Examining online consumers’ behavior: A service-oriented view

Retailers’ websites are an important interface between retailers and their customers. The various features and elements that retailers include on their websites play a critical role in attracting customers and ensuring their satisfaction with the online shopping process. By conducting a three-phased study, we identify how the elements of a website shape customers’ salient beliefs. These salient beliefs, in turn, determine the level of customers’ satisfaction with the website. This study provides both theoretical insights into the beliefs of online shoppers and practical insights for retail website operators. Specifically, we argue that when retail websites are constructed to include several specific elements that appeal to the key salient beliefs of information quality, service quality, and system quality, retailers will increase customers’ satisfaction with the online shopping process.