What Are the Most Important Factors That Influence Customer Satisfaction When Buying Online?

Business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce is an indispensable part of economic transactions. Online trading platforms have been widely used by many companies all over the world. A survey including more than 27,000 internet users of 55 markets from the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America indicated that “the Internet market offers significant opportunities in emerging markets”. (Nielsen, 2010 as cited in Shiau& Luo, 2012, p.189). This shows that the traditional consumption mode has changed into a diversified and modern mode. Compared to traditional shopping, online shopping can save more time and money, and it is more convenient to find the ideal products online. But there are some problems that many people are concerned about the products online and they do not trust this modern method. So, during the economic operations, the merchants try to achieve a competitive advantage and satisfy online customers to earn profits and reputation. This essay will analyze five important factors in online shopping. The key influential factors including consumer characteristics and attitude, online service, internet security, delivery and reputation are found to have significant effects on consumer satisfaction. This will be discussed by how the few factors effect customer satisfaction when buying online. Some suggestions will be given to merchants in order to improve consumer satisfaction.

Philip Kotler, as an authority in marketing, defines that “consumer satisfaction is a feeling that perceived effect compared with expected values”.(Castro, Armario & Ruzi,2004,p.130) The theory expands and is regarded as “the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its products, or its services(ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals.”(Farris, Bendle, Pfeifer & Reibstein, 2010, p.285) This indicates that consumer satisfaction is a final result according to the actual products to meet consumer...