A Study on the Factors Influencing on Repurchase Intentions of Major Web Shopping Sites in China

This study examines the impact of the factors generated from previous research on the repurchase intentions of Chinese web shopping customers based on their shopping experience via major web shopping sites. The specific factors were classified into three general factors which are Web System Quality, Product Quality, and Customer Relation Quality. A total 421 data sample was collected. When analyzing the results of the survey, SPSS Statistics 21.0 was used. For validity and reliability measurement of the factors, factor analysis, reliability test, and correlation analysis were conducted before subjecting the data to inferential analysis. The 11 specific factors and three main factors were tested for their relationships with customers’ repurchase intentions using regression analysis. The findings indicated that product price, product promotion from Product Quality, and trust, reputation from Customer Relation Quality have positive influences on customers’ repurchase intention. Therefore, Product Quality and Customer Relation Quality are main factors influencing customers’ repurchase intention. However, the Web System Quality and its underlining attributes (web design, web functionality, web security, and web contents) did not influence customers’ repurchase intention. This study might contribute research about e-commerce success factors and provide effective strategies to gain economic advantages in Chinese online shipping market. INTRODUCTION According to the survey data of iResearch, the deal size of Chinese e-commerce markets has reached 12.3 trillion yuan (1.9 trillion dollars) in 2014. Which brought a question, what did attract so many customers to shop online? This topic has stimulated worldwide research, focused on factors affecting satisfaction, consumer acceptance, customer repurchase intention, web trust, and so on; however there are no factors exactly have been indicated, variation of factors were proposed. The success of e-commerce is primarily determined by customers’ repurchase intentions [1]. However, in Chinese case, there are few studies have been conducted to measure the shopping repurchase intention particularly involving the three major Chinese web shopping sites. The objective of this study is to test the relationship between consumers’ repurchase intention of e-commerce in China and the factors of research model which was adapted from previous studies. The factors were classified into three main categories, Web System Quality, Product Quality, and Customer Relation Quality. We also provide the initial evidence through the statistical analysis results. This research is to analyze and examine whether the specific factors have a positive impact on repurchase intention; and whether the main factors, which are Web System Quality, Product Quality, and Customer Relation Quality have a positive impact on repurchase intention. All the survey results are based on customer perspectives. Based on a survey of 421 respondents, the empirical analyses are made. Finally, this study identifies and discusses several factors affecting consumers’ repurchase intentions. SPSS was used for the validity, reliability, correlation, and regression analysis of the results of the survey. LITERATURE REVIEW There are several countries with different economic development levels have conducted research in e-commerce markets context, for example, Malaysian [2], Iran [3], Hong Kong [4], Saudi Arabia [5], China [6], Indonesia [7], Korea, Japan, and USA [8]. Each research has come up with identified factors which some are supported or agreed by other research and some are not. The mostly mentioned factors that affect the success of online shopping websites are website design, product/service quality, trust, reputation, price, promotion, reliability, delivery, and information. The mentioned factors above have been widely supported by previous studies regardless of online shopping customer’s characteristic. The differences factors in indicating the web shopping success exist because of the different aim of the research, for example, some research focusing on web trust, loyalty or satisfaction to measure the web shopping success. And even through in some studies, they have identified the same factor, the importance of the factors are in different level of value. For example, in Guo and Jaafar study [9], they unsupported the hypothesis related to usability, proved that usability has no positive impact on the consumers’ attitude to adopt online purchase but in Leung et al.’s study [4], they supported the hypothesis related to website design, which includes usability, so they on the other side proved usability is positive to customers’ eloyalty and repeated purchase. According to both of the studies, is usability worth focusing by online retailers? Instead of providing valuable insights into understanding the success factors, the results of the studies are easy to lead the online retailers into confusion: which factors are in priority to focus? As there are many failure instances in the e-commerce markets, it is important to realize the critical success factors of web shopping sites. Making flexible use of the factors can help to enhance the competitiveness of both e-commerce retailers and e-commerce companies. In the domain of success International Journal of Applied Engineering Research ISSN 0973-4562 Volume 11, Number 24 (2016) pp. 11639-11646 © Research India Publications. http://www.ripublication. com 11640 factors research, there are many different potential factors could be the determinant of e-commerce success factors. Some studies indicated satisfaction, consumer acceptance, customer repurchase intention, web trust, consumers’ attitudes, and customer loyalty are the measures for the website success. Most of the studies have made several hypotheses. The following paragraphs discuss the identified factors influencing success factors of e-commerce which are derived from the study of literature review. Satisfaction Several factors are identified to have influence on satisfaction, for example, information quality, system quality, service quality, product quality, delivery quality, perceived price [10], convenience, merchandising, security, serviceability [3], efficiency, ease of navigation, reliability, personalization, ease of use, speed, responsiveness, and assurance [6]. The study based on the survey report that participants were Taiwanese university undergraduates, ranked the importance of the factors, in which delivery quality as the main important factor followed by product quality, system quality, service quality, information quality, and perceived price [10]. Consumer acceptance Several factors are identified to have influence on consumer acceptance, for example, product offerings, information richness, usability of storefront (Web site ease of use), perceived service quality, perceived trust [11], perceived usefulness, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and masculinity [12]. Yoon’s study [12] is about the relationship between national culture values and consumer acceptance of e-commerce, interestingly, it showed the difference between China and other developed countries. It confirmed that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and trust must be important factors of consumer e-commerce acceptance in developing as well as advanced countries; uncertainty avoidance is that the most influential national culture value affecting consumers’ e-commerce acceptance; long-term orientation has also a huge impact on e-commerce acceptance; masculinity have a moderating effect between perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and intention to use in ecommerce acceptance. Consumers’ repurchase intention Several factors are identified to have influence on consumers’ repurchase intention, for example, system accessibility, system security, service quickness, service receptiveness [13], perceived value, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, firm’s reputation, privacy, trust, reliability, functionality [1], design of website, perceived product and service quality, electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) [4]. In the study of Hong Kong customers’ e-loyalty and repeated purchase intention, it pointed out that e-loyalty is positively related to repeated purchase intention and defined e-WOM as a moderate factor, which positively moderate the effect of perceived product and service quality, not directly affects them [4]. Web trust Several factors are identified to have influence on web trust, for example, web security, availability, experience [14]. The availability factor refers to the online chat session, which is the function of Alibaba’s Ali Wangwang. Unlike in the ecommerce markets in the US and Korea, the online chat function has already become a culture of the online shopping in China. Consumers’ attitudes Several factors are identified to have influence on consumers’ attitudes, for example, search engines, auction websites, online shopping malls, conveniences, price, brand, security, promotion, refund [15], website design, website reliability/fulfillment, customer service, privacy [16], wider selection of products [2], saving time, attitude towards website language, recommended online shopping [5], marketing mix, sellers’ reputation [9]. Akbar and James [13] ranked the importance of the factors, the strongest predictors from highest to lowest is price, refund, convenience, auction website, promotion, brand, search engines, security, and online shopping malls. The more often the buyers use web shopping, the more satisfied with website variables and website factors [16]. The study based on the Malaysian postgraduate students’ attitude pointed out that consumers’ tendency when doing online shopping would be more likely to be utilitarian than hedonic [2]. Noteworthy thing is that Guojun and Jaafar’s research [9] based on Chinese customers supported that marketing mix and sellers’ reputations, but didn’t support usability,