Competitive Advantage of online Shopping Malls Using Topsis and Modified Topsis Methods

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Literature Review

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) analysis, the worldwide online population was 870 million, which constituted around 14% of the total global population by 2004 end (ITU, 2005). The advent of the Internet over the last decades has proven good for the online retail market in India. The fact that e-Commerce is itself a platform for information technology and the fact that many business activities are done through Internet. Including product advertisements, services, transactions; etc. revels the core issue of how Internet business makes it customers most trusted shopping and retailing services.

Abhijit Mitra. (2013), “E-Commerce in India-A Review”, International Journal of Marketing, Financial Services & Management Research. Concluded that the E-Commerce has created a revolution in the business ecosystem and broken the geographical barriers which will strive to improve tremendously in the coming years in India.

D.K.Gangeshwar. (2013),” E-Commerce or Internet Marketing: A Business Review from Indian Context”, International Journal of u- and e- Service, Science and Technology, The future of E-Commerce is bright apart from the glitches in security, dependency and privacy on the technology but could be tamed to stretch its path towards the success business unit.

Martin Dodge. (1999),”Finding the source of Amazon.com: examining the hype of the earth’s biggest book store”, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Concluded that Amazon.com with its quality and commitment to customers has become the biggest E-Commerce giant in the world, with its plans in expanding at various parts of the globe.

Previous studies have emphasized that the issue of consumer purchase process is important (i.e., Butler & Peppard, 1998; Dan, Ferrin, & Raghav, 2008; Rita & Henriette, 2004). Particularly,shaped during the online purchase process, consumers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding convenience and security concerns have significant effects on their intention to purchase online (Limayem,Khalifa, & Frini, 2000). Shanker, Smith, and Rangaswamy (2000) also contended that service provided during and following the purchase is essential to e-consumers’ repeat purchases.

On the other hand, while a number of studies have documented the significant role of website technology factors and service quality in influencing competitive advantage of online shopping website (i.e., Anderson & Srinivassn, 2003; Devaraj, Fan, & Kohli,2002; Flavian, Guinaliu, & Gurrea, 2006; Ribbink, Riel, Liljander, & Streukens, 2004; Shih, 2004; Szymanski & Hise, 2000), little is so far known about the reflection of customer-related factors in the same regard.

The main purpose of this project is to provide practitioners with a point of view to traditional research for dealing with imprecision and at obtaining the prioritization of criteria measurement dimensions.

What are competitive advantages for shopping website?

Online B2C markets are the main area of concern in this study. The study incepts with the establishment of a conceptual framework by reviewing related theories and the literature. Consideration of three Conceptualization topics under this section, namely: Website Service Quality, Technology Acceptance Factors and Specific Holdup Cost.

Website Service Quality

According to Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985, 1988a), service quality (SERVQUAL) is measured in 10 phases: accessibility, capability, communication, courtesy, reliability, trustworthiness, responsiveness, tangibility, safety, and understanding with customers. Parasuraman et al. (1988a, 1988b) reduced the phases from 10 to 5: assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness and tangibility.

Service quality in E-Commerce means the measure taken to assess the quality of the search engines and the factors imbibed with the Website success rates. However, the perception of customers online service quality remains unexplored. There are indications that E-Commerce service issues go beyond product price and could be the reason for consumers’ preference for any channel. Yang, Wu, and Wang (2009) used four dimensions of SERVQUAL, to measure the users’ cognition of SEVQUAL in the online channel, which comprised of assurance, empathy, reliability and responsiveness.

According to service dimensions, Devaraj et al.(2002) published the results of the study that was a measure of customer satisfaction for thee-commerce channel through prescribed three frameworks : Transaction Cost Analysis(TCA), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and SERVQUAL . The study found that TAM components – perceived ease of use and usefulness – are important in strengthening e-commerce channel and gaining customer confidence and satisfaction.

On the other hand, better service quality will provide the customer a better hands over the website and a comfortable environment; when the customers feel e-satisfaction of the website, they will be more e-loyalty; when the website is responsiveness, it will influence directly the customers e-loyalty (Lai,Chen, & Lin, 2007).

With the above quoted points, four criterions determine the competitive advantage of web service quality: Communication, Confident, Security and Trust. Communication implies that the same shopping website records would remember the consumption habits of the customers when customers shop again and again. Confident means that customers are confident enough to purchase online products. Security means that the shopping website does not create a hostile environment for the customers and provides a hassle less shopping platform. Trust means that the website provides appropriate environment where customers could get what they see online and get the same thing in return.

Technology Acceptance Factor

Websites acts as a source of Information Technology. Direct confrontation is a type of an Internet transaction platform. Shopping websites helps the customers to buy products according to their needs and provides a business’s transaction platform via interactive communications to fulfil the criterions of a transaction. However, for the customers to use the online service, they should find it useful for themselves. This accounts for information search, payment methods, Internet subscription, etc.

A good number of studies have adopted technology acceptance factors as a measure of willingness of consumption online by the consumers. Davis (1989) proposed the technology acceptance model (TAM) to predict and explain user acceptance of