Mediators of the Customer Satisfaction-Loyalty Relationship

Research Context

The research setting for this paper refers to online shopping services because more and more consumers tend to use this new e-commerce environment due to its unique benefits for marketers and consumers. This research aims to explore the mediating effects of four variables in the relation between e- satisfaction and e-loyalty. These four mediators are: trust, attitude, hedonic value, and utilitarian value.

The four models are based on a quantitative marketing research from primary sources. One of the most important contributions of a marketing research is to define the marketing research problem that requires the provision of marketing solutions. The problem definition for this conducted research is in regard to the better understanding of the mediating factors of satisfaction and loyalty in relation to online shopping services.

Measurement and Research Instrument

Six constructs were measured to form these four models. Constructs were measured using multiple- item scales, drawn from pre-validated measured in marketing research and reworded to reflect the context of online shopping. All these dimensions have been previously studied, providing a large pool of existing valid items to use. The participants indicated their agreement with a set of statements using five-point Likert scales (ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree") drawn from previously validated instruments, as shown in Table 1.

The items that examined trust were adapted from Pavlou with a three-item scale. The scales for utilitarian value and hedonic value were previously used in Liu and Forsythe's study, and each construct was measured with a three-item scale. Attitude for online shopping consisted of five survey items, by extending the work of Hernández et al. Satisfaction was measured using scale items adapted from Bhattacherjee, Zeithaml et al. This scale captured respondents' satisfaction levels along five-point scales anchored between three semantic differential adjective pairs: dreadful / delighted, very dissatisfied / very satisfied, frustrated / contented. Loyalty was measured through five items adapted from Dick and Basu, Too et al., and Shankar et al. The psychometric properties of the measures are provided in Table 1.

Table 1. Constructs used in the model

Sample and Data Collection

The primary scope of this study is to examine the mediators that might have the highest impact on the satisfaction-loyalty relation in consumers' online shopping behavior. A web-based consumer survey was used for the data collection. From January to June 2013, an online survey was posted on various forums devoted to online shopping, and members we invited to support this survey. The study used primary data, namely data originated specifically to address the research problem.

The online survey generated 107 usable questionnaires. Table 2 presents the profile of the respondents, as well as the screening questions which show high levels of experience regarding the use of internet in general, and online shopping in particular.

Table 2. Respondents' profile