Determining the impact of e-commerce quality on customers’ perceived risk, satisfaction, value and loyalty

Purpose The quality assessment of e-commerce services is of particular research interest, as it has been widely found that quality is directly linked to customer satisfaction and loyalty, which in turn leads to improved sales results, the creation of reputation and enhanced competitiveness for active companies in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the quality in e-commerce and to examine the relationships developed among its individual dimensions and satisfaction, perceived value, perceived risk and customer loyalty. Design/methodology/approach Initially, exploratory factor analysis with the equamax rotation method was applied to identify the perceptions of consumers regarding quality, value, satisfaction, risk and loyalty. The effect of the factors that make up perceived quality of e-services on customer value, satisfaction, risk and loyalty was examined by using OLS regression analysis. Likewise, path analysis was applied to confirm the impact of perceived quality on total consumer satisfaction, perceived value and loyalty, utilizing perceived risk as a moderating variable. Findings The authors found that quality overall has a positive and statistically significant relationship with perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty and negative with perceived risk. From the individual dimensions of quality, it has been found that ease of use of websites, design, responsiveness and security lead to increased levels of perceived value, while ease of use, responsiveness and personalization lead to an increase in the overall satisfaction of consumers. Overall, it has been documented that high levels of quality lead to higher satisfaction and perceived value, mitigating perceived risk and positively impacting the adoption of desirable consumer behaviors as reflected in customer loyalty. Research limitations/implications In this respect, future research in the field of e-commerce can examine the quality of the respective electronic services taking into account different product and business categories. In addition, the future research can focus on the impact of high satisfaction, perceived value and customer loyalty on various sizes of business performance, including sales, market share, competitiveness, financial efficiency and sustainability. Practical implications Given the clear relationship between quality, perceived value and satisfaction, e-commerce businesses have the potential to benefit significantly from improvements in the quality of