Loyalty in the virtual space : An examination based on evaluation of web offerings in the Indian context

Abstract

The use of Internet by organizations is growing rapidly .. On-1ine shopping offers the retailers not only the opportunity to gain customers but also to improve customer loyalty. It offers new ways of analyzing the customer's buying patterns and thus improving the services they offer to them. The Internet and the communications technologies has ushered in an era closer to the economists concept of perfect competition. This has resulted in intense competition and lower margins (Peterson, 97). Customer's access to perfect information has been a challenge for the e-retailers. To compete successfully the e-retailers will have to develop and maintain e-loyalty. An investigation of the three Indian sites, based upon the concept of 8C's (Srinivasan et al), indicates that the customers have very less loyalty towards the web sites. They are spendng lot of time and effort in searching for the altemati ves and are also, on an average, not willing to pay more on the sites. One positive outcome of the study has been that they are exhibiting positive word of mouth behavior.