The impact of website quality on customer satisfaction : a research on Iranian online bookstores

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 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.Validerat; 20101217 (root