0.86 -
Fsatis 1 – satis 2 0.81 15.24
Fsatis 1 – satis 4 0.81 15.07
Fsatis 1 – satis 6 0.60 9.24
Fsatis 1 – satis 7 0.90 18.59
Fsatis 1 – satis 8 0.87 17.20
Fsatis 1 – satis 11 0.79 14.54
Fsatis 1 – satis 12 0.81 15.11
Fsatis 2 – satis 3 0.58 -
Fsatis 2 – satis 5 0.68 7.46
Fsatis 2 – satis 9 0.88 8.23
Fsatis 2 – satis 10 0.68 7.39
Satisfaction – Fsatis 1 0.57 5.08
Satisfaction – Fsatis 2 0.83 4.84

Chi – Square = 223.50

df = 52
P- Value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.123

82
 Table 12: Results of Hypothesis Test for Satisfaction (Continued)

Items Correlations T- Values

Fsatis 1 – Fsatis 2 0.47 7.65

Chi – square = 223.50

df = 53
P- value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.121

Research hypotheses for this part of model are:

Main hypothesis:

12. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis1 and Fsatis1.
13. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis2 and Fsatis1.
14. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis4 and Fsatis1.
15. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis6 and Fsatis1.
16. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis7 and Fsatis1.
17. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis8 and Fsatis1.
18. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis11 and Fsatis1.
19. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis12 and Fsatis1.
20. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis3 and Fsatis2.
21. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis5 and Fsatis2.
22. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis9 and Fsatis2.
23. There is a significant and positive effect between Satis10 and Fsatis2.

As it was mentioned before, satisfaction consists of two factors and the results of
second rank of factor analysis show that the second factor (Fsatis 2) which consists of
negative questions has possessed the highest percentage of correlation. Among the
questions of the first factor of satisfaction, question 7 which is about the intension to
revisit the site, and among the questions of second factor of satisfaction question 9 which
is about a bad feeling about the decision of online purchasing, has possessed the highest
percentage of correlation. Moreover, all of the coefficients and parameters of this part of
the model has become significant because T-Values are more than 1.96. So, all the
hypotheses in this part are confirmed.

In the second rank of confirmatory factor analysis, research hypothesis is:

83
 Hypothesis:

24. There is a significant and positive effect between Fsatis1 and Fsatis2

According to table 12, the amount of correlation between the two factors that
satisfaction consists of them is, 0.47. It means that if we have one unit changing in one
factor we can observe 0.47 units changing in the second factor. In addition, as it has been
observed, all the coefficients and parameters of this part of the model have become
significant and they are more than 1.96. Therefore the hypothesis in this part is
confirmed.

4.5.3 Regression and Confirmatory Factor Analysis for E-Trust

Table 13 shows the results of hypotheses tests for e-trust item, as well as the first
and second rank of confirmatory factor analysis.

Table 13: Results of Hypothesis Test for E-Trust

Items Correlations T - values

Fe-trust 1 – e-trust 1 0.66 -
Fe-trust 1 – e-trust 4 0.86 9.60
Fe-trust 1 – e-trust 5 0.83 9.56
Fe-trust 2 – e-trust 2 0.61 -
Fe-trust 2 – e-trust 3 0.91 4.65
E-trust – Fe-trust 1 0.66 5.30
E-trust – Fe-trust 2 0.74 3.87

Chi – Square = 27.17

df = 3
P- Value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.192

84
 Table 13: Results of Hypothesis Test for E-Trust (Continued)

Items Correlations T - values

Fe-trust 1 – Fe-trust 2 0.49 6.47

Chi – Square = 27.17

df = 4
P- Value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.163

Research hypotheses in the second rank of confirmatory factor analysis are:

Main hypothesis:

25. There is a significant and positive effect between Fe.t1 and E-Trust1.
26. There is a significant and positive effect between Fe.t1 and E-Trust4.
27. There is a significant and positive effect between Fe.t1 and E-Trust5.
28. There is a significant and positive effect between Fe.t2 and E-Trust2.
29. There is a significant and positive effect between Fe.t2 and E-Trust3.

As it was mentioned before, e-trust consists of two factors and between these two
factors the second factor (Fe.t.2), has possessed the highest percentage of correlation.
Among the questions of the first factor of e-trust, question 4, which is about the
professionalism of the site, and among the questions of the second factor of e-trust
question 3, which is about paying in advance, has possessed the highest percentage of
correlation. Also, as it is observed in table 13, all the coefficients and parameters of this
part of the model has become significant which are more than 1.96. So, all the hypotheses
in this part are confirmed.

The main hypothesis in the first rank of confirmatory factor analysis is:

Hypothesis:
30. There is a significant and positive relationship between Fe.t1 and Fe.t2.

The amount of correlation between the two factors that e-trust consists of them is,
0.49. It means that if we have one unit changing in one factor we can observe 0.49 units
changing in the second factor. It is clear that, all of the coefficients and parameters of

85
this part of the model has become significant and they are more than 1.96. Therefore, we
can state that the hypothesis in this part is confirmed.

4.5.4 Regression and Confirmatory Factor Analysis among Trust,

Satisfaction, and Quality

The results of hypotheses tests in order to find the relations and links between e-
trust, satisfaction and quality are presented in table 14.

Table 14: Results of Hypothesis Test for the Relations between Trust, Quality, and Satisfaction

Items correlations T-values

E-trust - Quality 0.92 21.49
E-trust – satisfaction 0.92 15.87
Quality – satisfaction 0.96 21.58

Chi – Square = 38.01

df = 17
P- Value = 0.00245
RMSEA = 0.075

Link of E-trust – quality 0.89 10.22

Link of E-trust –
0.06 0.55
satisfaction
Link of quality –
0.95 7.32
satisfaction

Chi – Square = 46.13

df = 17
P- Value = 0.00016
RMSEA = 0.89

86
 In this part of the research model hypotheses are as follow:

Hypothesis:

31. There is a significant and positive effect between e-trust and quality.
32. There is a significant and positive effect between e-trust and satisfaction.
33. There is a significant and positive effect between quality and satisfaction.

According to suitable statistics standards, which have acquired as follow: the ratio of
χ2
is equal to 2.23 which is less than 3 and RMSEA is equal to 0.075 which is less than
df
0.1, the measurement tool is suitable but we can recover the model based on proposed
corrections by LISREL (Appendix C). Also, there is a positive and significant correlation
among quality, satisfaction and e-trust. The amount of this correlation between trust and
satisfaction as well as trust and quality is 0.92, and between quality and satisfaction is
0.96. It means that, any changing in each of these variables leads to a positive changing
in the two other variables in the same direction. In addition, all the coefficients and
parameters of this part of the model have become significant and they are more than 1.96.
So, all the hypotheses in this section are confirmed.

In the next step, in order to find the links between different variables the
hypotheses are studied as follow:

Hypotheses:
34. Trust has a direct, positive, and significant effect on quality.
35. Quality has a direct, positive, and significant effect on satisfaction.
36. Trust has a direct, positive, and significant effect on satisfaction.
37. Trust through quality has a direct, positive, and significant effect on
satisfaction.

According to suitable statistics standards, which have acquired as follow: the ratio of
χ2
is equal to 2.713 which is less than 3 and RMSEA is equal to 0.089 which is less
df
than 0.1, the measurement tool is suitable and we can recover the model based on
proposed corrections by LISREL. Furthermore, as it is obvious in table 14, trust affect

87
quality by 0.89, it means that, with one unit increase in trust we have 0.89 units increase
in quality. Also, quality affects satisfaction by 0.95. On the other hand, the effect of trust
on satisfaction is very small and it is not significant, but trust through quality has an
indirect and significant effect (0.89 * 0.95 = 0.84) on satisfaction. Moreover, based on t-
values just the direct effect of trust on quality, the indirect effect of trust on satisfaction
and the direct effect of quality on satisfaction are confirmed because the significant
number of them are more than 1.96, but the direct effect of trust on satisfaction is not
confirmed (0.55<1.96).

4.5.5 Regression and Confirmatory Factor Analysis for the Direct Impact
of Quality Factors on Satisfaction

In this section, we are going to recognize which one the quality factors has a direct
impact on satisfaction (Table 15).

Table 15: Results of Hypothesis Test for the Direct Impact of Quality Factors on Satisfaction

Items Correlations T-values

Website Design –
0.13 0.66
Satisfaction
Reliability –
-0.17 -0.62
Total Sample Satisfaction
Security –
0.13 0.74
Satisfaction
Customer service -
0.83 4.16
Satisfaction

Chi – square = 125.43

df = 67
P- value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.063

88
 Table 15: Results of Hypothesis Test for the Direct Impact of Quality Factors on Satisfaction (Continued)

Items Correlations T-values

Website design –
1.54 - 0.30
Satisfaction
Respondents with
Reliability –
the 3.85 0.38
Satisfaction
Experience of
Security –
Shopping from One -0.74 - 0.33
Satisfaction
Website
Customer service -
-0.90 - 0.22
Satisfaction

Chi – square = 135.06

df = 67
P- value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.107

Website design –
0.14 0.54
satisfaction
Respondents with
Reliability –
the -0.19 -0.49
satisfaction
Experience of
Security –
Shopping from 0.13 0.73
satisfaction
More than One Site
Customer service -
0.84 4.01
satisfaction

Chi – square = 130.08

df = 67
P- value = 0.0000
RMSEA = 0.085

Research hypotheses are as follow:

38. Website design has a positive and significant effect on satisfaction.
39. Reliability has a positive and significant effect on satisfaction.

89
 40. Security has a positive and significant effect on satisfaction.
41. Customer service has a positive and significant effect on satisfaction.

According to suitable statistics standards which have acquired as follow: 1.87 < 3
(authorized limit) and 0.063 < 0.08.

χ2
= 1.87
df
RMSEA = 0.063

the model is in a suitable position and we can recover the model based on proposed
corrections by LISREL.

In addition, it is clear that just customer service has the positive and significant
impact on customer satisfaction. This effect is equal to 0.83. The effects of other two
variables (security and website design) are 0.13 but, they are not significant, as their
significant numbers are greater than 1.96 or smaller than -1.96. So, just the forth
hypothesis is confirmed. On the other hand, comparing this relationship in two groups of
customers (the ones with the experience of purchasing from one website and the ones with the
experience of purchasing from more than one website) indicates that in the group of
customers with the experience of shopping from more than one website, customer service
has a significant impact on satisfaction, but, in the group of customers with the
experience of purchasing from just one website there isn’t any direct relationship between
quality factors and satisfaction.

4.6 Comparing the Quality Factors According to the Number of

Purchasing

In this section, the condition of research model variables (website design,

reliability, security, customer service, e-trust, and satisfaction) with regard to the number
of purchases by customers has been assessed.

90
 Table 16: Comparison based on the Number of Purchases (Group Statistics)
Std. Error
H 0 : μ1 = μ 2 exper N Mean Std. Deviation Mean

H 1 : μ1 ≠ μ 2 EASE one 88 5.0398 1.61614 .17228

more than once 130 5.3942 1.12966 .09908
RELI one 89 5.0955 1.66152 .17612
more than once 128 5.8672 1.05271 .09305
SECU one 86 5.2519 1.38142 .14896
more than once 129 5.1370 1.18264 .10413
CS one 88 5.0114 1.74011 .18550
more than once 129 5.3721 1.17399 .10336
trust one 89 4.3839 1.36067 .14423
more than once 127 5.1614 1.15779 .10274
satis one 89 4.9026 1.25562 .13310
more than once 130 5.0248 1.13426 .09948

Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for

Equality of
Variances t-test for Equality of Means
95% Confidence Interval of
Sig. Mean Std. Error the Difference
F Sig. t df (2-tailed) Difference Difference Lower Upper
EASE Equal variances
21.753 .000 -1.906 216 .058 -.35446 .18593 -.72093 .01201
assumed
Equal variances not
-1.784 143.480 .077 -.35446 .19874 -.74729 .03838
assumed
RELI Equal variances
27.212 .000 -4.185 215 .000 -.77168 .18437 -1.13509 -.40827
assumed
Equal variances not
-3.874 136.606 .000 -.77168 .19919 -1.16558 -.37779
assumed
SECU Equal variances
1.157 .283 .653 213 .515 .11499 .17620 -.23234 .46231
assumed
Equal variances not
.633 162.581 .528 .11499 .18175 -.24390 .47388
assumed
CS Equal variances
21.599 .000 -1.824 215 .070 -.36073 .19775 -.75052 .02906
assumed
Equal variances not
-1.699 140.227 .092 -.36073 .21235 -.78055 .05909
assumed
trust Equal variances
3.026 .083 -4.517 214 .000 -.77752 .17214 -1.11683 -.43822
assumed
Equal variances not
-4.391 169.482 .000 -.77752 .17708 -1.12709 -.42796
assumed
satis Equal variances
1.856 .175 -.749 217 .455 -.12212 .16303 -.44345 .19920
assumed
Equal variances not
-.735 176.263 .463 -.12212 .16617 -.45005 .20581
assumed

Table 17: Independent T-Test

Since these means are principally related to proposed sample, we have conducted
the independent t-test to study the significant difference between them. Independent t-test

91
is used to assess the condition of one variable in two independent populations. In table
16, at first we have a test for equality of variances. In this test if the significant level for
each variable is smaller than the error level (0.05) we assume, the variances are not equal,
and if the significant level is bigger than 0.05 equal variances are assumed. In the next
step, with attention to the fact that significant levels (2-tailed) are less or grater than error
level (0.05) we assume the means of these factors are equal or not. So, for the ones with
sig > 0.05, H0 is accepted. With the respect to this point that the lower and upper limits
are negative or positive, we can state that μ1 < μ 2 or μ1 > μ 2 . A summary of the results of
this test has been shown in table 17.

Table 18: Results of Independent T-Test

Comparing Quality Factors according to
Variables
the Number of Purchasing
Website Design Equal
Reliability The group with more experience
Security Equal
Customer Service Equal
Trust The group with more experience
Satisfaction Equal

It is obvious that although, among the research model variables, website design,
security, customer service and satisfaction are equal in two groups, the amount of
reliability and trust for the group of respondents with more number of purchasing are
higher.

4.7 The Condition of Satisfaction and Trust in the Sample

In order to extract the level of trust and satisfaction with regard to the present
level of quality among Iranian online book shoppers one-sample t-test is used.

H0 : μ = 4
H1 : μ ≠ 4

92
 Table 19: One-Sample T-Test

Test Value = 4
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Mean Difference
t df Sig. (2-tailed) Difference Lower Upper
trust 9.507 215 .000 .84105 .6667 1.0154
satis 12.190 218 .000 .97514 .8175 1.1328

It is clear that, since the significant number for trust and satisfaction is zero which
is less than error level (0.05), H0 is rejected and because the lower and upper limits are
positive, for both of them μ is greater than 4. So, the level of trust and satisfaction
among Iranian online book shoppers are suitable.

Table 20: Percentage of People with High and Low Satisfaction

satisfaction Frequency Percent

level low 48 21.9
high 171 78.1
Total 219 100.0

Table 21: The Importance of Quality Dimensions according to the Amount of Satisfaction

satisfaction Website customer

design reliability security service
Low Mean 4.2448 4.2604 4.4681 3.9645
N 48 48 47 47
Std. Deviation 1.63692 1.73509 1.62507 1.75179
Minimum 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Maximum 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00
Variance 2.679 3.011 2.641 3.069
High Mean 5.5353 5.9172 5.3829 5.5745
N 170 169 168 170
Std. Deviation 1.11519 1.00842 1.06579 1.11487
Minimum 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00
Maximum 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00
Variance 1.244 1.017 1.136 1.243

93
 Finally, based on table 19, 78.1% of respondents are satisfied from the present
level of quality and 21.9% of them are dissatisfied. In addition, according to table 21, the
arrangement of quality factors which lead to low satisfaction are customer service,
website design, reliability, and security and the arrangements of these factors which lead
to high satisfaction are reliability, customer service, website design and security.

4.8 Chapter Summary

This chapter presented the results of data analysis. Demographic profile of

respondents as well as the average number of books purchased online over a year, and the
experience of purchasing books from other websites has been presented. Structural
Equation Modeling using LISREL has been employed to test the research model. In the
reliability and validity testing stage the questions related to personalization and on time
delivery are omitted due to their low communalities. Regression analysis for all paths was
conducted and confirmatory factor analyses support the results. The results show that the
research model is a reliable and suitable model to assess website quality which has a
strong impact on customer satisfaction.

94
Chapter 5
Discussion and Conclusion

5. Conclusion

The growth of the online shopping has caused companies to face many new
challenges in their relations with the customers in order to survive. It is clear that in the
process of an online transaction, a website is part of the connection between a company
and its customers and the absence of human interaction has to be compensated by other
quality factors, therefore; finding and classifying website quality factors from the
customers' point of view is very important in this process. Furthermore; website quality
dimensions are different in different countries and industries. As online book purchasing,

95
after online banking, has shown a higher growth rate than other online markets in Iran
and as online book selling is known as one of the pioneer industries in the e-commerce
context, Iranian online booksellers need to get to know the most important web quality
factors from their customers' perspective in order to run an effective and efficient
website. For sure, such understanding will enable the booksellers to promote their
position among other online booksellers and also retain their customers. To this end,
having presented a relatively complete literature and a conceptual research pattern, a
model, to assess the impact of website quality on satisfaction, has been developed and
data was collected through an online questionnaire.

In this chapter, statistical analysis will be presented using the results of data
analysis in chapter 4 followed by suggestions based on research findings. Suggestions for
future researches and limitations of this research will be later reflected.

5.1 Theoretical Implications

This research has some theoretical and managerial implications. The main
contributions to theoretical implications involve the confirmation of some of the
hypothesized relations among website quality, customer satisfaction and e-trust.

Based on the results of this research, four quality factors (website design,
reliability, security, customer service), with regard to the relatively high and significant
factor loads of these dimensions have been introduced as the most important quality
factors.

The results of regression analysis indicate that website quality, customer

satisfaction and e-trust are strongly correlated to each other, although the correlation
between quality and satisfaction is much stronger than the others. In addition it should be
mention that e-trust directly affects quality and quality directly affects satisfaction.
However; e-trust has an indirect and significant effect on satisfaction through quality.

There is a positive and significant relation between each of the website quality
dimensions (website design, reliability, security, customer service) and quality.

96
Moreover; standard coefficients of regression model indicate that among the four website
quality dimensions, reliability has held the highest percentage of correlation with quality
and thus customer service, website design and security are in the next stages respectively.

On the other hand, our results suggest that providing in-depth information in the
site and having a user-friendly structure that does not waste users' time have possessed
the highest percentage of correlation with website design. Product presentation in the
website is the most important factor holding the highest correlation with reliability, and
feeling safe in the online transaction through a website has the highest percentage of
correlation with security/ privacy. Also having inquiries of the users promptly answered
is the most important activity in the customer service part.

Furthermore, there are some correlations between website quality factors: the
highest percentage of correlation is between reliability and website design. This is mainly
because of the correlation existing between the designs of the website in such a way that
provides users with adequate information on the products, and saves users’ time which
would certainly lead to the acquisition of the customers' reliability. Also, the relation
between the design of the website with an aim to save customers’ time and, answering to
inquiries promptly in the customer service part, is the reason for the 0.92 correlations
between reliability and customer service.

As it was mentioned in chapter 4, satisfaction consists of two factors and out of

these; factor 2 consisting of negative questions possessed the highest percentage of
correlation with satisfaction. Among different questions related to the first factor
consisting of positive questions of satisfaction, customers’ intentions to revisit the site
and among the questions of the second factor of satisfaction or negative questions, having
bad feeling about the decision of purchasing from a website have possessed the highest
percentage of correlation. Also, standard coefficient show that there is 0.47 correlation
between positive questions and negative questions in the satisfaction part which means
that with one unit changing in one factor we will have 0.47 change in the second factor.

97
 The study of the relations between e-trust dimensions through regression analysis
shows that e-trust consists of two factors and the second factor has possessed the highest
percentage of correlation with trust. Between two questions of second factor customer’s
willingness to pay in advance for purchasing products through a website is the most
important factor; and among the questions of the first factor this belief that the website is
professional in its job has possessed the highest correlation. Also there is a correlation
between the two factors of e-trust and with one unit changing in one factor we can
observe 0.49 units changing in the next factor.

Moreover, with regards to the results of this research among all quality variables
only customer service has a direct, significant and positive effect on satisfaction in the
overall sample. However, a comparison show that for customers with experience in
shopping just from one website, all the website quality dimensions affect satisfaction
through quality while by increasing the shopping experience from different websites; the
customer service directly affects customer satisfaction.

Finally, by increasing the number of purchases done by customers, the level of

quality is assessed much better. Therefore; the level of quality in the customers group
with number of purchases more than 3 times is assessed better than the other groups. In
addition; statistical tests in this part show that among different variables in the website
quality part, the amount of reliability and trust in the customer group with number of
purchases more than 3 times is higher than the second group. Also most of the
respondents are satisfied with this level of quality and the main factor behind such
satisfaction is reliability although, about 21.9% of them are not satisfied and the main
reason for such dissatisfaction is poor service, customers receive.

5.2 Managerial Implications

There are a number of implications for practicing managers. The model as a tool
has the ability to be utilized for all of the Iranian online bookstores to measure website
quality and it also offers important implications to measure customer’s perceptions of an
online purchase experience.

98
 Since there is a high correlation between quality and satisfaction and as quality
directly affects satisfaction, online bookstores should try to increase their quality by using
suggestions reflected in the next steps in order to meet the needs of their customers. Also,
since e-trust directly affects quality and through quality affects satisfaction, over the time,
online bookstores can use this trust to increase their quality and consequently their
customers’ satisfaction.

There is a positive and significant relation between quality and website design,
reliability, security and customer service, online bookstores should focus on all these
factors but one of the most important factors to increase quality in such websites is
reliability, therefore; online bookstores should try to represent their books accurately in
the website enabling the customers to choose what exactly they want. This will also help
bookshops deliver appropriate products.

The next item which helps increase quality in the Iranian online bookstores is the
customer service. As we are experiencing the first steps of e-commerce, our customers
need to be taken care of during their online transactions and thus this would reveal the
significance of the customer service. So; online bookstores, in the second step, should try
to answer inquiries as promptly as possible, they should show a sincere interest in solving
customers’ problems and furthermore; they should show their willingness to respond to
the needs raised by the customers.

In the third step to increase the quality of the website, providing in-depth
information and also having a clear and easy structure which do not waste users' time,
and having a good selection of books in the site is very important. These will also help
bookshops to have an appropriate website design.

Since reliability is the most important factor in increasing quality and as there is a
high correlation between website design and reliability, and also between customer
service and reliability, online bookstores can use both of these items in order to indirectly
increase reliability. Therefore all elements of consumer’s experience at the website
including navigation, information search, order processing and product selection as well

99
as responsive, helpful, willing service that responds to customer inquiries quickly are
very important activities in order to have reliable and consequently satisfied customers.

Most of the managers in online bookstores think that security is a very important
factor in their job believing in the fact that most of their problems root in the lack of a
reliable reference such as the government to guarantee such security. However; it seems
that as books are not expensive products, security stands last in this industry. Moreover,
security/privacy is correlated with website design, reliability and customer service; it
appears that inferences of security privacy are initially obtained from other quality
factors, particularly reliability and customer service. It also seems that consumer’s judge
security/privacy based on elements such as the willingness and speed of website to
answer their inquiries and problems.

Although, 78.1% of customers are satisfied with the level of quality in the Iranian
bookshops websites, by increasing the number of purchases, judgments on security
decrease. As such; websites managers should increase the level of security in their sites.

Based on the research results, among four website quality dimensions only
customer service has a direct, significant, and positive effect on satisfaction for customers
having online shopping experience from more than one website, therefore online
bookstores should bear in mind that the level of services they offer specially their prompt
responses to the customers' enquiries and requests specially over the time is very
important in directly increase the customer satisfaction.

In satisfaction part, online bookstores should try to create good feelings in

customers prior to their purchase from the site, when they decide to purchase this will
prevent them from getting confused by having mixed feelings about the site and also they
should try to get customers happy after the purchase. In the next step, customers’
willingness to revisit the website is also the most important indicator of satisfied
customers. In general, negative performance on attributes has been shown to have a
greater impact on overall satisfaction and repurchase intensions than does positive
performance (Mittal, Ross, &Baldasare, 1998).

100
 According to research results, in the e-trust part, online bookstores should be
professional in their job, and try to fulfill their promises, because it encourages customers
to trust websites and give their private information to the site, and thus the best indicator
of customers' trust is their willingness to pay in advance when shopping online.

Furthermore, our research results suggest that, the level of trust and reliability of
customers with more purchases is higher than those with fewer ones, so repeated
customers for a website and loyal customers with higher level of trust and reliability and
consequently higher level of satisfaction which has been acquired over a period of time
are very valuable to online bookstores. Therefore; online bookshops should try to keep
these customers. Since the main reason behind the dissatisfaction of many customers is
the poor customer services, the main gaps between satisfied and dissatisfied customers lie
in the reliability and customer service part, and because there is a relatively high
correlation between customer service and reliability, online bookshops should seriously
develop and improve the level of their customer services.

As a result of population mean test, much of the satisfaction was acquired for high
level of reliability in the Iranian online bookstores. As such; it is suggested that these
bookshops focus more on website design, customer services and security. Therefore; in
order to have customers more satisfied by improving the website quality, the following
suggestions are offered:

Customer service:

- Online bookstores should be flexible and ready for some changes in their
websites in order to respond to customers' requests, and therefore the
customer services department should be more willing to respond to needs
raised by the customers.
- Customers’ questions should be answered through website as soon as
possible allowing customers to have access 24/7, especially on holidays.
- Problems raised by Customers should be sincerely attended before,
during and after the transaction.

Website design:

- The website should provide guidance information on the structure of the

site and the process of online transaction.

101
 - The website should also have a rich and complete archive of books
related to its field of activity.
- The structure of the website should be clear, easy and do not waste users'
time when searching for a book or completing a transaction.

Security:

- The website should have adequate security features and also should
introduce these features to their customers. This helps customers feel
safer over the transaction through the website.

Reliability:

- The website should represent accurate information about books (abstract,

publisher, translator, price, edition…).
- The orders should be handled appropriately.
- The website should be responsible for its promises

5.4 Limitations of This Research

The limitations of this research will be discussed here. Firstly, due to the fact that
online book purchasing was at its infancy in Iran, comparing the importance of website
quality factors among information searchers and product buyers was a difficult job. As,
information searchers can be our potential customers this comparison is important.

Secondly, as a result of previous reason finding the different perspectives about

website quality features among goal oriented and browsers were very time consuming.

Thirdly, as there existed no database for online booksellers and online book
purchasers in Iran, the correct number of them was difficult to estimate.

Fourthly, the previous limitation resulted in an impossibility, getting connected

with many unsatisfied customers or the ones who did not purchase from the sites during
that special period of time.

Fifthly, some of the online bookshops in Iran, due to lack of a computer specialist
in their offices, could not put the questionnaire on their websites as it is costly for them.

102
 Finally, most of the online purchasers did not have the experience of using
personalization/customization. Thus, they could not have any idea about this different
online service.

Despite these limitations, this research provides a foundation for future research
in this area.

5.3 Suggestions for Future Research

With regard the research limitations, following suggestions are recommended for
future research:

• To focus on the differences of the impact of website quality factors among

information searchers and product buyers to provide more precise
practical implications.
• To recognize the different importance of website quality factors for goal
oriented customers or browsers.
• To focus on dissatisfied customers who may have purchased once and
may have not revisited the site again to provide more precise practical
implications.
• To study the condition and importance of personalization for customers
after a period of time.
• To use other models in order to confirm the results of this research or
maybe complete it.

5.5 Discussion

The results of the present research, like other researches in other service sub-
sector have emphasized the fact that quality has a significant and positive effect on
satisfaction. In addition, results show that judgments concerning the quality of an online
site are most strongly related to the reliability and customer services, which confirm a
part of Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003) findings. Their analysis suggest that these
judgments are highly related to website design factors and fulfillment/reliability and
customer service is mildly related to the quality because customers do not need customer
services in each transaction but it seems that since the online transaction is still in its
infancy period in our country, customer service is considered important. Moreover; they
find that security/privacy is not significant in predicting quality because it appears that

103
inferences of security are initially obtained from other quality factors especially website
design, although it is significant in this research, it stands the last from customer's point
of view. The correlation between security and reliability is higher than the correlation
with website design in our research. Also, according to our results, customer service is
the only factor of quality which directly affects satisfaction and confirms the importance
of this factor for the Iranian online book shoppers.

Furthermore like the results of Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003), negative

performance on attributes has been shown to have a greater impact on overall satisfaction
than the positive performance does (Mittal, Ross and Baldasar, 1998), according to
Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003), “that may be true with respect to e-tailing quality and it
deserves further investigation”.

Findings of this research confirm the results of those researches who believe in
the effect of e-trust on satisfaction although e-trust through quality affects satisfaction in
this research.

Finally, most of the Iranian online bookstores do not have a complete database
of their customers that can provide complete information on customers such as name,
age, job, education, interests, as well as the history of their purchasing. Having such a
database is a valuable capital for online bookstores when shifting toward customer
oriented marketing and also when they want to add more value to their customers by
using online facilities such as customization and personalization

104
References:

Aghamiri, A. (2007). Assessing and analyzing satisfaction level of domestic gas

consumers in Tehran. Master’s Thesis, Lulea University of Technology.

Anderson, E.W. & Sullivan, M.W. (1993). The antecedents and consequences of
customer satisfaction for firms. Marketing Science, 12(2 spring).

Bigley, G.A. & Pearce, J.L. (1998). Straining for shared meaning in organization science:
problem of Trust and Distrust. The Academy of Management Review, 23(3 July),
405-421.

Bitner, M.J., Booms, B.H. & Tetreault, M.S. (1990). The service-encounter: diagnosing
favorable and unfavorable incidents. Journal of Marketing, 54, 71-84.

Brady, M.K. & Cronin, J.J. (2001). Some new thoughts on conceptualizing perceived
service quality: a hierarchical approach. Journal of Marketing, 65(3). Chisnal,
P.M. (19997). Marketing Research (5th Ed), Cambridge (UK): University Press.

Cai, S. & Jun, M. (2003). Internet users’ perception of online service quality: A
comparison of online buyers and information searchers. Managing Service
Quality, 13(6), 504-519.

Cao, M., Zhang, Q. & Seydel, J. (2005). B2C e-commerce website quality: An empirical
examination. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 105(5), 645 – 661.

Carman, J.M. (1990). Consumer perceptions of service quality: an assessment of the

SERVQUAL dimensions. Journal of Retailing, 66, 33-55.

Caruana, A. (2002). Service loyalty-the effects of service quality and the mediating role
of customer satisfaction. European Journal of Marketing, 36(7/8), 811-828.

Caruana, A. & Ewing, M.T. (2006). The psychometric properties of e-tail quality: An
international investigation across product categories. International Marketing
Review, 23(4), 353-370.

Chen, Q. & Wells, W.D. (1999). Attitude toward the site. Journal of Advertising
Research, 39(September/October), 27-37.

Chen, P.Y. & Hitt, L. (2000). Switching cost and brand loyalty in electronic markets:
evidence from on-line retail brokers. ICIS Proceedings.

Chen, Y.H. & Barnes, S. (2007). Initial trust and online buyer behavior. Industrial
Management & Data Systems, 107(1), 21-36.

105
Chia Chi Lin (2003). A critical appraisal of customer satisfaction and e-commerce.
Managerial Auditing Journal, 18(3).

Churchill, G.A. & Suprenant, C. (1992). An investigation the determinant of customer

satisfaction. Journal of Marketing Research, 19, 491-504.

Cooper, D.R. & Schindler, P.S. (2003). Business Research Methods (8th ed). McGraw
Hill: New Yourk.

Corritore, S., Kracher, B. & Weidenbeck, S. (2003). On-line trust: concepts, evolving
themes, a model. International Journal of Human-computer Interaction, 58(6),
737-758.

Cox, J. & Dale, B.G. (2002). Key Quality factors in Web site Design and use: an
examination. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 19(7),
862-888.

Creativegood.com, (2000). Statistics for online purchases.

http://www.epaynews.com/statistics/purchases.html

Curry, A. & Herbert, D. (1998). Continuous improvement in public services – a way

forward. Managing Service Quality, 8(5), 339-49.

Darabi, Y. (2006). The impact of market orientation on business performance and

website adoption: a study among Iranian SMEs. Master’s Thesis, Lulea
University of Technology.

Davis, F.D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of
information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 40-319.

Dean, A. & Kiu, C. (2002). Performance monitoring and quality outcomes in contracted
services. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 19(3),
396-413.

Delone, W.H. & Mclean, E.R. (2003). The Delone and Mclean Model of information
systems success: A ten year update. Journal of Management Information Systems,
19(4 Spring), 9-30.

Dobholkar, P.A. (1996). Consumer evaluations of new technology-based self-service

options: an investigation of alternative models of service quality. International
Journal of Research in Marketing, 13, 29-51.

Evans, P.B. & Wuster, T.S. (1997, Sep/Oct). Strategy and the New-Economics of
information. Harvard Business Review, 71-82.

106
Fecikova, I. (2004). An index method for measurement of customer satisfaction. The
TQM Magazine, 16(1), 57-66.

Garbarino, E. & Johnson M.S. (1999). The different roles of satisfaction, trust and
commitment in customer relationships. Journal of Marketing, 63, 70-87.

Gefen, D. (2000). E-commerce: the role of familiarity and trust. International Journal of
Management Science, 28, 37-725.

Gefen, D., Karahanna, E. & Straube, D.W. (2003). Trust and TAM in online shopping: an
integrated model. MIS Quarterly, 27(1), 1-40.

Gefen, D. & Straub, D.W. (2004). Consumer trust in B2C e-commerce and the
importance of social presence: experiments in e-products and e-services. Omega,
32, 24-407.

Geyskens, I. & Steenkamp, J.B. (2000). Economic and social satisfaction: measurement
and relevance to marketing channel relationships. Journal of Retailing, 76(1), 11-
32.

Geyskens, I., Steenkamp, J.B. & Kumar, N. (1999). A meta analysis of satisfaction in
marketing channels relationships. Journal of Marketing Research, 36, 223-38.

Ghezelayagh, M. (2006). Prediction of customers’ attitudes toward using Internet

banking in Iran. Master’s Thesis, Lulea University of Technilogy.

Ghobadian, A., Speller, S. & Jones, M. (1994). Service quality: concepts and models.
International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 11(9), 43-66.

Grabner-Krauter, Sonja, Evald & Kalusha, A. (2003). Empirical research in on-line trust:
a review and critical assessment. International Journal of Human-Computer
Studies, 58(6), 783-812.

Gronroos, C. (1982). Strategic management and marketing in service sector. Marketing

Science Institute, Cambridge, MA.

Gronroos, C. (1984). A service quality model and its market implications. European
Journal of Marketing, 18(4), 36-44.

Gronroos, C., Heinonen, F., Isoniemi, K. & Lindholm, M. (2000). The Net Offer model:
a case example from the virtual market space. Management Decision, 38(4), 52-
243.

Gummerus, J., Lilijander, V., Pura, M. & van Riel, A., (2004). Customer loyalty to
content-based websites: the case of an online health-care service. Journal of
Services Marketing, 52(3), 805-30.

107
Gunasekaran, A. & Nagi, E.W.T. (2005). Build-to-order supply chain management: a
literature review of framework for development. Journal of Operations
Management, 23(5), 423-451.

Gustafsson A., Johnson, M.D. & Roos, I. (2005). The effects of customer satisfaction,
Relationship Commitment Dimensions, and Triggers on Customer Retention.
American Marketing Association, ISSN: 0022-2429 (print), 1547-7185
(electronic).

Hair, J.F., Babin, B., Money, A.H. & Samouel, P. (2003). Essentials of Business
Research Methods. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Hedvall, M. & Paltschik, M. (1989). An investigation in and the generation of service

quality concepts. In Avlonities, GJ. (Ed), Marketing Though and Practices in the
1990s, European Marketing Academy, Athens, 473-483.

Ho, C.C. (1998). Using customer satisfaction to plan work. Proceedings of Taiwan’s
Quality Society’s 34th Annual Meeting and Forth National Quality Management
Conference, Taiwan, 495-503.

Hoffman, D.K. & Bateson, J.E.G. (1997). Essentials of service marketing. Harcourt
Brace and Company, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida.

Homburg, C., Koschate, N. & Hoyer, W.D. (2006). The role of cognition and affect in the
formation of customer satisfaction: a dynamic perspective. Journal of Marketing,
70 (July), 21-31.

Hoyle, R.H. (1995). Structural Equation Modeling: Concepts, Issues, and Applications.
California SAGE.

Huizingh, K.R.E. (2000). The content and design of websites: an empirical study.
Information & Management, 37, 123-134.

Hunt, S.D. (1997). Competing through relationships: grounding relationship marketing in

recourse-advantage theory. Journal of Marketing Management, 13, 431-45.

Iwaarden, J., Wiele, T., Ball, L. & Millen, R. (2003). Applying SERVQUAL to Web
sites: an exploratory study. International Journal of Quality & Reliability
Management, 20(8), 919-935.

Jamal, A. (2004). Retail banking and customer behavior: a study of self concept,
satisfaction and technology usage. International Review of Retailing, Distribution
and Consumer Research, 14(3), 357-79

108
Jamal, A. & Naser, K. (2002). Customer satisfaction and retail banking: an assessment of
some of the key antecedents of customer satisfaction in retail banking.
International Journal of Bank Marketing, 146-160.

Jamali, D. (2007). A study customer satisfaction in the context of a public private

partnership. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 24(24).

Janda, S., Trocchia, P.J. & Gwinner, K.P. (2002). Consumer’s perceptions of internet
retail service quality. International Journal of Service Industry Management,
13(5), 412 – 431.

Jessica, S. (2003). E-service quality: a model of virtual service quality dimensions.

Managing Service Quality, 13(3), 233-246.

Johanson, R., Tsiros, M. & Lancionig R.A. (1995). Measuring service quality: a system
approach. The Journal of Service Marketing, 9(5).

Johnson, K.L. & Misic, M.M. (1999). Benchmarking: a tool for website evaluation and
improvement. Internet Research, 9(5), 383-392

Jun, M. & Cai, S. (2001). The key determinants of Internet banking service quality: a
content analysis. The International Journal of Bank Marketing, 19(7), 276-291.

Kaynama, S.A. & Black, C.I. (2000). A proposal to assess the service quality of online
travel agencies, an exploratory study. Journal of Professional services Marketing,
21(1), 63-88.

Kettinger, W.J. & Lee, C.C. (1994). Perceived service quality and user satisfaction with
the information service function. Decision Sciences, 25(5/6), 737-766.

Khaki, Gh. (2000). Research methodology in management. Tehran, Azad University

Publish Center.

Khalifa, M. & Liu, V. (2003). Determinant of satisfaction at different adoption stage of

internet-based services. Journal of the Association for Information System, 4(5
October), 206-232.

Kim, M., Kim, J.H. & Lennon,S.J. (2006). Online service attributes available on apparel
retail web sites: an E-S-Qual approach. Managing Service Quality, 16(1), 51-77.

Kotler, Ph. (2000). Marketing Management – Millenium Edition, Prentice Hall,

Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Kotler, Ph. (2003). Marketing Management. Pearson Education, Inc. Fifth edition.

109
Lavee & Yoave, (1988). Linear structural relationship (LISREL) in family research.
Journal of Marriage and Family, 50(40), p.937.

Lee, G.G. & Lin, H.F. (2005). Customer perceptions of e-service quality in online
shopping. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 33(2),
161-176.

Lewicki, Roy, J., Mcallister, D.J. & Robert J.B., (1998). Trust and distrust: New
relationships and realities.

Lin, C.C. (2003). A critical appraisal of customer satisfaction and e-commerce.

Managerial Auditing Journal, 18(3), 202-212.

Lin, J.C.C. & Lu, H. (2000). Towards an understanding of the behavioral intention to use
a website. International Journal of Information Management, 20(3 Jun), 197-208.

Liu C. & Arnett, K.P. (2000). Exploring the factors associated with website success in the
context of electronic commerce. Information and Management, 38(1), 23-34.

Lociacono, E., Watson R.T. & Googhue, D. (2000). WebQual Tm: a website quality
instrument. Working Paper, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Madu, C.N. & Madu, A.A. (2002). Dimensions of e-quality. International journal of
Quality & Reliability Management, 19(3), 246-58.

Manvi, S.S. & Venkataram, P. (2005). An intelligent product – information presentation

in e-commerce. Intl. Jl. Electronic commerce Research and applications (ECRA),
4(3), 493-503.

Martinson, A. (2005). Marketing money in computing retailing business. In Business

Demonstration and social science, Lulea University of Technology, Lulea p.90.

Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. & Schoorman, F.D. (1995). An integrative model of
organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 34-709.

McKinney, V., Yoon, K. & Zahedi, F.M. (2002). The Measurement of Web- Customer
Satisfaction: An Expectation and Disconfirmation Approach. Information System
Research, 13(3 September), 296-315.

McKnight, D.H. & Chervany, N.L. (2001). What trust means in e-commerce customer
relationships: an interdisciplinary conceptual technology. International Journal of
Electronic Commerce, 6(2), 35-59.

Moharre, M. (2006). Electronic satisfaction in tourism industry. Master’s Thesis, Lulea

University of technology.

110
Molla, A. & Licker, P.S. (2001). E-Commerce System Success: An attempt to extent and
respecify the Delone and Mclean Model of IS Success. Journal of Electronic
Commerce Research, 2(4).

Mols, N.P. (2000). The Internet and services marketing – the case of Danish retail
banking. Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy,
10(1), 7-18.

Mostaghel, R. (2006). Customer satisfaction: Service quality in online purchasing in

Iran. Master’s Thesis, Lulea University of Technology.

Mukhrejee, A. & Nath, P. (2007). Role of electronic trust in online retailing: a re-
examination of the commitment-trust theory. European Journal of Marketing,
41(9/10), 1173-1202.

Newman, I. & Benz, C. (1998). Qualitative – Quantitative Research Methodology:

exploring the Interactive Continuum. Printed in United State of America.

Nohria, N. & Eccles, R.G. (1992). Face to face making network organizations work. In
Nohria, N. and Eccles R.G., (Eds), Networks and Organizations, Harvard
Business School Press, Boston, MA, pp.288-308.

Nunnally, J. (1967). Psychometric Theory, McGraw Hill, New York, NY.

Oliver, R.L. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of

satisfaction decisions. Journal of Marketing research, 17(4 November), 460-9.

Oliver, R.L. (1981). Measurement and evaluation of satisfaction processes in retail

setting. Journal of Retailing, 57(3), 25-49.

Oliver, R.L. & DeSarbo, W.S. (1988). Response determinants in satisfaction judgments.
Journal of Consumer Research, 14, 495-507.

Palmer, A. & Cole, C. (1995). Service Marketing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Papadopoulou, P., Andreou, A., Kanellis, P. & Martakos, D. (2001). Trust and
relationship building in electronic commerce. Internet Research: Electronic
Networking and Policy, 11(4), 32-322.

Parasuraman, A. & Berry, L. (1988). SERVQUAL: a multi item scale for measuring
consumer perceptions of SQ. Journal of Retailing, 64(Spring), 12-40.

Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L. & Zeithaml, V.A. (1991). Refinement and reassessment of
the SERVQUAL Scale. Journal of Retailing, 67, 420-50.

111
Parasuraman, A. & Grewal, D. (2000). The impact of technology on Quality-Value-
Loyalty Chain, A research agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
28(1), 168-174.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. & Berry, L.L. (1984). Alternative scales for measuring
service quality: comparative assessment psychometric and diagnostic criteria.
Journal of Retailing, 70(3), 30-201.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. & Berry, L.L. (1985). A conceptual model of service
quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49, 41-50.

Parker, C. & Mathews, B.P. (2001). Customer satisfaction: contrasting academic and
consumer interpretations. Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 19(1), 38-44.

Patterson, M., O’Malley, L. & Evans, M.J. (1997). Database marketing: investigating
privacy concerns. Journal of Marketing Communications, 3(3), 151-74.

Pavlou, P.A. (2003). Consumer acceptance of electronic commerce: integrating trust and
risk with the technology acceptance model. International Journal of Electronic
Commerce, 7(3), 34-101.

Pitt, L.F., Watson, R.T. & Kavan, C.B. (1995). Service quality a measure of Information
system effectiveness. MIS, Quarterly, 19(2), 87-173.

Remple, J.K., Holmes, J.G. & Zanna, M.P. (1985). Trust in close relationships. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(1), 95-112.

Ribbink, D., van Riel, A.C.R., Liligander, V. & Streukens, S. (2004). Comfort your
online customer, quality, trust, and loyalty on the internet. Managing Service
Quality, 14(6), 446 – 456.

Ridings, C.M., Gefen, D. & Arinze, B. (2002). Some antecedents and effects of trust in
virtual communities. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 11(3/4), 95-271.

Rousseau, D., Sitkin, S., Burt, R. & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: a cross
discipline view of trust. Academy of Management review, 23(3), 393-404.

Saha, P. & Zhao, Y. (2005). Relationship between online service quality and customer
satisfaction. Master’s Thesis, Lulea University of Technology.

Salomon, M.R. (1991). Consumer behavior: Buying, Having, and Being. Allyn and
Bacon, Boston, MA.

Santos, J. (2003). Eservice quality: a model of virtual service quality dimensions.

Managing Service Quality, 13(3), 233-246.

112
Sarmad, Z., Bazargan, A. & Hejazi, E. (2001). Research Methodology in Behavioral
science. 5th edition, Tehran, Agah Publisher.

Sasser, W.E., Olsen, R.P. & Wyckoff, D.D. (1978). Management of service operations:
Text and Cases. Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thonhill, A. (2003). Research methods for business students.
3rd Harlow: Prentice Hall.

Seddon, P.B. (1997). A respecification and extension the Delone and McLean model of
IS success. Information System Research, 8(3), 240-253.

Shemwell, D.J., Yavas, U. & Bilgin, Z. (1998). Customer service provider relationships:
an empirical test of a model of service quality, satisfaction and relationship
oriented outcome. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 9, 155-
68.

Singh, J.V. & Sirdeshmukh, D. (2000). Agency and trust mechanisms in consumer
satisfaction and loyalty judgments. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
28(1), 150-67.

Spreng, R.A., MacKenzie, S.B. & Olshavasky, R.W. (1996). A reexamination of the
determinants of consumer satisfaction. Journal of Marketing, 60(3), 15-32.

Spreng, R.A. & Page, T.J. (2003). A test of alternative measures of disconfirmation.
Decision Sciences, 34(1), 31-62.

Sultan, F., Srinivassan, K., Lyer, D. & Iftod, L. (2002). Migratory TCP: highly available
Internet services using connection migration. In Proc. Of ICDCS, 4(2), 17-26.

Tse, D.K. & Wilton, P.C. (1981). Sources of consumer satisfaction with retail outlets.
Journal of Retailing, 57(3), 68-85.

Urban, G.L., Sultan, F. & Qualls, W.J. (2000). Placing trust at the center of your Internet
strategy. Sloan Management Review, 42(1), 39-48.

Van Riel, A.C.R., Lilijander, V. & Jurriens, P. (2001). Exploring consumer’s evaluations
of e-services: a portal site. International Journal of Service Industry Management,
12(4), 77-359.

Webb, H.W. & Webb L.A. (2004). SiteQual: an integrated measure of web site quality.
The Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 17(6), 430 – 440.

Westbrook, R.A. & Reilly, M.D. (1983). Value-percept disparity: an alternative to the
disconfirmation of expectations theory of consumer satisfaction. In Bagozzi, R.P.,

113
 and Tybout, A. (Eds), Advances in consumer research, Vol. 10, pp.256-61,
Association for Consumer Research, Ann Arbor, MI.

Wisniewski, M. (2001). Using SERVQUAL to assess customer satisfaction with public

sector services. Managing Service Quality, 11(6), 380-388.

Wolfinbarger, M.F. & Gilly, M.C. (2002). .comQ: Dimensionalizing, Measuring and
Predicting Quality of the E-tail Experience. Working paper, Marketing Science
Institute, Cambridge, M.A., 02-100.

Wolfinbarger, M.F. & Gilly, M.C. (2003). E-tailQ: Dimensionalizing, Measuring and
predicting e-tail quality. Journal of Retailing, 79, 183-198.

Yang, Y. (2001). Minimax rate adaptive estimation over continuous hyper-parameters.

IEEE Transaction on Information Theory, 47, 2081-2085.

Yang, Z. & Fang, X. (2004). Online Service Quality Dimensions and their relationships
with satisfaction; a content analysis of customer reviews of securities brokerage
services. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 15(3).

Yang, Z. & Jun, M. (2002). Consumer perception of e-service quality: from Internet
purchaser and non-purchaser perspective. Journal of Business Strategies, 19(1),
19-41.

Yang, Z., Jun, M. & Peterson, R.T. (2004). Measuring customer perceived online service
quality: Scale development and managerial implications. International Journal of
Operations & Production Management, 24(11), 1149-1174.

Yang, Z., Peterson, R.T. & Cai, S. (2003). Service quality dimension of Internet retailing:
an exploratory analysis. Journal of Service Marketing, 17(6/7), 685-700.

Yi, y. (1990). A critical review of consumer satisfaction. In Zeithaml, V.A. (Ed.), Review
of Marketing, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp.68-123.

Yoo, B. & Donthu, N. (2001). Developing a scale to measure the perceived quality of
Internet shopping sites (SITEQUAL). Quarterly Journal of Electronic Commerce,
12(1), 31-47.

Yoon, S.J. (2002). The antecedents and consequences of trust in online-purchase

decisions. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 16(2), 47-63.

Zairi, M. (2000). Managing customer satisfaction: a best practice perspective. The TQM
Magazine, 12(6), 389-394.

Zeithaml, V.A., Bicentennial A.H. & Richard. (2002). Service excellence in electronic
channels. Managing Service Quality, 12(3), 135-138.

114
Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A. & Molhotra, A. (2000). A conceptual framework for
understanding e-service quality: implications for future research and managerial
practice. Working paper, report no. 00-115 Marketing Science Institute,
Cambridge, MA.

Zhang, X. & Tang, Y. (2006). Customer perceived e-service quality in online shopping.
Master’s Thesis, Lulea University of Technology.

Zwass, V. (1998). Structure and macro-level impacts of electronic commerce: from

technological infrastructure to electronic marketplace. In Kendall, K, (Ed),
Emerging Information Technologies, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

115
Appendix A: List of Bookstores
1. http://iranfarhang.org/iranfarhang.htm
2. http://www.iranbookshop.com
3. http://www.ketabeiran.com
4. http://www.iranibook.com
5. http://www.iran-books.com
6. http://www.iranonline.com/BookStore/index.html
7. http://www.sokhan.com
8. www.tebyan.net
9. http://www.dastanbook.com
10. http://www.pedrambook.com
11. http://bekhan.com
12. www.abaaba.com
13. http://www.nashreoloom.com/index.aspx
14. http://www.iiketab.com
15. http://www.karoon.com
16. http://www.ketaban.com
17. http://www.ketab.com
18. http://www.downloadbook.org
19. http://www.agahbookshop.ir
20. http://www.e-ketab.com
21. http://www.ketabforosh.com
22. http://www.naghoos-andisheh.com
23. http://www.ketabkhan.com
24. http://www.boook.ir
25. http://www.asia-publishing.com
26. http://www.gzle.com
27. http://www.ketabac.com
28. http://www.nashre-entekhab.com/contact.html
29. http://www.persianpersia.com

116
30. http://www.ketabname.com
31. http://www.sohadanesh.com
32. http://www.iranbin.com
33. http://www.adinebook.com
34. http://www.ansariyan.org
35. http://www.iramabna.com/bookstore.htm
36. http://www.samt.ac.ir
37. http://www.iranbookhouse.com
38. http://www.isffshop.com
39. http://www.persianbook.net
40. http://www.servebooks.com
41. http://www.iranfarhang,com
42. http://www.poroshot.com
43. http://iranebooks.com
44. http://www.nazdik.com
45. http://www.hamrahbook.com
46. http://ketabdar.org
47. http://www.ketabkadeh.com
48. www.takzang.ir
49. http://www.mftshop.com
50. http://www.nashrefarda.com
51. http://www.hafezintpub.com
52. http://www.toospub.com
53. http://www.forouzesh.com
54. http://www.iranculturestudies.com
55. http://www.rahnamapress.com
56. http://www.noordanesh-pub.com
57. http://www.qoqnoos.ir
58. www.efeh.com
59. http://www.bookcityonline.com
60. www.caravan.ir

117
61. http://www.arefkamel.com
62. http://www.daneshsara.ir
63. http://www.ketab.ir
64. http://www.ketabonline.com
65. http://www.shinedata.com
66. http://www.azinketab.com
67. http://www.iup.ir
68. http://www.saaher.com
69. http://www.namabazar.net
70. http://www.academybookshop.com
71. http://www.kowkabpublishers.com
72. http://www.vijehnashr.com
73. http://www.amirkabir.net
74. http://www.parsbyte.com
75. http://fara-online.com
76. http://www.irpdf.com
77. http://cwcshop.ir/catalog
78. http://www.fxacm.com
79. http://laklak.ir
80. http://www.gozineonline.com
81. http://www.iran-ec.com
82. http://www.eshraghi.ir
83. http://www.entesharat.vaseghi.de/contact.html
84. http://www.rasashop.com
85. http://www.behtarinketab.com
86. http://www.birdco.ir
87. http://www.iran111.com
88. www.piranepand.com
89. http://shirazuniversity.farsshop.ir
90. http://www.olomrayaneh.ne
91. http://pnu.ac.ir

118
Appendix B: Questionnaire
Please, evaluate present bookstore’s website based on how well, you think, it
performs on the listed bellow items. Please, indicate your opinion by marking the
appropriate box on the seven point scale where, (1) equals to strongly disagree and (7)
equals to strongly agree.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Strongly Disagree Neutral Strongly Agree

Section one:
Personal Information

1. Gender Female Male

2. Age
Under 20 20-24 25-34 35-44

45-54 55-64 65 or over

3. Educational Level

Less than Diploma Diploma and Above

Bachelor Master PHD or above

4. How many times do you buy books through the Internet over a year in general?

Once or less than once a year

2-4 times in a year

5-7 times in a year

8-10 times in a year

Over 10 times in a year

5. If you have the experience of purchasing books from other websites, please
write the websites addresses.

119
Section Two:
Website Quality

Please, put down the number which best describes the usage of the following quality
concepts in this website.

Website Quality Questions

Section Question 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. The websites provides in-depth information.

2. The site does not waste my time.

Website Design

3. It is quick and easy to complete the transaction

at this website.

4. The level of personalization at this site is

about right, not too much or too little.

5. This website has good selection.

6. The product/service that came was represented

accurately by the website.
Fulfillment/
Reliability

7. I get, what I ordered from this site.

8. The product is delivered by the time

promised by the company.

9. I feel like, my privacy is protected at this site.

Security/ Privacy

10. I feel safe, with my transaction with this

website.

11. The website has adequate security features.

120
Website Quality Questions (Continued)
Section Question 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
12. The company is willing and ready to
respond to customer needs.
Customer Service

13. When I have a problem, the website shows a

sincere interest in solving it.

14. Inquiries are answered promptly.

15. The company is willing and ready to

respond to customer needs.

Section three:
Customer satisfaction

For the following questions, put down the number which best describe your feeling about
the site and your online purchase.

Customer Satisfaction Questions

Section Question 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. This is one of the best websites, I
could have bout from.

2. The website is exactly what I need.

3. This website has not worked out as

Customer Satisfaction

well as thought it would.

4. I am satisfied with my most recent

decision of purchasing from this website.

5. Some times I have mixed feelings

about purchasing from this website.

6. My choice to purchase from this

website was a wise one.

7. If I could do it over again, I would buy

from a different website.

121
Customer Satisfaction Questions (Continued)
Section Question 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8. I have truly enjoyed of this website.

9. I feel bad (guilty) about my decision

Customer Satisfaction

to purchase from this website.

10. I am not happy, that I made my most

recent online purchase from this website.

11. I am sure it was the right thing to

make my most recent online purchase at
this website.
12. I am generally pleased with this
company’s online services.

Section four
E-Trust

Please put down the number which best describe the amount of your trust on this site.

E-Trust questions
Section Question 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. I am prepared to give my private
information to this online company.

2. I am willing to give my credit card

number to this online company.
E-Trust

3. This website is professional in its

branch.

4. This online company intends to fulfill

its promises.

5. It is not a problem to pay in advance

for purchased products/services.

122
Appendix C: Statistics Models

Figure 1: Standard Estimate Model for Quality Section (second rank)

123
Figure 2: Significant Parameters (T-Value) for Quality Section (second rank)

124
Figure 3: Proposed Corrections Model for Quality Section (second rank)

125
Figure 4: Standard Estimate Model for Quality Factors (first rank)

126
Figure 5: Significant Parameters (T-Value) for Quality Factors (second rank)

127
Figure 6: Proposed Corrections Model for Quality Factors (second rank)

128
Figure 7: Standard Estimate Model for Satisfaction Section (second rank)

129
Figure 8: Significant Parameters Model for Satisfaction Section (second rank)

130
Figure 9: Proposed Corrections Model for Satisfaction (second rank)

131
Figure 10: Standard Estimate Model for Satisfaction (first rank)

132
Figure 11: Significant Parameters Model for Satisfaction (first rank)

133
Figure 12: Proposed Corrections Model (first rank)

134
Figure 13: Standard Estimate Model for E-Trust Section (second rank)

Figure 14: Significant Parameters for E-Trust Section (second rank)

135
Figure 15: Proposed Corrections Model for E-Trust Section (second rank)

Figure 16: Standard Estimate Model for E-Trust Section (first rank)

136
 Figure 17: Significant Parameters Model for E-Trust Section (first rank)

Figure 18: Proposed Corrections Model for E-Trust section (first rank)

137
Figure 19: Standard Estimate Model for Relations between Trust, Satisfaction, and Quality

Figure 20: Significant Parameters Relations between Trust, Satisfaction, and Quality

138
Figure 21: Proposed Corrections for the Relations between Trust, Satisfaction, and Quality

Figure 22: The Recovered Model for the Relations between Trust, Satisfaction, and Quality

139
Figure 23: Standard Estimate Model for the Links between Variables

Figure 24: Significant Parameters for the Links between Variables

140
 Figure 25: Proposed Corrections for the Links between Variables

Figure 26: Recovered Model for the Links between Variables

141
Figure 27: Standard Estimate Model for the Direct Impact of Quality Factors on Satisfaction

142
Figure 28: Significant Parameters Model for the Direct Impact of Quality Factors on Satisfaction

143
Figure 29: Proposed Corrections for the Direct Impact of Quality on Satisfaction

144
40 37
35
29.7
30
25
20
14.6
15 11.9
10 6.8
5
0
x<1 in 2-4 in 5-7 in 8-10 in x>10 in
year year year year year

Figure 30: Number of Purchasing

130
140
120
89
100
80
60
40
20
0
More than once One

Figure 31: Experience of Purchasing from Different Websites

145
Appendix D: Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive Statistics
Variables Mean Std. Deviation
Website Design(ease) 1 5.1841 1.51689
Website Design(ease) 2 5.2637 1.46462
Website Design(ease) 3 5.4627 1.58425
Website Design(ease) 4 3.9552 1.65620
Website Design(ease) 5 5.1791 1.65159
Reliability(reli) 1 5.1524 1.64727
Reliability(reli) 2 5.9810 1.45741
Reliability(reli) 3 5.0381 1.83753
security1 5.4195 1.35387
security2 5.5024 1.35987
security3 4.5512 1.63406
Customer Service(cs) 1 5.1126 1.63113
Customer Service(cs) 2 5.4040 1.55854
Customer Service(cs) 3 5.2384 1.66817
Website Design 5.2654 1.34479
Reliability 5.5545 1.38551
Security 5.1833 1.26161
Customer Service 5.1937 1.44611
satis1 5.2818 1.53953
satis2 5.0331 1.53442
satis4 5.3757 1.48034
satis6 5.0718 1.54572
satis7 5.2818 1.53592
satis8 5.2652 1.40093
satis11 5.4088 1.46011
satis12 5.3260 1.49028
satis3 4.2486 1.88829
satis5 4.7072 1.90246
satis9 5.1160 1.95869
satis10 5.1050 1.95364
e.trust1 5.1031 1.61267
e.trust2 3.6649 1.98076
e.trust3 4.5103 1.94813
e.trust4 5.5619 1.36529
e.trust5 5.7784 1.46012

146