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A multi-perspective integrated framework of critical success factors for supporting on-line shopping

TL;DR: In this article, a multi-perspective critical success factors (MPCSF) model for online shopping is proposed to evaluate the performance of a business on the basis of its ability to achieve a high quality product that satisfies the end customer's needs and wishes.
Abstract: E-commerce promotes economic growth by enabling online shops to compete within a global market scenario. There are critical success factors that permit to distinguish a good business on the Internet and this knowledge may allow reaching an important competitive advantage for business sustainability. As many disciplines are involved, when determining critical success factors, e-commerce requires an effective coordination and integration in a collaborative way. In e-commerce, as well as in any other ecosystem, the breaking down of some integrating elements may provoke a collapse on the whole system. The various stakeholders involved in a given business should, therefore, be involved and work together to achieve a high quality product that fully satisfies the end customer's needs and wishes. To meet the above requirement, this paper proposes a multi-perspective critical success factors (MPCSF) model for online shopping.

Summary (4 min read)

Introduction

  • Online shops to compete within a global market scenario.
  • E-commerce is a sophisticated tool for opening new business opportunities with a considerable competitive advantage over local markets [4].
  • There has been a considerable amount of work carried out to identify, to measure and to evaluate critical success factors in e-commerce in recent years.
  • Some authors have suggested that website design, fulfilment/ reliability, privacy/security and customer services are the determinants of customer judgments of quality and satisfaction, customer loyalty and attitudes towards a company’s online business [15].
  • No matter to which category should trust belong, the basic meanings of trust in the e-commerce context are almost the same, i.e. about practicing privacy policies, describing products and services online objectively and honestly, and maintain transparency of the online business operations [19].

A. Social Networks

  • Social networks have changed the way people communicate; it was like reinventing something the authors did naturally, with a slower speed.
  • The initial idea was aimed at friends to join on a virtual network where they could communicate about everyday’s life.
  • This phenomenon has exceeded expectations and inevitably began to move towards the business world.
  • Nowadays, all major brands present themselves within this environment, trying to reach a huge market with a multiplying growing effect [25].
  • Applying the phenomenon of social networks to e-commerce, has the additional advantage of reaching people that are already regular users of the Internet, and to capture their attention to new products and services requires a good communication and marketing strategies to be implemented.

B. Web-marketing

  • The Web- Marketing deserves special mention, for conceiving a fantastic store, in terms of design and image, may seem to be good enough for becoming very successful.
  • Imagine how disastrous it would be if no one would pass on the street where the shop is located and the same may happen regarding online stores (http://www.acepi.pt).
  • Search engines provide the initial dialogue between consumers and online stores; therefore a good positioning or ranking of a website is of utmost importance.
  • There are several ways for enabling good rankings of websites within searching engines, which turns out to be even more important when a website includes sponsored links.
  • The best way to attract potential customers is to accurately know the market where it operates, so that the whole effort is focused in favour of the business [25].

C. Design Usability

  • In an on-line shop the customer interface occurs via the website, therefore, their expectations have to be met as they easily may move away to the competition.
  • These definitions relate directly with 3 questions:.
  • Besides the economical costs (i.e. a system that is hard to understand is also hard to sell, and may involve many expensive problems in its life cycle), the lack of care about users needs can lead to solutions that tend to cause errors or that provide users with inadequate information.
  • Usability has multiple components and is traditionally associated with five usability attributes: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction [27].

D. Marketing

  • Using an appropriate marketing strategy along with an improved business offered and other non-technological areas are crucial multidisciplinary requirements for the success of ecommerce.
  • A wellstructured marketing plan, with a well-defined line and an innovative and credible image are essential success factors for promoting any brand or product [1].
  • From videos and images up to workshops and international conferences, it is worth using all channels of communication to solidify the brand on the market.

F. Market

  • Knowing their business can help to know, "where the authors are" and "where they want to go" [1].
  • Measuring performance at each step of business allows adjusting measures to consider and values to obtain, through a sustained growth.
  • This measurement is only possible if there are predefined and measurable goals for market trends.
  • The more information available the better their position will be to support good decision making strategies.
  • Understanding the marketplace is the first step, setting goals is the second one and nothing serves the former if there is no continuous analysis of results obtained.

G. Communication Support

  • When buying on an online store, its success is only possible if there is a satisfactory level of communication support along the entire supply chain, which must be synchronized and integrated [29].
  • Imagine how disastrous it would be having a well-designed online store, with a powerful marketing and numerous customers and the delivery due dates of the products were constantly being violated [31].
  • Only the skilled ones can be a part of the successful communication and supply chain, for each one, on its "core business", to provide its best possible contribution, always focused on reaching integration and common objectives and customer satisfaction.
  • Moreover, in a medium like the internet, additional concerns about the fact that many users still do not feel comfortable buying products they cannot physically see, have to be kept on mind.
  • One central concern of a consumer is about knowing if the website provides support to clarify questions about products or services; and, in particular, issues related to product returns or simply about how to get more direct information about the provided products and/or services.

H. Credibility

  • Regarding marketing strategies to incentivize anyone to buy through an online store, there are still many entrepreneurs targeting cost reduction instead of investing on that direction to enrich online stores’ credibility.
  • A shop with an “amateur” aspect easily distracts consumers that are more already suspicious about online shopping.
  • A good call centre, setting up a company with physical office, a registered trademark and the overall design and functionality of the website should not be jeopardized due to a low budget.
  • Moreover, being professional and combining all these details will help strengthen the credibility of the store.
  • Another key factor consists on joining forces and partnering with credible companies [29].

I. Quality Data Processing

  • The features of the website should be working perfectly; no bugs or links that do not work are allowable.
  • When usability is jeopardized and something stops working and confuses the user this may compromise the quality of the whole website and the underlying information system project, along with the correct functioning of the communication channels and the underlying operation of the supply chain, which is essential to gain the users confidence.
  • Moreover, the quality of the delivered product and/or service can be compromised while lacking quality data processing, therefore, it is of upmost importance to ensure quality data processing [32].

K. Website

  • The website is a showcase of the online store, which has to take into account to whom it should attract attention, as its mere existence does not mean its success.
  • The whole construction of the website must be developed by a multidisciplinary team because there are several areas that will be involved for achieving the final product with the intended image and functionality.
  • Without any bugs or technical problems, but if the designer does not provide an efficient interface it probably will fail [33].
  • Therefore, all those multidisciplinary areas should be taken in consideration on the creation of any website, so that each area can provide an important contribution to the final result of the website.
  • Any successful e-commerce website must be robust, complete, appealing and balanced to ensure passing an image of a serious and credible company, without any tendentious reflection just about a particular area or concern.

L. Convert Consumer

  • Once achieved the complete flow of the market to the online shop, there is still another important but less explored subject, which consists on being able to convert a visitor into a customer [34].
  • From the time each user wastes browsing, up to the number of visitors per day, broken down by country and other indicators, many different kind of analysis are possible.
  • When the number of visits to a website is big and the sales have not risen, something must be done to reverse potential customer’s bad attention.
  • Building an online shop based on a fully integrated model regarding the most important critical success factors, will enable a successful on-line business and transmit confidence to potential on-line clients.
  • Often those aspects are under estimated due to lack of analysis and investigation regarding a set of proposed success factors described through this work.

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A Multi-perspective Integrated Framework of Critical
Success Factors for Supporting On-line Shopping
M. L. R. Varela, M. F. Ferreira, G. G. Vieira,
Department of Production and Systems, School of
Engineering, University of Minho
Guimarães, Portugal, leonilde@dps.uminho.pt,
miguelfloriano@iqne-commerce.com,
gaspar_vieira@hotmail.com
V. K. Manupati, K. Manoj
School of Mechanical Engineering,
Division of Manufacturing, VIT University,
Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
manupativijay@gmail.com, kakarla.manoj2013@vit.ac.in
Abstract E-commerce promotes economic growth by enabling
online shops to compete within a global market scenario. There are
critical success factors that permit to distinguish a good business
on the Internet and this knowledge may allow reaching an
important competitive advantage for business sustainability. As
many disciplines are involved, when determining critical success
factors, e-commerce requires an effective coordination and
integration in a collaborative way. In e-commerce, as well as in any
other ecosystem, the breaking down of some integrating elements
may provoke a collapse on the whole system. The various
stakeholders involved in a given business should, therefore, be
involved and work together to achieve a high quality product that
fully satisfies the end customer’s needs and wishes. To meet the
above requirement, this paper proposes a multi-perspective
critical success factors (MPCSF) model for online shopping.
Keywords - E-commerce; success factors; multi-perspective
model, online shopping support.
I. INTRODUCTION
E-commerce has emerged as an interesting alternative way
of commerce, which has emphasized its relevance to the
growing instrumentalization of the web and the intensification
of alternative ways of creating value [1]. Essentially, e-
commerce is a type of e-business involving goods, services and
information in which the parties involved do not always meet
physically but interact electronically. The benefit of e-commerce
is of course evident. For example, the potential of placing orders,
transferring sales data and inventory information, and
conducting the transactions online can significantly reduce
business operations cost and increase the speed of business
activities.
Given the existing competitiveness in the nowadays global
market context, there is an increasing need to reach the
maximum number of customers within particular niche markets.
E-commerce provides many opportunities for business to reach
markets that have never been possible to reach before the
Internet age. Therefore, e-commerce can create significant value
and generate extra sales through the virtual marketplace.
Although e-commerce is already being widely explored, there is
still considerable margin of growth to its maturity [2].
Furthermore, there is no guarantee that companies selling their
products and services through Internet channels will be
successful. Many businesses have now realized that installing
computer networks inside the company and creating a website
may appear easy. But building a profitable business to fulfil
customer’s orders online is actually a lot harder. A major
challenge for e-commerce success lies in the question of how to
use e-commerce to help create a sustainable competitive
advantage [3].
There are a vast number of studies demonstrating the
successful implementation of e-commerce, in many industrial
sectors [2], which led to a strong motivation for this work, in
order to further the study of the critical success factors for
implementing successful businesses through e-commerce from
multiple perspectives.
Thus, in this paper, a study of the whole process of e-
commerce, with special focus on critical success factors is
presented and discussed. The paper is organized as follows. In
section 2, a brief description of the market behind e-commerce
is presented. In section 3 an extensive review on the state of the
art is included, with the research gap identified. Section 4
proposes a multi-perspective critical success factor (MPCSF)
model and discusses, in detail, each of the success factors to be
considered when putting forward an on-line shop. Finally,
section 5 presents some conclusions and planned future work.
II. MARKET DESCRIPTION
The competitive global market of today requires companies
to be in all parts of the world at the same time. E-commerce is a
sophisticated tool for opening new business opportunities with a
considerable competitive advantage over local markets [4].
Although there is already a great adherence and growth of e-
commerce, it is expected that this still has a high degree of
progression.
The demand for niche markets and marketing allies could
revolutionize the new e-commerce. Recent technological
changes allow cementing online business by providing payment
procedures in a safer way up to highly effective logistic
companies. The whole process of creating online stores involves
many techniques and multidisciplinary areas, requiring a
synergy of skills for obtaining the desired result [5]. Thus, much
attention has to be paid to a variety of subjects related with this
issue, including the study of implications of e-commerce at
different levels of impact, particularly in terms of human

behaviour and preferences, as well as the analysis of alternatives
for its implementation.
Understanding what drives an on-line shopper to buy online
through a website, as an alternative to traditional commerce is
one of the goals that distinguish a successful project, from an
inconsequential attempt. A well-known challenge for a
successful on-line business provider is that it needs involvement
from multiple disciplinarians, such as engineering, design,
computing, communications, marketing and even psychology.
Along with the increasing success of e-commerce in global
markets in recent years, especially since middle 1990s, it has
been recognized that e-commerce success has been hampered by
a number of reasons. One of which is the lack of conceptual
frameworks that can develop and provide effective success
measures [6]. The work presented in this paper is motivated by
this recognition and aims to contribute to the development and
provision of an integrated framework to define critical success
factors for online shopping. The following section will provide
a comprehensive literature review on the topic.
III. STATE OF THE ART
E-commerce has not evolved at the same rate in quality,
although there has been a rapid growth in terms of quantity. The
possibility of creating an online store and start selling
immediately, without huge investment cost as an obstacle, has
provided many people with no relevant knowledge to invest in
this area. It is easy to prove this observation by searching online
stores which, for instance, simply do not allow the
understanding of how one can buy a product when being faced
with a confusing website that encourages the user to
immediately close the web page, even before watching its
contents.
Therefore, there is still much room for improvements, by
applying the logic of critical success factors. Although there are
some online stores performing relatively well, designing an
online store without any insightful investigation of potential
success factors may turn out to be hard to succeed..
There has been a considerable amount of work carried out
to identify, to measure and to evaluate critical success factors in
e-commerce in recent years. Those identified, measured and
evaluated success factors can be classified using a number of
classification schemes (see for example, [7-13]).
The mainstream on this research classified success factors
into five main categories, i.e. technology acceptance factors,
social factors, cognitive factors, ethical factors and
environmental factors.
Firstly, technology acceptance factors are mainly focused
on the websites, including website quality and website design.
Majority of the work identified information quality and system
quality as the two main factors to reflect website quality [7,8].
Some work extended the website quality to also include service
quality [9]. Originally, five dimensions were defined for
physical marketplace service quality: tangibles, reliability,
responsiveness, assurance and empathy [14]. In e-commerce
context, methods of measuring success differ from physical
marketplace service. E-service quality is therefore defined as the
overall customer assessment and judgment of e-service delivery
in the virtual marketplace [9]. Website design factors have been
diverse; they range from usability and usefulness to interactivity
and explicitly [13]. Among which, usability is probably the
widely discussed factor. For example, does the website have a
good structured navigation system for customers to explore the
website contents and easily find their desired products or
services? Of course, website design and website quality are
closely related to each other. Some authors have suggested that
website design, fulfilment/ reliability, privacy/security and
customer services are the determinants of customer judgments
of quality and satisfaction, customer loyalty and attitudes
towards a company’s online business [15].
In terms of social factors, those on the top of the list include
the sense of virtual community, and the use of social media in
online shopping, for example, in the luxury online shopping
[11]. Online shoppers use blogs, customer reviews etc. to help
their purchase decisions. By interacting with other customers,
online shoppers feel a strong sense of community and gain
satisfaction from others’ feedback on the products or services
that an online shop provides. Some shoppers think that peer-
customers’ words are more trustworthy than what specialists’
marketing pitches [16].
Many other authors have, however, identified trust as an
ethical factor. Trust perhaps has been one of the most discussed
factors and that is why it spans across both social and ethical
categories [17,18]. No matter to which category should trust
belong, the basic meanings of trust in the e-commerce context
are almost the same, i.e. about practicing privacy policies,
describing products and services online objectively and
honestly, and maintain transparency of the online business
operations [19]. Some research has even investigated the
relationship between knowledge and trust and found a positive
relationship between them. Therefore a suggestion is made that
online retailing practice should make the public more
knowledgeable e.g. about the online transaction security
mechanisms in order to build up user’s trust in online shopping
[20].
Environmental factors to ensure e-commerce success have
not been discussed as widely as the other four categories. Only
recently, a research on e-commerce trends and development to
enhance online customer’s satisfaction in China observed three
important environmental success factors: government
regulations, payment systems, and logistics systems [21].
Another interesting classification of success factors is based
on the process stages of online shopping. It seems that most
research in the context of B2C context agrees on a four-stage
process model for online shopping: information, agreement,
settlement, and after-sale stages [12,22]. A process model for
C2C e-commerce (online auction) defined the four stages as
information, communication, distribution and transaction [23].
New critical success factors developed in the process models
include trade safety, governance and order, reputation and scale,
communication channel, information search, transaction process
and copious information.
A third classification scheme is more generic, which only
have two categories of success factors: customer-centric factors
and website-centric factors [10]. The work based on the case of
Japan finds out that customers are more concerned about the

customer –centric factors, especially customer’s education level,
creativity, and net-orientation. It seems that Japanese customers
do not worry about that much about e-service quality, which is
a key success factor in the website-centric category.
Based on the above comprehensive review on literature, it is
evident that there have been a huge number of success factors
for e-commerce being defined, and that those factors are often
discussed in isolation or from a particular perspective, which
limits the contribution of existing work to online shop design
and implementation practice. E-commerce is a complex e-
business process, which requires knowledge from multiple
disciplines to make it successful. Therefore, there is a clear need
to develop a more advanced framework that can integrate critical
success factors from multiple perspectives for online shopping.
It is expected that such a multi-perspective integrated framework
can provide effective guidance to e-commerce provider’s design
and implementation of successful online stores.
IV. A MULTI-PERSPECTIVE FRAMEWORK INTEGRATING E-
COMMERCE SUCCESS FACTORS
E-commerce is undoubtedly the future that most companies
will have to face. However, the fact of creating an online store
does not mean guaranteed success.
E-commerce presents fresh challenges that set around a
multidisciplinary environment and that must be in harmony, as
there are complementary aspects arising from each area, which
have to be considered and integrated, as a requirement for
success [24].
Just like a real physical shop, also in e-commerce it is not
just the commercial part that is implied but a whole set of
assumptions that must be guaranteed and controlled. The
internet is a medium with its own characteristics, where every
detail must be thought out carefully so that the end result is as
expected.
This paper proposes a multi-perspective model for critical
success factors (MPCSF), as shown in Figure 1. The success
factors included in the MPCSF model have to be considered in
an integrated manner when putting forward an on-line shop and
corresponding website. The authors of this paper believe that all
the success factors should be considered simultaneously from
multiple perspectives (technological perspective such as web
design usability, social perspective such as social networks,
etc.), across different e-commerce life cycle stages (e.g. pre-sale,
information stage and supply chain). This proposed inter-
disciplinary approach includes branding and marketing in
Business Management discipline; communication support in
Technology and Engineering discipline; and quality data
processing in Science discipline. After it is combined with the
classification schemes discussed earlier in Section II (i.e.
customer-centric and website-centric, and process-based
classification).
The concept of e-commerce (Figure 1) is similar to the solar
system, where the e-commerce is the central star and it must
include on its orbit all the other stars. Once one of the
surrounding stars gets lost from its orbit the whole system's
stability can be checkmated. Whether for lack of credibility,
poor branding concept or simply due to a poor visibility, any
failure on one of the factors implies that the project may not
work properly and there are plenty of online stores that just do
not sell. Next, each of the proposed critical success factors will
be analyzed separately.
Figure 1. An integrated conceptual model of critical success factors for e-
commerce.
A. Social Networks
Social networks have changed the way people
communicate; it was like reinventing something we did
naturally, with a slower speed. The initial idea was aimed at
friends to join on a virtual network where they could
communicate about everyday’s life. This phenomenon has
exceeded expectations and inevitably began to move towards the
business world. If customers are concentrated on a particular
community, nothing is more natural than participating on it.
Nowadays, all major brands present themselves within this
environment, trying to reach a huge market with a multiplying
growing effect [25]. Applying the phenomenon of social
networks to e-commerce, has the additional advantage of
reaching people that are already regular users of the Internet, and
to capture their attention to new products and services requires a
good communication and marketing strategies to be
implemented. Thus, one can gain customers through these
communication engines, enhancing the target market.
B. Web-marketing
Although a segment of the Marketing, the Web- Marketing
deserves special mention, for conceiving a fantastic store, in
terms of design and image, may seem to be good enough for
becoming very successful. However, imagine how disastrous it
would be if no one would pass on the street where the shop is
located and the same may happen regarding online stores
(http://www.acepi.pt).
Search engines provide the initial dialogue between consumers
and online stores; therefore a good positioning or ranking of a
website is of utmost importance. Search engines, like Google,
also have tools to measure how many times certain words are
searched and analyse all statistical data about the number of
visitors about a given online store. Hence, improving search
strategies is another important success factor.
There are several ways for enabling good rankings of
websites within searching engines, which turns out to be even
more important when a website includes sponsored links. The
E-commerce
success factors
Multiple perspectives
Inter-disciplinary
Cross life cycle stages
Combined classification schemes
Social networks
Web-marketing
Design usability
Marketing
Brand
Market
Communication
support
Credibility
Quality data
processing
Security
Website
Convert
consumer

best way to attract potential customers is to accurately know the
market where it operates, so that the whole effort is focused in
favour of the business [25].
C. Design Usability
In an on-line shop the customer interface occurs via the
website, therefore, their expectations have to be met as they
easily may move away to the competition.
One crucial issue on the design of any information system
is the usability of the user’s interface. According to ISO 9241 -
Part 11 (1998) usability is defined as the effectiveness,
efficiency and satisfaction with which specific users achieve
goals in particular environments. These definitions relate
directly with 3 questions: How can users perform their tasks?
What resources must users spend to achieve a given outcome
(e.g., time, effort)? How well do users like the application?
Besides the economical costs (i.e. a system that is hard to
understand is also hard to sell, and may involve many expensive
problems in its life cycle), the lack of care about users needs can
lead to solutions that tend to cause errors or that provide users
with inadequate information. For e-commerce, this is
particularly harmful because it implies losing customers [26].
Usability is an essential critical success factor to take in
consideration in the design of websites because it is not a single,
one-dimensional property of a user interface. Usability has
multiple components and is traditionally associated with five
usability attributes: learnability, efficiency, memorability,
errors, and satisfaction [27].
D. Marketing
Using an appropriate marketing strategy along with an
improved business offered and other non-technological areas
are crucial multidisciplinary requirements for the success of e-
commerce. Moreover, once a brand is defined and this applies
to any product - it needs to be recognized as a reference. A well-
structured marketing plan, with a well-defined line and an
innovative and credible image are essential success factors for
promoting any brand or product [1].
From videos and images up to workshops and international
conferences, it is worth using all channels of communication to
solidify the brand on the market. Thus, it becomes a necessity to
innovate and to re-invent the way we present ourselves to the
world [28].
"To take a step ahead and anticipate the future may be a
mirage, however, with marketing the mirage becomes less
unfocused." Miguel Floriano
E. Brand
Nowadays, the world of brands moves millions, as
increasingly more companies look for convincing brands, to
better affirm themselves among competitors [25]. In e-
commerce the paradigm does not change, to buy online, you
need something to push you to finalize your purchase. It is not
enough to think that a brand is just a cute name or a futuristic
logo, the whole communication with the surroundings has to be
well thought, and the care and concern about the customers need
to be visible in order to enable to construct a loyalty based
relation with them [25].
The concept of a brand has to have the objective to be a
precise way to reach the clients and establish a collaborative
interaction with them by enabling integration of different areas.
Impact, desire and trust are the ingredients that may enable a
common brand to become a benchmark worldwide. If the main
purpose of the brand is not describable by a few words, it is most
probably not well designed.
F. Market
Knowing our business can help to know, "where we are"
and "where we want to go" [1]. Measuring performance at each
step of business allows adjusting measures to consider and
values to obtain, through a sustained growth. This measurement
is only possible if there are predefined and measurable goals for
market trends. Therefore, it is necessary to know if it is a
marketplace of thousands, millions or billions.
The more information available the better our position will
be to support good decision making strategies. Understanding
the marketplace is the first step, setting goals is the second one
and nothing serves the former if there is no continuous analysis
of results obtained.
G. Communication Support
When buying on an online store, its success is only possible
if there is a satisfactory level of communication support along
the entire supply chain, which must be synchronized and
integrated [29]. A climate of trust and sharing must prevail, so
that the whole quality of the system is reflected on the final
consumer [30].
If the manufacturer and all intermediaries are not sharing the
same values, the whole communication within the supply chain
may be compromised and the concept of a successful online
store will most probably fall. Imagine how disastrous it would
be having a well-designed online store, with a powerful
marketing and numerous customers and the delivery due dates
of the products were constantly being violated [31].
Only the skilled ones can be a part of the successful
communication and supply chain, for each one, on its "core
business", to provide its best possible contribution, always
focused on reaching integration and common objectives and
customer satisfaction.
The clients and their satisfaction must be constant concerns
of any company aspiring to reach a sustainable growth [24].
Moreover, in a medium like the internet, additional concerns
about the fact that many users still do not feel comfortable
buying products they cannot physically see, have to be kept on
mind. One central concern of a consumer is about knowing if the
website provides support to clarify questions about products or
services; and, in particular, issues related to product returns or
simply about how to get more direct information about the
provided products and/or services. With the growth of the
Internet there are also many online shops whose quality
standards do not meet customer requirements, installing
uncertainty on the marketplace.
It is of utmost importance to provide a full service support,
before, during and after purchase. This way the clients feel
supported and understood and not afraid to repeat the experience
and buy through the same website.

The word "guarantee" frightens many entrepreneurs;
however, this paradigm must change as people buy more if they
feel fully supported and “safe” and in the majority of online
stores the rates about product returns are quite low [24].
H. Credibility
Regarding marketing strategies to incentivize anyone to buy
through an online store, there are still many entrepreneurs
targeting cost reduction instead of investing on that direction to
enrich online stores’ credibility. A shop with an “amateur”
aspect easily distracts consumers that are more already
suspicious about online shopping.
A good call centre, setting up a company with physical
office, a registered trademark and the overall design and
functionality of the website should not be jeopardized due to a
low budget. Moreover, being professional and combining all
these details will help strengthen the credibility of the store.
Another key factor consists on joining forces and partnering
with credible companies [29].
I. Quality Data Processing
The features of the website should be working perfectly; no
bugs or links that do not work are allowable. When usability is
jeopardized and something stops working and confuses the user
this may compromise the quality of the whole website and the
underlying information system project, along with the correct
functioning of the communication channels and the underlying
operation of the supply chain, which is essential to gain the users
confidence.
Moreover, the quality of the delivered product and/or
service can be compromised while lacking quality data
processing, therefore, it is of upmost importance to ensure
quality data processing [32].
J. Security
With the exponential growth of the Internet shopping,
security has been the major concern of users. However,
increasingly more money transactions take place and the
systems are becoming considerably safer. Selecting safe
payment methods and be at the forefront of information
technology about security issues, is a competitive advantage on
on-line selling. Thus, if the client is aware about the on-line shop
concerns to ensure secure payment transactions, the brighter the
image of trust and responsibility will be passed to potential
clients.
Although the world is aware that issues about security
breaches continue to rise on data computing and Internet
transactions, and as even the most protected systems are
transposable, we must maintain the dedication to guarantee
purchases as much secure as possible. Moreover, to attract
online customers e-commerce business should understand the
customers’ real wishes and expectations and what payment
methods each type of segment of users does prefer. Each
marketplace has its peculiarities and consumers tend to create
common purchasing habits with which they feel more
comfortable, e.g. "to use the online shopping cart" [26].
K. Website
The website is a showcase of the online store, which has to
take into account to whom it should attract attention, as its mere
existence does not mean its success. The whole construction of
the website must be developed by a multidisciplinary team
because there are several areas that will be involved for
achieving the final product with the intended image and
functionality. For example: the programmer may build the
website quite clearly, without any bugs or technical problems,
but if the designer does not provide an efficient interface it
probably will fail [33].
Therefore, all those multidisciplinary areas should be taken
in consideration on the creation of any website, so that each area
can provide an important contribution to the final result of the
website Any successful e-commerce website must be robust,
complete, appealing and balanced to ensure passing an image of
a serious and credible company, without any tendentious
reflection just about a particular area or concern.
L. Convert Consumer
Once achieved the complete flow of the market to the online
shop, there is still another important but less explored subject,
which consists on being able to convert a visitor into a customer
[34].
With the tools available on the market it is possible to
analyse many details about visits to a website. From the time
each user wastes browsing, up to the number of visitors per day,
broken down by country and other indicators, many different
kind of analysis are possible.
When the number of visits to a website is big and the sales
have not risen, something must be done to reverse potential
customer’s bad attention. Issues related to websites usability,
communication and marketing problems must be completely
revised to ensure e-commerce success.
V. CONCLUSION
Knowing the necessary ingredients for success in e-
commerce, is crucial to build a highly profitable and consistent
e-commerce business. Building an online shop based on a fully
integrated model (MPCSF) regarding the most important critical
success factors, will enable a successful on-line business and
transmit confidence to potential on-line clients.
Therefore, it is of upmost importance not to distract
customers, while compromising the balance of a whole website.
There is still plenty of room for improvement in the market of
online shops, as more and more people choose this kind of
shopping, which enables entrepreneurs to get closer to its
market, while presenting an appropriate solution for their
clients’ expectations. Moreover, it is necessary to pay attention
to aspects for enabling a good e-commerce practice. Often those
aspects are under estimated due to lack of analysis and
investigation regarding a set of proposed success factors
described through this work.
The proposed critical success factors incorporated in the
MPCSF model in this paper are not only related to the website,
its design and usability, but also with: the brand; the marketing
and web-marketing strategies; social networks reaching;

Citations
More filters
Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a systematic literature review which tries to determine the success factors of an e-shop and classify the factors in four main categories design and site presentation, e-marketing techniques, trading, delivery and customer support before and after the purchases.
Abstract: Purchases from online stores are preferred by the majority of European customers. Thus, it has stimulated both academic and business interest the identification of the factors that can affect their success. The objective of this article is to increase the understanding of the factors affecting the success of an online store. Thus, it can be a tool for online shop managers to have an overview of the factors that are important for an e-shop success. To achieve this, we contact a systematic literature review which tries to determine the success factors. In order to achieve this, we examine 24 articles published between 2013 and 2017 from peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Then we classify the factors in four main categories design and site presentation, e-marketing techniques, trading, delivery and customer support before and after the purchases and site’s reliability, safety and reputation.

9 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This work presents an approach for mining change in customer’s behavior for the purpose of maintaining robust profiling model over time using a new decision tree generation algorithm which takes as inputs new set of variables; categorical, continuous and fuzzy variables.
Abstract: In this paper, we present an approach for mining change in customer’s behavior for the purpose of maintaining robust profiling model over time. Most of previous studies leave important questions unanswered: In developing B2C e-commerce strategies, how do managers implicitly load customer’s profiles based on their satisfaction over the online store characteristics? And: What kind of feedback segments do they have? Our proposed approach does not force customers to explicitly express their preference information over the online service but rather capture their preference from their online activities. The challenge does not only lay in analyzing how customer’s classifier model change and when it does so but also to adapt it to the customer’s click stream data using a new decision tree generation algorithm which takes as inputs new set of variables; categorical, continuous and fuzzy variables. Customer’s online reviews rates are considered as classes. Experiments show that this work performed well in identifying relevant customer’s stream data to judge the chinese e-commerce website “Tmall”. The extracted values of the website’s features are also useful to identifying the satisfaction level when the customer’s rate is not available.

7 citations


Cites background from "A multi-perspective integrated fram..."

  • ...Authors of [17] believed that all the success factors for supporting on-line shopping should be considered from multiple perspectives (technological perspective such as web design usability, social perspective such as social networks, etc....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A set of considered critical success factors are analysed on a set of top ranked websites, about luxurious furniture, to understand to what extent these critical factors are satisfied for implementing a successful businesses through e-commerce from herein analysed perspectives.
Abstract: On-line shopping is nowadays is a highly frequent action but there are several critical factors that have to be considered for enabling websites and platforms to be able to offer all necessary requisites for guaranteeing user friendly, secure and also enjoyable shopping experiences to clients, offering them exactly what they expect to buy, and quickly find, among a huge offer available on-line. In this paper a set of considered critical success factors are analysed on a set of top ranked websites, about luxurious furniture, to understand to what extent these critical factors are satisfied. The results can be taken into consideration for implementing a successful businesses through e-commerce from herein analysed perspectives.

3 citations


Cites background from "A multi-perspective integrated fram..."

  • ...Next, a summarized view of over an aggregated set of 8 main critical success factors, based on the detailed list of critical success factors described in (Varela et al, 2016) is presented....

    [...]

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2020
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the factors that lead to the success of online stores and explored their application to online women's clothing stores, by studying the existing literature, factors were gathered and grouped together to develop a research tool.
Abstract: The current research examines the factors that lead to the success of online stores and explores their application to online women’s clothing stores. Initially, by studying the existing literature, factors were gathered and grouped together to develop a research tool. The tool was used in 90 online fashion stores in Greece and internationally, helping to assess and evaluate the success factors in a specific context. The final evaluation has ranked the factors in order of priority and importance and compare stores in national and international context. The findings highlight success factors in real markets and can help both researchers and entrepreneurs themselves to address the phenomenon.
References
More filters
Journal Article
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the development of a 22-item instrument (called SERVQUAL) for assessing customer perceptions of service quality in service and retailing organizations, and the procedures used in constructing and refining a multiple-item scale to measure the construct are described.

21,693 citations


"A multi-perspective integrated fram..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The mainstream on this research classified success factors into five main categories, i.e. technology acceptance factors, social factors, cognitive factors, ethical factors and environmental factors....

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 1993
TL;DR: This guide to the methods of usability engineering provides cost-effective methods that will help developers improve their user interfaces immediately and shows you how to avoid the four most frequently listed reasons for delay in software projects.
Abstract: From the Publisher: Written by the author of the best-selling HyperText & HyperMedia, this book provides an excellent guide to the methods of usability engineering. Special features: emphasizes cost-effective methods that will help developers improve their user interfaces immediately, shows you how to avoid the four most frequently listed reasons for delay in software projects, provides step-by-step information about which methods to use at various stages during the development life cycle, and offers information on the unique issues relating to informational usability. You do not need to have previous knowledge of usability to implement the methods provided, yet all of the latest research is covered.

11,929 citations


"A multi-perspective integrated fram..." refers background in this paper

  • ...It is easy to prove this observation by searching online stores which, for instance, simply do not allow the understanding of how one can buy a product when being faced with a confusing website that encourages the user to immediately close the web page, even before watching its contents....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors established the dimensions of the etail experience, and developed a reliable and valid scale for the measurement of etail quality based on online and offline focus groups, a sorting task, and an online survey of a customer panel.

2,079 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper developed a research model to examine the relationship among e-service quality dimensions and overall service quality, customer satisfaction and purchase intentions, and data from a survey of 297 online consumers were used to test the research model.
Abstract: – This paper develops a research model to examine the relationship among e‐service quality dimensions and overall service quality, customer satisfaction and purchase intentions., – Data from a survey of 297 online consumers were used to test the research model. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and the structural equation modelling technique was used to test the research model., – The analytical results showed that the dimensions of web site design, reliability, responsiveness, and trust affect overall service quality and customer satisfaction. Moreover, the latter in turn are significantly related to customer purchase intentions. However, the personalization dimension is not significantly related to overall service quality and customer satisfaction., – Future research can use different methodologies, such as longitudinal studies, focus groups and interviews, to examine the relationship between service quality and customer purchase behaviour in online shopping contexts., – This study suggests that to enhance customer purchase intentions, online stores should develop marketing strategies to better address the trustworthiness, reliability, and responsiveness of web‐based services. Online stores can devote valuable corporate resources to the important e‐service quality attributes identified by this study., – This study developed the instrument dimensions of e‐service quality by modifying the SERVQUAL model to consider online shopping context. Moreover, the results of this study provide a valuable reference for managers of online stores, as well as for researchers interested in internet marketing.

1,114 citations

Frequently Asked Questions (11)
Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "A multi-perspective integrated framework of critical success factors for supporting on-line shopping" ?

To meet the above requirement, this paper proposes a multi-perspective critical success factors ( MPCSF ) model for online shopping. 

A wellstructured marketing plan, with a well-defined line and an innovative and credible image are essential success factors for promoting any brand or product [1]. 

Using an appropriate marketing strategy along with an improved business offered and other non-technological areas are crucial multidisciplinary requirements for the success of ecommerce. 

The proposed critical success factors incorporated in the MPCSF model in this paper are not only related to the website, its design and usability, but also with: the brand; the marketing and web-marketing strategies; social networks reaching;concerns about the whole supply chain integration; concerns regarding consumers conversion, communication and support; looking at quality data processing and secure payment methods; and enabling a favourable image for reaching on-line shop credibility. 

From videos and images up to workshops and international conferences, it is worth using all channels of communication to solidify the brand on the market. 

If defines new critical success factors such as converting customers and credibility; (b) the MPCSF model intends to include stages beyond the existing online shopping life cycle, i.e. it considers not only the information phase, agreement phase, transaction phase and delivery phase, but also the pre- and aftersale phases; (c) as the model name suggests, the model incorporates the critical success factors from multiple perspectives – technology, social and ethical perspective; (d) the model integrates knowledge from multiple disciplines such as Engineering, Science and Technology, and Business Management. 

One central concern of a consumer is about knowing if the website provides support to clarify questions about products or services; and, in particular, issues related to product returns or simply about how to get more direct information about the provided products and/or services. 

Applying the phenomenon of social networks to e-commerce, has the additional advantage of reaching people that are already regular users of the Internet, and to capture their attention to new products and services requires a good communication and marketing strategies to be implemented. 

Although the world is aware that issues about security breaches continue to rise on data computing and Internet transactions, and as even the most protected systems are transposable, the authors must maintain the dedication to guarantee purchases as much secure as possible. 

Issues related to websites usability, communication and marketing problems must be completely revised to ensure e-commerce success.V. CONCLUSIONKnowing the necessary ingredients for success in ecommerce, is crucial to build a highly profitable and consistent e-commerce business. 

Although a segment of the Marketing, the Web- Marketing deserves special mention, for conceiving a fantastic store, in terms of design and image, may seem to be good enough for becoming very successful.