E-commerce has become an integral part of the world's economy. In this study we investigate the impact of service quality
in e-tailing on site visits and consumer demand. Such an analysis is important given the almost Bertrand-like competitive
structure. Our analysis is based on a large representative data set obtained from a price comparison site covering essentially
the complete Austrian e-tailing market. Customer evaluations for a broad range of 15 different service characteristics are
condensed using factor analysis. Negative binomial regression analysis is used to measure the impact of service quality dimensions
on referral requests to online shops for different product categories. Our results show that the most important service quality
aspects are those related to the ordering process and the firm's website performance.
Forschungsbereich:Industrie-, Innovations- und internationale Ökonomie