The Impact of Operational Criteria on Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty in E-commerce Environments: An Exploratory Study of Customer Ratings and Risk

Abstract

Risk plays an important role in transactions over the internet. In this study, we explore the moderating role of risk on the relationships between performance of websites in terms of various operational criteria and their ability to win customers. We use data from online ratings of customers of 538 websites. Using canonical correlation analysis, we have found evidence of the moderating role of risk on the importance of product-specific criteria, but not on the importance of service-specific criteria. We have also found that risk does not play a significant role on the relationships between pre-purchase and post-purchase criteria and customer satisfaction/loyalty.