Customer Attitudinal Loyalty Towards The Platform And The Seller

The online market has rich growth potential,yet it brings multiple challenges that need to be addressed by research in order to capitalize on this growth potential successfully.China has got tremendous growth in e-commerce,placing it at the forefront of the global stage and has become the leader of the global digital economy,with 42%of global e-commerce online transactions.This situation requires to build up new marketing strategies to handle the challenges posed by the opportunities and the arena build by this e-commerce which is more interactive and customer-centricOne of the core tasks of marketers is to understand the consumers and their product and services consumption experiences.Past research proposes that creating a compelling online experience for online customers is the key to competitive advantage on the Internet.It is imperative for an online platform or a seller to understand what creates loyalty for them in order to gain a competitive advantage with better strategies to increase loyalty and profitable relationshipsIt is well established that online customer shopping experience is an outcome of multiple antecedents,but the empirical test of these antecedents and the outcomes are still limited and needs more exploration.The online customer shopping experience dimensions elaborated in this study are a composite of the most common experience dimensions used in the latest research-integrating firm and customer-related perspectives in customer experience,which is missing in past literaturePlatforms are facing many challenges,as well.It is evident from past literature that retailers have used platforms to gain reputation and then created their own short video apps and started selling their own brands through personal online stores,away from the platforms.Meanwhile,sellers are getting more control from platforms to avoid such instances,which sometimes creates challenges for sellers in improving their businesses.Therefore,the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of online customer shopping experience on customer attitudinal loyalty for platform and seller separately and examine which dimensions of the online customer experience help either or both of them to create loyalty.The second phase of the model is aimed at testing the relationship of customer attitudinal loyalty towards the platform and customer attitudinal loyalty towards the seller,impulsive buying,and purchase intention.The moderating roles of self-control and product knowledge are also going to contribute to the literature with its effects on direct relationships.The composition of relationships drawn in this study conforms to the fundamentals of the stimulus-organism-response(SOR)framework.The SOR framework is one of the most famous theoretical approaches to explain online shopping.The current study kowtows with the three major elements of the SOR framework,where the antecedents of customer experience depict stimulus,the attitudinal loyalty is an organism while impulsive buying and purchase intention are the response elements as per the SOR framework.The current research will extend the theory of flow as it is argued that the intensive involvement,complete concentration,utmost focus out of the desired online experience is potent to seed the loyalty in those customers who achieve flow online.They will repeatedly come to such platforms and sellers who have rendered a flow spell.Thus,the current study will extend this theory by testing the dimensions of customer online shopping experience as potential flow constructs.Moreover,the theory will be further extended by empirical verification of results of the flow as the study propose that the flow will finally result in higher impulsive behavior and augmented purchase intentionMoreover,the SOR framework and flow theory will be extended with empirical verification of the role of the moderators as inhibitors or extenders.As we argue that flow can be interrupted by self-control,and it can be extended by product knowledge Furthermore,the flow theory is complemented with the theory of interpersonal similarity as it will also be extended if the social dimensions play their part resulting in similar choices by online customers.It will also be empirically verified if the theory of interpersonal similarity supports the flow theoryThis study is quantitative in nature and has used cross-sectional data to test the hypothesis empirically.The population of the study is online buyers.Comprehensive data analysis has revealed that this framework holds true and further reveals the drivers of customer loyalty among the dimensions of the online customer shopping experience Furthermore,the moderating role of self-control among both loyalties towards platform and seller and impulsive buying has been explained as it does moderate the relationship between customer loyalty towards the platform and impulsive buying negatively Similarly,the moderating role of product knowledge among both loyalties towards platform and seller and purchase intention has been proved opposite to the proposed hypothesis,which is majorly due to its observation in the online environment.The findings propose that the manager must use the dimensions and the elements of the customer online shopping experience as a checklist as this framework will guide them to see if they are fulfilling the basic necessities required to bring optimum customer online shopping experience.This will help managers for platform and sellers in an online environment to mainly focus on specific dimensions of the online customer shopping experience in order to generate customer loyalty and resultantly,impulsive buying,and higher purchase intention.