dc.description.abstract | The majorities of internet users utilize the internet as a tool for searching and viewing information on products of interest, but tend to visit a physical store to make the final purchase. There are many reasons why consumers are unwilling to purchase online. One of the main reported reasons is that the online order-fulfillment process is not satisfying. Therefore understanding and integrating consumers’ behavior of e-fulfillment, and develop adequate solutions in order to achieve business success is crucial for e-tailers. Hence this research employed two studies to investigate consumer preferences during the e-fulfillment process in on line shopping.
The first study attempts to investigate consumer’s behavior of pre-purchase e-fulfillment process. The purposes of this study were: (1) to identify the key attributes offering by e-tailer’s websites which interact with consumers during the e-fulfillment process and to examine how these attributes affect their preferences evaluation, (2) to utilize product category as a segmentation variable, and to distinguish preferences across various consumer segments. The second study focused on understanding consumer’s service recovery behavior when the website’s e-fulfillment failure occurred. Primary aims of this study were: (1) to synthesize relevant literature to identify the key attributes of service recovery strategies for product delivery delays, and to elucidate the consumer’s preference structures of these attributes, (2) to segment consumers into different groups based on the preference structures of consumers, facilitating the understanding of differences in the preferences of different groups of consumers.
In this research, data was gathered through web-survey sampling targeted in the population of Taiwan and conducted conjoint analysis in order to assess the structure of consumer preferences concerning key attributes. For study 1, five key attributes during the order-fulfillment process were identified: return policy, delivery options, payment methods, customer service and support, and order confirmation. Different product-category consumer segments had different preferences with respect to these attributes. The results of study 2 indicate that the four important attribute of service recovery were: compensation, response speed, apology, and contact channels. A two-stage cluster analysis was performed based on the structure of consumers’ preference to segment respondents into two groups: an efficiency group and a benefits group. Consumers in the efficiency group most prefer response speed recovery attribute, however, consumers in the benefits group most emphasized compensation recovery attribute while facing delayed delivery in online shopping. Finally, in this thesis the managerial implications, contributions, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.
Key words: e-taller, e-fulfillment, delayed delivery, service recovery, conjoint analysis
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