Operational Drivers of Customer Loyalty in Electronic Retailing: An Empirical Analysis of Electronic Food Retailers

Abstract

The relationship between customer loyalty and the order procurement and order fulfillment processes of electronic retailers is empirically examined in this paper. The study sample contains data from 52 electronic food retailers. After controlling for the retailers' product categories based on design flexibility, our regression analysis results indicate that three order procurement variables—website navigation, product information, and price; and three order fulfillment variables—product availability, timeliness of delivery, and ease of return have significant association with customer loyalty. In terms of their relative contributions toward improving customer loyalty, these variables can be ordered in a descending order as follows: ease of return, timeliness of delivery, website navigation, product availability, price, and product information.