Building Customer Relationships in an Electronic Age: The Role of E-Commerce Website

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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ABSTRACT

Sales and marketing strategies have greatly altered over a period of time due to commerce and digital technology. E-commerce has attracted the attention of investors, firms and consumers at an amazingly fast pace. An effective online commerce and business strategy can streamline the business, shorten response time, and offer new opportunities and global outreach for the companies. Similarly consumer relationship marketing can be effectively carried out through e-commerce and websites. The web has now become a highly desirable and effective retailing medium. This dissertation aims to find out the impact of ecommerce websites on online consumer relationship the online needs of shoppers and their response to e-commerce websites is sought to find out. E-service quality dimensions that are preferred by consumers and the ones that need to improve are highlighted. Our study leads us to conclude that internet has proven to be an extremely innovative and cost-effective strategy that could be utilized by the companies, to interact with customers and enhance their online shopping experience.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT IV

E-Commerce 7

The e-tailing phenomenon 10

Relationship marketing 13

Purpose of the Study 15

Research questions 15

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW: 17

E-tailing and consumer RM 21

Online Market 21

RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT 23

Electronic Customer Relationship Management (E-CRM) 24

WHAT IS CRM? 25

Retailer Tactics 27

Communication Channel Conditions 28

A COMPLETE DEFINITION OF E-COMMERCE 29

A TYPOLOGY OF FORMS OF E-COMMERCE 29

Main Website E-Service Quality Assessment Techniques 32

E-S-QUAL 33

Conclusion 33

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 35

The Research Process 35

Rationale for a Qualitative Study 36

Design of Survey and Implementation 36

Research Conceptualization 42

Meeting Online Needs of Customers' Scale 42

Final E-SQ Profile for Testing 43

Research Criteria 45

Reliability and validity 45

Quality and Verification 46

Ethical Consideration 47

Research Conceptualization 48

Meeting Online Needs of Customers' Scale 48

Final E-SQ Profile for Testing 49

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS 51

Respondents' Demographic Information 51

Ratings of the Proposed E-SQ by the Respondents 51

Most Common Respondent comments 53

Qualitative Analysis of the Respondents' Comments 54

Efficiency & Design appeal (F1) 54

Interactivity (F2) 54

Usability & Transparency (F3) 55

Communication & Personalization (F4) 55

Information & Flexibility (F5) 55

Reliability & Privacy (F6) 56

FINAL CONCEPTUAL SOLUTION FOR ASSESSING HOW TO MEET CUSTOMERS' NEEDS 56

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 60

CONCERNS 61

Lack of analysis of the scenario competition 62

Inability to predict the reactions in the environment in which it operates 62

Overestimation of business skills 62

Lack of coordination 62

Failure in securing the commitment of senior management 63

Failure in securing commitment from employees 63

Underestimating the time required for the achievement of corporate objectives 63

Inability ...