Assessing the quality of auction Web sites

Author

Barnes, Stuart J. ; Vidgen, Richard T.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Manage., Bath Univ., UK

fYear

2001

fDate

6-6 Jan. 2001

Abstract

WebQual is an instrument for assessing the quality of Internet sites from the perspective of the customer. Earlier versions of WebQual focused on information and interaction quality. This paper reports on a new version of WebQual that incorporates three quality dimensions: information quality, interaction quality and Web site design quality. WebQual is applied in the domain of Internet auctions and the results are used to assess the reliability of the instrument for assessing the quality of Web sites. Three auction sites (Amazon, eBay and QXL) are evaluated through an intervention that involves buying and selling at auction. The results of the intervention are analyzed quantitatively to assess the validity of the WebQual instrument and supplemented by qualitative data that is used to consider the relative merits of the three sites evaluated.

Keywords

Internet; electronic commerce; information resources; interactive systems; quality of service; software reliability; Amazon; Internet auctions; Internet sites; QXL; WebQual; World Wide Web site design quality; auction Web sites; buying; customer perspective; eBay; information quality; interaction quality; quality assessment; reliability; selling; validity assessment; Business; Electronic commerce; Instruments; Internet; Pricing; Quality management; Technological innovation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

System Sciences, 2001. Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on

Conference_Location

Maui, HI, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7695-0981-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/HICSS.2001.927087

Filename

927087