Measuring Internet retail service quality using E-S-QUAL

Rafiq, Mohammed; Lu, Xiaoming; Fulford, Heather

Abstract

Despite its acknowledged importance, there are few rigorous empirical studies examining Internet retail service quality. An exception is the development of the E-S-QUAL scale by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Malhotra (2005 Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Malhotra, A. 2005. E-S-QUAL: A multiple-item scale for assessing electronic service quality. Journal of Service Research, 7(3): 213–233. Whilst E-S-QUAL demonstrated good psychometric properties in the original study, the scale lacks external validation. This paper presents a reassessment and validation of the E-S-QUAL in the context of the Internet grocery sector. Data were collected via a web-based cross-sectional survey using self-administered questionnaires distributed to online grocery shoppers. A total of 491 usable questionnaires were received. The results show that there are potential discriminant validity problems with the Efficiency and System Availability dimensions of E-S-QUAL. Further analysis shows that a second-order, three-factor model of E-S-QUAL, consisting of Efficiency, System Availability, and Fulfilment, provides the best fit to the data in this study. Privacy is shown to be the least important dimension for the data set in this study.

Citation

Rafiq, M., Lu, X., & Fulford, H. (2012). Measuring Internet retail service quality using E-S-QUAL. Journal of Marketing Management, 28(9-10), 1159-1173. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257x.2011.621441

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Nov 24, 2011
• Publication Date: 2012-08
• Deposit Date: Jun 4, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 5, 2018
• Journal: Journal of Marketing Management
• Print ISSN: 0267-257X
• Electronic ISSN: 1472-1376
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 9-10
• Pages: 1159-1173
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257x.2011.621441
• Keywords: Internet retail service quality, e-service quality, E-S-QUAL
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1194239