The Assessment on Consumer Satisfaction and Use Intention of B2C E-Commerce Platform in Chongqing, China

Purpose: This paper assessed the factors affecting the satisfaction and use intention of Chongqing residents toward e-commerce platforms, including service quality, information quality, system quality, perception of ease of use, perception of usefulness, intention, and satisfaction. Research design, data, and methodology: A questionnaire survey was conducted on 500 resident residents in Chongqing. The sampling technique involved judgmental, stratified random and convenience sampling. The validity of the research instrument was assessed by The index of item-objective congruence (IOC), and a pilot test by Cronbach alpha coefficient reliability test. The researcher used confirmation factor analysis and the structural equation model as statistical analysis tools. Results: The system quality was the strongest predictive factor for satisfaction and the intention of using the e-commerce platform. The perceived ease of use and service quality also strongly impacted satisfaction and use intention. The perceived usefulness and information quality only had a strong impact on satisfaction. This case study did not show a significant impact of perceived usefulness and information quality on use intention. Conclusions: Providing high system quality to users made the system feel valuable and useful to them. Therefore, the recommendation is to ensure and promote the advantages or benefits of B2C e-commerce business platforms

When Does the Influencer Matter?

The purpose of this research is to identify what factors contribute to the effectiveness of social media influencers’ posts. The first phase of this project studied people’s initial feelings towards social media influencers using a focus group. The results indicated that social media influencers are in fact effective and influential. The second phase of this study tested what factors increase and decrease the effectiveness of a social media influencers post, and what factors will get them the most engagement. This was tested through sixteen experimental conditions with different variations of a fake social media influencer post. Five dependent variables were tested, willingness to share the post, willingness to buy, attitude toward the brand, attitude towards the ad, and attitude towards the influencer. Four independent variables were also measured, size of the influencer (micro or macro), picture (present or not), discount (present or not), and level of purchase involvement (high or low), as well as several contributing variables about personality. The results contended that the presence of a picture in a social media influencers ad was had a positive effect on willingness to share the post, willingness to buy, attitude toward the brand, and attitude towards the ad. Discount also was significant to consumers’ attitudes towards the brand and the ad. Level of involvement and size of the influencer only proved to be statistically significant towards the effectiveness of the post when interaction effects were found between one or more of those variables. The research and analysis conducted will provide valuable information regarding the effectiveness of social media influencers and the relevance of them pertaining to technological shifts and advancements in the marketing field

eWOM: the effects of online consumer reviews on purchasing decision of electronic goods

Internet has become the primary source of information for a large number of consumers and it has dramatically changed the consumer behaviour. One of the main changes in modern consumer behaviour has been the transition from a passive to an active and informed consumer. Internet enables customers to share their opinions on, and experiences with, goods and services with a multitude of other consumers. Online consumer reviews are used by prospective buyers of related products who are interested in obtaining more information from people who have purchased and used a product of interest. Word-of-mouth (WOM) is one of the most important information sources when a consumer is making a purchase decision. The arrival and expansion of the Internet has extended consumers' options for gathering product information by including other consumers' comments, posted on the Internet, and has provided consumers opportunities to offer their own consumption-related advice by engaging in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM can be defined as all informal communications directed at consumers through Internet-based technology related to the usage or characteristics of particular goods and services, or their sellers. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of, one type of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), the online consumer review, on purchasing decision of electronic products. This empirical study also focuses on the relationship between reviews and purchasing behaviour. An instrument was prepared to measure the proposed constructs, with questionnaire items taken from prior studies but adapted to fit the context of e-commerce. The survey was applied to academicians in Turkey through internet. The data was analyzed using the SPSS package. The results show that consumer reviews have a causal impact on consumer purchasing behaviour and they have an effect on choosing the products by consumer. Finally, the results and their implications are discussed

How Voice Can Change Customer Satisfaction: A Comparative Analysis between E-Commerce and Voice Commerce

Voice commerce is a newly evolving e-commerce channel where consumers communicate with dedicated systems on smart speakers or other devices using their voice, in order to find products. This paper comparatively investigates factors for customers’ satisfaction in voice commerce and ecommerce. Being the first study to scientifically analyze customer satisfaction factors in voice commerce and compare them with e-commerce, we conducted a survey with 178 consumers and used structural equation modeling for statistical hypotheses testing. The results show, that consumers have higher expectations in convenience for voice commerce than they have for ecommerce. Transaction process efficiency significantly influences satisfaction in voice commerce, but not in e-commerce. This research provides implications for future research on voice commerce strategy and system design

Social Commerce in the Wine Sector: An Exploratory Research Study of the Italian Market

The development of Web 2.0 technologies and social media, along with the emergence of wikis, blogs, online communities, and social networks, has rapidly transformed e-commerce. This phenomenon is commonly known as social commerce, an evolution of e-commerce characterized by a strong customer orientation. The aim of this paper is to understand the support of social commerce for e-commerce. We conducted an exploratory analysis of the Italian wine market via in-depth interviews with experts in the wine business: three wine producers and three companies running an online wine business. The interviews were recorded with the consent of the interviewees and transcribed, and their content was analyzed through content analysis. In particular, an analysis grid was created, following a closed procedure, with an ex-ante definition of the categories of analysis. Our results reveal that the COVID-19 outbreak has given a significant boost to digital transformation and online purchases in the wine sector. While some operators in the sector have merely undergone this change, others have been riding the wave, trying to benefit from it

Factors Influencing Online Repurchase Intention in Thai Popular E-Commerce Platform

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of perceived ease of use, enjoyment, customers’ satisfaction, trust, and online shopping experience on online repurchase intention in Thai popular e-Commerce platforms. This study is designed and analyzed perceived ease of use, enjoyment, customers’ satisfaction, trust, and online shopping experience toward online repurchase intention in Thai popular e-Commerce platform by using secondary data analysis and an archival study approach which has been using three frameworks from previous studies to create a new conceptual framework. Research design, data and methodology: The samples (422 respondents) were collected from an online questionnaire by using convenience sampling, snowball sampling, and purposive sampling to collect data from target respondents. After gathering the data, the study was analyzed by using simple and multiple linear regression in order to confirm and show the significance of the hypotheses. Results: The results explicated that perceived ease of use presented the strongest influence on online purchase intention in Thai popular e-Commerce platforms follow by enjoyment, customer satisfaction, trust, and online shopping experience respectively. Meanwhile, when focusing on the influence of online shopping experience on trust, the result of this study revealed that there has a significant effect of online shopping experience on trust. Conclusions: The research findings have met research objectives. Therefore, it is recommended that the system administration and system development of e-Commerce should pay attention on update the contents, products information, layout, secure transaction to increase online repurchase intention. Research Limitations: The limitations of this research paper are that it is specifically focused on Thailand and consumers living in Thailand. Therefore, the findings that result from this research might not apply to other countries around the world and will only represent the situation in Thailand.

Consumer Protection in Ecommerce: A case Study of Egypt

This paper examines electronic contract regulation in the context of business-to-consumer transactions. The technological advancement and cross-border nature of e-commerce have posed significant challenges to the Egyptian legal framework highlighting the limitations of general commercial contract rules with regards to electronic contracts. This thesis argues that access to the courts is hindered by restrictive terms in the electronic contracts over which the Egyptian law has no jurisdictional power. Accordingly, private institutions set the rules in the e-contracts and enforce them through private methods leaving no room for state intervention to ensure the protection of consumers. Hence, the application of national consumer law is impaired by the private practices that shape the transaction to their best business ends. Consumer protection is essential to promote access to the online market since it serves as a safety valve in face of the electronic risks. So, to increase the level of protection for consumers conducting e-transactions, the Egyptian legislator should adopt reforms to control the private mechanism to ensure consumer rights’ application instead of informal negotiations to satisfy consumer’s problems

We know what you want to buy:a demographic-based system for product recommendation on microblogs

Product recommender systems are often deployed by e-commerce websites to improve user experience and increase sales. However, recommendation is limited by the product information hosted in those e-commerce sites and is only triggered when users are performing e-commerce activities. In this paper, we develop a novel product recommender system called METIS, a MErchanT Intelligence recommender System, which detects users' purchase intents from their microblogs in near real-time and makes product recommendation based on matching the users' demographic information extracted from their public profiles with product demographics learned from microblogs and online reviews. METIS distinguishes itself from traditional product recommender systems in the following aspects: 1) METIS was developed based on a microblogging service platform. As such, it is not limited by the information available in any specific e-commerce website. In addition, METIS is able to track users' purchase intents in near real-time and make recommendations accordingly. 2) In METIS, product recommendation is framed as a learning to rank problem. Users' characteristics extracted from their public profiles in microblogs and products' demographics learned from both online product reviews and microblogs are fed into learning to rank algorithms for product recommendation. We have evaluated our system in a large dataset crawled from Sina Weibo. The experimental results have verified the feasibility and effectiveness of our system. We have also made a demo version of our system publicly available and have implemented a live system which allows registered users to receive recommendations in real time