Website usability and user experience during shopping online from abroad

The Internet became a non-stop market of goods and services. As the market is oversaturated, companies are forced to fight for each customer because it is easier than ever to change the partner who will fulfil customer’s needs. User experience and website usability is an important factor during the online purchasing process. The main objective of our study was to analyse the website usability issues users have when purchasing products from abroad. In order to achieve our objective, we analysed the data from Consumer Barometer. We conducted the principal components analysis, followed by fuzzy clustering in order to determine the groups of users based on the perceived website usability problems during online purchasing. By using factor analysis, we created two factors consisting of variables explaining website usability issues. Moreover, with the use of fuzzy clustering, we created and described three groups of users based on their perception of website usability issues during online purchasing from abroad and assigned countries of origin of these users. The results of our analysis pointed out to one particular group of Internet users (Cluster 3) which are highly sensitive when it comes to the usability issues during their online purchasing process. These results can be used by companies operating on one or more of the observed markets in order to improve their performance when serving their potential customers. In addition, the results can be used in the educational process of educational institutions which field of study is focused on economics and business. As we did not find any similar study, this study extends the current knowledge of the issue and gives insight to the contemporary needs of international online shoppers