Master's Thesis

MASTER’S
THESIS

DETERMINANTS OF CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION IN E-COMMERCE:
A CASE STUDY AT FLIPKART
Rajesh Kumar Yadav

MBA Student, Aarhus University
DETERMINANTS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN E-
COMMERCE: A CASE STUDY AT FLIPKART
(An analytical study on India’s online shopping portal i.e. Flipkart at present scenario,
customer satisfaction level and its determinants, and recommendations on improving
and enhancing customer satisfaction)
A thesis to be submitted in the partial requirement of the requirement for the degree
of
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(2016-17)
Prepared by
Rajesh Kumar Yadav
Student Regn. No.: 201611062
Under Supervision of
Chris Ellegaard
Professor – Relationship Marketing
Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University

Fuglesangs Alle 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark
📞: +45 87150000, Email: bss@au.dk, Website: www. bss.au.dk
PREFACE
T
his Master thesis represents the essence of my achievements during the study
of MBA Programme at Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University. During this period,
there have been many people who have inspired and guided me through the
work with the thesis.
I would first like to thank my supervisor Chris Ellegaard, Professor of Relationship

Marketing, for his precious guidance and everlasting enthusiastic support. Without
Chris’ great input and constant driving force, it would have been impossible to finish
this thesis at such a level that is beyond my expectation.
Furthermore, I would also like to thank John Palm Ulhoi, Programme Director and
Pushpa Santhirakumar, Programme Manager of the MBA course, for their cheerful
encouragement, inspiration, and help in giving such a positive working climate.
There are also many others who have helped me in my study visits by sharing their
valuable experience to me. I hereby express my gratitude to all of them.
Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their love, care, encouragement
and understanding during course of my studies in Denmark.
Rajesh Kumar Yadav
Aarhus, Denmark
June 2017
i
ABSTRACT
The advancement in technology has led to a substantial impact in commerce and

business, and particularly the manner in which businesses interact with their
customers. Primarily, E-commerce exists as one of the most important impacts of the
internet in business. With the increasing number of ownership of smart devices, the
continuous decline in cost of internet connectivity and the increasing application of
smart devices in India, India’s E-commerce has observed a continual growth over time.
While the research has focused on the growth and development of E-commerce in
India, it has failed to critically assess on how well customers are satisfied with the level
of service that they get from E-commerce websites. Flipkart has continually observed
an increase in growth in India to become the largest E-commerce company in the
country. Despite this increase, there has been a lack of enough work of literature on
the relationship between the service that the company offers to the customers and the
satisfaction of the customers.
This study sought out to assess how the various factors affects the satisfaction of the
customers in the Flipkart company. The study observed that there are five main
classes of factors that have substantial impacts on satisfaction of Flipkart users. These
include the physical appearance of the website, the usability and performance of the
Flipkart E-commerce system, the support offered to the users with regard to the
products and services, the content of information presented by the website and the
overall system and the security and privacy of the users’ information. For each of these
factors, the research demonstrated that although the users remain satisfied with each
of these attributes to some extent, still these factors can be enhanced further. In
conclusion, the results of the study demonstrated that the Flipkart users are satisfied
with the services and products that they get from the company, but have a feeling that
there exists a substantial opportunity for improvement for each of these websites. As
Flipkart is one of the biggest market player in E-commerce sector, study on it reflects
the customer satisfaction level in E-commerce industry in India and hence various
consideration and changes can be done to achieve higher customer satisfaction.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ............................................................................................................................ i
ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................... ii
TABLE OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................. v
TABLES INDEX .................................................................................................................... v
EQUATION INDEX ............................................................................................................... v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY ........................................................................................ 2
1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT ................................................................................................... 2
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................................. 3
1.5 VARIABLES OF RESEARCH ............................................................................................. 4
1.6 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................ 4
1.7 SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS ........................................................................................... 5
1.8 IMPORTANCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY .................................................................. 5
1.9 THESIS STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION ...................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................... 7

2.1 E-COMMERCE AND E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY .................................................................. 7
2.1.1 DIFFERENT E-COMMERCE CONSUMER MODELS ....................................................... 9
2.1.2 NORMAL SALES AND E-BUSINESS SALES CHANNELS ............................................... 10
2.1.3 DRIVERS AND BENEFITS OF E-COMMERCE .............................................................. 11
2.2 E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY IN INDIA ................................................................................ 13
2.3 CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY ........................................ 15
2.4 DETERMINANTS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN E-COMMERCE ................................. 17
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................ 21

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN ...................................................................................................... 21
3.2 DATA TO BE COLLECTED .............................................................................................. 22
3.3 SOURCES OF DATA ...................................................................................................... 22
3.4 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS AND PROTOCOLS ................................................................ 22
3.5 POPULATION OF THE STUDY ........................................................................................ 23
3.6 SAMPLE OF THE STUDY ............................................................................................... 23
3.7 DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES ................................................... 24
3.8 DATA ANALYSIS AND PROCESSING .............................................................................. 25
3.9 MEASURES TO ENSURE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY ..................................................... 26
3.10 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS .......................................................................................... 27
CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS ........................................................................ 29

4.1 DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS OF THE RESPONDENTS ........................................................ 29
4.2 PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS ....................................................................................... 31
4.3 REGRESSION ANALYSIS ............................................................................................... 36
4.4 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ............................................................................................... 40
iii
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ................................................................................................. 42
5.1 MAIN FACTORS AFFECTING THE SATISFACTION OF FLIPKART USERS ............................ 42
5.1.1 APPEARANCE ............................................................................................................. 42
5.1.2 SYSTEM USABILITY AND PERFORMANCE ................................................................. 44
5.1.3 INFORMATION CONTENT ............................................................................................ 45
5.1.4 PRIVACY AND SECURITY ........................................................................................... 47
5.1.5 PRODUCT AND SERVICE SUPPORT ........................................................................... 48
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................................ 50
6.1 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 50
6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION ................................................................................ 51
6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ............................................................ 51
APPENDICES .................................................................................................................... 52
APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE .................................................................................................. 52
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 56
iv
TABLE OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1: A TYPICAL E-COMMERCE TRANSACTION ........................................................... 7

FIGURE 2: DIFFERENCE BETWEEN E-BUSINESS AND E-COMMERCE .................................... 8
FIGURE 3: B2B .............................................................................................................. 9
FIGURE 4: B2C .............................................................................................................. 9
FIGURE 5: C2C ............................................................................................................. 9
FIGURE 6: C2B ............................................................................................................ 10
FIGURE 7: B2G ........................................................................................................... 10
FIGURE 8: G2B ........................................................................................................... 10
FIGURE 9: G2C ........................................................................................................... 10
FIGURE 10: INTERNET USE BY REGION ........................................................................... 14
FIGURE 11: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION MODEL ............................................................... 16
FIGURE 12: E-CUSTOMER LOYALTY MODEL .................................................................... 17
FIGURE 13: SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR FLIPKART ................................................... 31
FIGURE 14: SATISFACTION OF THE FLIPKART'S USERS WITH THE AFTER-SALE SERVICES ... 32
FIGURE 15: THE RESPONDENTS' OVERALL SATISFACTION WITH FLIPKART ......................... 32
TABLES INDEX
TABLE 1: DETERMINANTS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN E-COMMERCE ........................ 20
TABLE 2: DETAILS OF 100 RESPONDENTS ...................................................................... 30
TABLE 3: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF THE DIFFERENT FACTORS OF CONSIDERATION ........ 33
TABLE 4: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF SUB-FACTORS AS OBTAINED FROM SPSS ............. 34
TABLE 5: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF SUB-FACTORS ..................................................... 35
TABLE 5: REGRESSION ANALYSIS RESULT FROM SPSS SOFTWARE .................................. 38
TABLE 7: CORRELATION MATRIX FOR FLIPKART SATISFACTION FACTORS .......................... 40
EQUATION INDEX
EQUATION 1: MEAN & STANDARD DEVIATION FORMULA 36
EQUATION 2: FORMULA FOR T-TEST 37
EQUATION 3: PEARSON CORRELATION EQUATION 40
v
vi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
T
his chapter provides an introduction into the paper, the background of the study,
the problem addressed by the paper, the objectives of the study, scope and
delimitations and significance of the study. The aim of the chapter is to provide
readers with a framework into the content of other chapters in the paper.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The rapid advancement and development in web and mobile based technologies have
been of considerable significance and contribution to the advancement of E-
commerce in the last two decades. The statistics from the OECD (2012), more than
25% of the transactions happening as of the year 2011 in the European Union were
online. This is a clear indication of the high increase and improvement in the
application and growth of E-commerce.
The primary benefit of E-commerce that has fostered the high rate of growth is
convenience. Unlike the traditional way of shopping in which the buyer had to
physically present him/herself at the stores, online shopping offers the consumers with
the ability to bargain and make purchases at their comfort. As described in the work
of study by Khushboo, Khushboo & Himanshu (2013), one of the most enticing
attribute of online shopping is that it alleviates the wait to wait for long in the stores or
having to search from store to store for particular products.
India has particularly received a high attention from investors in E-commerce

particularly as a result of its high population which creates a high market for both
products and services. The number of E-commerce companies in India have been
increasing every year with existing companies moving to E-commerce to gain a
competitive advantage through leveraging the benefits of E-commerce. Companies
such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon India and eBay India have seen significant growth
since establishment. This creates a stiff competition in the E-commerce industry in
India.
Previous works of researches have demonstrated that the satisfaction that customers
get from the E-commerce websites as the primary factor of competition in E-
commerce. In the current study, we focus on Flipkart, and seek to determine the main
factors of customer satisfaction at the company.
1
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

With the observed rapid and global growth in E-commerce, businesses and
organizations are on the lookout towards leveraging the technology to gain a
competitive advantage through interacting with the consumers (Demangeot and
Broderick, 2007). Today, online shopping has become a major concern for
organizations and has as such received considerable attention from different
stakeholders. As described and discussed by Koo et al. (2008), online shopping and
E-commerce is as such taking an important role in the overall buyer-seller relationship.
With the number of internet users rising and expected to continue rising (Kotler &
Armstrong, 2008), there has been a growing knowledge and literature that in the online
commerce environment, competition is primarily based on the experience and
satisfaction that the online shoppers get from the shopping platforms.
The work of research as conducted by Al Karim (2013) showed clearly that although
the number of internet users is increasing, the number of online shoppers has
remained stagnant. Although this may be as a result of the many different reasons,
one high probable reason is non-satisfaction of the users. The research as performed
by Monsuwé et al, (2004) showed that the attitudes and perceptions of the customers
with regard to online shopping and E-commerce changes with regard to factors such
as demographic factors, geographic factors as well as security factors. Most of the
researchers in E-commerce have primarily focused their researches on developed
countries, with information and knowledge on E-commerce in the developing countries
remaining largely unearthed.
Flipkart is India’s largest E-commerce company that was founded in the year 2007.
The company operates exclusively in India where it is headquartered Bangalore. At
the time of establishment, the company was focused primarily on the purchase and
sale of books but soon expanded to offer other products including electronics,
stationeries, as well as lifestyle products and e-books. The company has also
launched numerous products of its own including tablets, USB drives as well as laptop
bags. Although the company has been regarded as among the most competitive E-
commerce companies in India, it faces stiff competition from other E-commerce
companies such as Amazon India, Snapdeal and eBay India.
1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT

The development and growth in E-commerce over the past two decades has led to a
substantial change in the status of customers from a passive role to an active role in
trade. E-commerce has given the customers access to a whole lot of suppliers and
retailers from where they can purchase the products they need as well as the
availability of information necessary in trade decision making. With the growth and the
2
perceived heightened growth in the E-commerce industry in India, the ability of E-
commerce companies in India to ensure and cultivate a high customer satisfaction
determines the competitiveness of the company.
Previous works of research on customer satisfaction have clearly demonstrated

considerably low rate of satisfaction for the E-commerce customers. According to an
article by Rossi (2015), more than 63% of the shoppers and customers are unhappy
with the online customer experience. Only 37% of the customers making use of E-
commerce believe they get the best service and overall experience in ecommerce.
The research also demonstrated that the lack of confidence in the E-commerce
websites and application as the primary factor affecting the satisfaction of the
customers with the different E-commerce platforms. Another research conducted in
China and reported by CNNIC (2004) showed that 47.3% of all the E-commerce
customers in China are not satisfied with the services they receive from the E-
commerce companies.
Even though previous works of researches have demonstrated considerably low level
satisfaction of customers with the experience they get from their interactions and
transactions, there lacks works of research to assess customer satisfaction within the
individual E-commerce companies in India. Particularly, there lacks works of research
that have shown interest in identifying the main factors that determine the satisfaction
of Flipkart customers with the services they obtain from the customer interaction
platforms by Flipkart.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This work of research seeks to close the above discussed gap in knowledge by
conducting a work of research to assess the satisfaction of online customers that use
Flipkart. The study will assess the level of satisfaction of Flipkart customers and the
primary determinants of customer satisfaction at Flipkart. The research analyzes and
summarizes the specific elements of customer satisfaction in E-commerce, and the
expectations and perceptions of the customers towards E-commerce. In order to
better fulfil the objectives of this study, I design the following research questions which
the study will seek to find answers to.
1. What is the relationship between Flipkart website appearance and the
satisfaction of the users in conducting their E-commerce transactions?
2. How does the usability and performance of Flipkart website affect the
satisfaction of the users of the E-commerce website?
3. How does the available support for both products and services determine the
satisfaction of the Flipkart users?
4. How does the content presented in the website and the manner in which it is
presented affect and determine the satisfaction of Flipkart users?
3
5. What is the impact of privacy and security of information which affect the
satisfaction of Flipkart users?
6. What is the overall satisfaction of Flipkart users with their operations in Flipkart?
1.5 VARIABLES OF RESEARCH

In any work of research, the researchers seek out to assess the existing relationship
between the dependent and the independent variables. The independent variable is
the variable that is changed or controlled during a work of research in order to test its
effect on the dependent variable. On the other hand, the dependent variable is the
particular variable that is being tested in the work of study. The dependent variable in
the current work of study is the satisfaction of the Flipkart users. On the other hand,
there are five main independent variables of research including the appearance of the
Flipkart website, information content provided to the users, the level of support offered
to the users on both products as well as services, usability and performance of the
entire E-commerce system as well as privacy and security of the customer’s data.
Satisfaction level
Dependent
Website Appearance
Variable
Information Content
Independent Support level

Variable Usability & Performance
Privacy & Security
1.6 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

As explained in the problem statement section, there exists a large gap in knowledge
with regard to the various factors that determine the satisfaction of customer in E-
commerce. This work of research seeks to close this gap in knowledge by assessing
the primary factors responsible for the satisfaction of customers in E-commerce. The
following are the primary objectives of the work of research.
1. To evaluate the level of satisfaction of E-commerce customers.
2. To evaluate the main factors that determine the satisfaction of customers in E-
commerce.
3. Recommend ways and approaches towards enhancing and improving the
satisfaction of E-commerce.
4
1.7 SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS
The study will concentrate primarily on Flipkart as the company of research. This
scope has been selected due to the convenience and ease of collection of data for
research. As such, the different phases of research will focus on issues of customer
satisfaction with regard and focus on Flipkart.
1.8 IMPORTANCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

As earlier explained, there exists a large gap in knowledge with regard to the
satisfaction of customers on different E-commerce companies. The primary
significance of the current work of research is to close this gap with the provision of
information and knowledge with regard to the satisfaction of customers with Flipkart
as well as the main determinants of satisfaction of the customers. This work of
research will be of considerable importance in understanding the various factors of
consideration for establishing customer satisfaction in India in general. Although the
work of research will primarily consider Flipkart, the company is used as a
representative of the many E-commerce companies operating in India.
Of particular importance, this study is essential to establish an understanding of the

E-commerce customers at Flipkart. Generally, the study is essential in establishing a
comprehensive understanding of the Indian E-commerce industry and creating
awareness of the primary factors and considerations that E-commerce leaders should
consider in improving their systems or the factors of consideration in establishing new
E-commerce companies in the country. With the establishment of the primary
determinants of customer satisfaction, the findings of this study will be of great
significance to the management and the stakeholders of Flipkart on the various
considerations and changes that should be done on the website to achieve a higher
customer satisfaction. Specifically, the research will act as a base for the
improvements of the Flipkart system and the main considerations for future E-
commerce systems.
1.9 THESIS STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION

This document has been structured to include six main topics, each discussing
different aspects of the research. The chart shown below shows the outline, structure
and organization of the different chapters in the study.
5
6
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
T
his chapter reviews the existing works of research on the satisfaction of the
customers in the E-commerce industry with the primary objective of establishing
what has already been uncovered by other researchers and scholars. The
section of the chapter will primarily focus on E-commerce and E-commerce industry,
E-commerce industry in India, customer satisfaction, the satisfaction of customer in
the E-commerce industry and end with the assessment of the findings of the previous
works of research with regard to the determinants of customer satisfaction in the E-
commerce industry.
2.1 E-COMMERCE AND E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY
In today’s world, the internet and use of E-commerce has become daily activities for
most people. It is no longer tools for the wealthy nor the technologically advanced
individuals in the society but tools available for everyone. It has become popular tools
especially with the decline in the price of smartphones and personal computers, and
the development and growth in economy which have enhanced and increased the
financial ability of the people in the society. The internet, and the aspects of E-
commerce have unleased another revolution that have changed the way people
conduct their day to day businesses and the way people interact with their customers.
E-commerce can simply be defined as the distribution, the sale, marketing, advertising
of services and products through the internet. The establishment of companies such
as Flipkart, eBay and Amazon has created a way for E-commerce with more and more
companies entering the blooming industry. Today, E-commerce is considered by
many business experts as one of the most essential tools of success and vital to the
success of organizations.
Figure 1: A Typical E-commerce transaction
Source: Kenneth & Carol (2014)
7
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
With the advancement and development in technology, and the impacts of technology
on essentially every industry, the business environment has experienced much of
these implications. Electronic commerce, commonly referred to as E-commerce,
refers to anything that involves online transactions (Kaur & Kaur, 2015). It involves
conducting business over the internet. Sarode (2015) defines electronic commerce as
purchase and sale of goods and services through the electronic media, without the
use of paper documents. Sarode (2015) explains that although most researchers and
scholars have essentially defined and considered E-commerce as involving only the
sale of goods and services over the internet, the scope of E-commerce is essentially
large composing of any particular transaction that occurs through the internet.
E-business and E-commerce are among the two most confusing terms and which have
often been used in place of each other. However, although the terms are used in same
industry, it is important to note that these terms refer to different but interrelated
concepts. E-business makes use of integrated computer technology to augment the
business operations. E-business includes three main processes including the
production process, customer-aimed processes and the internal management
processes. The term is essentially applied in the establishment and development of
the company’s strategy, and to depict organizations and companies that work offline.
Figure 2: Difference between E-business and E-commerce
Source: Kenneth & Carol (2014)
According to Khan & Mahapatra (2009), technology plays a vital role in improving the
quality of services that are provided by the different business units. One of the main
technologies which have brought about a revolution in the manner in which business
organizations and companies operate is information technology and particularly the
internet. Gangeshwer (2013) regards internet technology as the third wave of
revolution following the agricultural and the industrial revolution. E-commerce has
become the cutting edge technology for business today, enabling business
organizations to reach out to customers and clients at their comfort. The effect of E-
commerce has become clearly evident in all the different aspects of business ranging
from customer service to the design and implementation of new products.
8
The technology of e-commerce has come with numerous benefits and advantages to
both the customers and the business organizations. It facilitates new forms of
information-based business processes for reaching to and interacting with the
potential customers. These includes services such as online marketing and
advertising, online ordering for products and services as well as online customer
services. The E-commerce has also led substantial efficiency and effectiveness in the
delivery of services to the customers. These, among other factors as will be described
below have led to the substantial growth in E-commerce.
2.1.1 DIFFERENT E-COMMERCE CONSUMER MODELS
As was explained in the research above, E-commerce takes number of different forms
and models. The discussion that follows provides a brief description into the various
models in E-commerce. The following are the models used in E-commerce industry
as shown below:
Figure 3: B2B
BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS
This model comprises and constitutes
businesses selling directly to other businesses.
The sellers primarily sell goods and services
which are used by other businesses in their
business operations.
Source: www.tutorialspoint.com
BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER
Figure 4: B2C
In this model, businesses enrolled for E-
commerce make sales directly to the
consumers. This is the most evident form E-
commerce. Examples of B2C ecommerce
websites include Amazon and Flipkart.
CONSUMER-TO-CONSUMER
In C2C, consumers sell their assets like cars, Figure 5: C2C
house etc. or rent an apartment/ house by
advertising on the website which follows this
model, this service may be chargeable.
Consumer on the other side may buy the
product of the customer who advertised for
selling/ renting the items after watching the
advertisement. Source: www.tutorialspoint.com
9
CONSUMER-TO-BUSINESS Figure 6: C2B

It is like B2C model, but the difference is that
consumer is the seller of service here and
organization is the buyer, hence consumer
decides the price of product. For example,
consumer (author), in blogs or internet forums
offers a link for online purchase from other
websites and he gets commission.
BUSINESS-TO-GOVERNMENT Figure 7: B2G

In this model businesses sells products,
services or information to government or its
agencies. For example, businesses bid on
government projects and government might Source: www.tutorialspoint.com
purchase.
GOVERNMENT-TO-BUSINESS
Governments and government organizations Figure 8: G2B
make use of this model to accomplish online
transactions with business organizations. This
model supports auctions, tenders and Source: www.tutorialspoint.com
functionalities of application submission.
GOVERNMENT-TO-CITIZENS
Figure 9: G2C
Governments and government organizations
approach their citizens through this model.
The primary objective of this models of is to
reduce the average time that is needed to Source: www.tutorialspoint.com
provide basic services to the citizens.
2.1.2 NORMAL SALES AND E-BUSINESS SALES CHANNELS
In comparison between the modern e-business and the traditional business, there are
numerous differences in the manner the two modes of business operate. One of the
main differences is that the consumers have been observed to often associate online
shopping with low priced deals as a result of the ease of access of competitors’
information on their offer with regard to the particular product. This may also be
inferenced from the fact that the high accessibility of products and services over the
internet plays an important role in the reduction of the prices of the different products.
The other difference between the two sales channels is the access of information. E-
business channels offer an immediate access to information to all the buyers while in
the normal traditional sales channels, the customers must move to the stores in order
10
to access the information required. In e-business, the consumers have access to
unprecedented amounts of information not only from the manufacturers or the sellers’
websites but from the many reviews from other users of the same products. The third
and main difference between the two modes of business is the manner in which they
are conducted. First, in e-business, the information technology and the systems
applied act as the middleman between the manufacturers and the consumers
(Toomey & Wysocki, 2009).
2.1.3 DRIVERS AND BENEFITS OF E-COMMERCE
The research article by Steel, Daglish, Marriott, Gemmell & Howell (2013) have
explained three drivers of E-commerce as including the reduced prices of products,
the increased product availability, its convenience, and the increased online product
range.
REDUCED PRICES
In the year 2012, PricewaterhouseCoopers, released a report on the Australian and
New Zealand retail market. According to the report, approximately 51% of all the online
shoppers regarded low prices of products and services as being the primary driver for
them shopping online. E-commerce has enabled the considerable decline in the
product and service prices due to the direct link between the manufacturers and the
consumers (Brynjolfsson, Dick and Smith, 2010). The online presence of many
retailers and distributors enable the consumers to search for product information and
data and thus offer them the ability to compare prices of the various products.
In another work of study that was conducted by Brynjolfsson & Smith (2000), the
results demonstrated that the online prices of commodities and products was
approximately 9-16% lower as compared to the prices of the same products from the
retailers. Moreover, the same research also demonstrated that the online retailers
made smaller and more frequent changes in the prices of their products as compared
to their conventional counterparts. The study conducted by Ellison and Ellison (2009)
also demonstrated that the retailers dealing in computer parts frequently changed their
prices in response to the actions of the competitors.
A surprising fact about the E-commerce is the substantial difference between the
prices of different retailers in the internet. Brynjolfsson and Smith (2000 found out that
range in retail prices of products over the internet averaged at approximately 33% for
books and 25% for CDs. These results were similar to the results of the study by
Ellison and Ellison (2009) within the computer accessories market. The systematic
and rather organized dispersion among the business-to-consumer retailers suggest
that while the products in consideration are homogenous, the final product is regarded
and observed to be differentiated by the different consumers (Brynjolfsson, Dick and
Smith, 2010).
11
INCREASED PRODUCT RANGE

As was earlier explained, the most important driver for E-commerce is convenience.
According to Brynjolfsson et al. (2003), E-commerce offers the customers with the
ability to find and make purchases for a wide array of products and services which
were previously unavailable in the conventional traditional stores. While the
conventional inventories and sales outlets are highly limited in space, the internet
retailers do not face such issues. The centralized stores and the unique arrangement
with the distributors provide the internet sellers with a virtually unlimited memory
space. Moreover, the enhanced and increased search features as well as the ability
to personalize tools of recommendation increase the awareness of the products and
as such exposing the consumers with a wide range of products that were previously
not available.
According to a work of research as conducted by Brynjolfsson et al. (2003), in which

the researchers sought out to quantify the consumer gains that arise from the enlarged
variety of products at Amazon, the researcher observed that Amazon offered a total
of 2.3 million unique products as of the year 2000. This is approximately 23 times the
size of the largest superstore. The researchers also observed that the customer gain
rose by $703 million and $1.03 billion. However, due to some major issues that
affected the work of research and the many flawed assumptions, the researchers
found the possibility that the customer welfare was largely overstated. As such, the
researchers conducted another study in 2008 to re-estimate the customer welfare
resulting from E-commerce. In this research, they applied data collected from the sale
of obscure books on Amazon. According to Brynjolfsson, Hu & Smith (2010), the
results of the current research showed that the customer welfare had increased five
folds between $ 3.93 and $ 5.04 billion.
In the year 2011, the research conducted by the Association of American Publishers
reported that the sale of eBooks surpassed the sale of all other book formats (Sporkin,
2011). With the understanding of the importance of the new channel of sale and
making profits, Smith, Telang and Zhang (2012) conducted a work of research with
the objective of assessing and estimating the surplus of the producers and the
consumers that they explain could be created through bringing together the world’s
2.7 million print into eBooks. According to their research, they estimated that customer
welfare would increase by approximately $860 million in the first year only if the books
were released as eBooks.
PRODUCT AVAILABILITY
The third primary importance E-commerce is the increased availability of products.
Product availability refers to the ease of access to products and services by the
buyers. In a research conducted by Gallino and Moreno (2012), the researchers
sought to analyze the consequence for a major United States homeware retailer in
12
implementing the buy-online-pick-up-in-store system. Their research showed that the
sales of the company highly increased following the implementation since there was
a high availability of the products over the internet as would be compared in the
conventional stores.
2.2 E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY IN INDIA
For growing economies, such as India, E-commerce offers considerable opportunities

for both the consumers as well as the business organizations. Although the E-
commerce industry in India is in the earliest periods of growth and development, even
the most pessimistic projections indicate a boom in the industry (Chanana & Goele,
2012). Chanana & Goele (2012) explains that the expected most important and
significant factors towards an improved growth in E-commerce in India include the
decline in the cost of personal computers as well as the smart devices, the increasing
competition among the internet service providers in the country which is expected to
result in a significant decline in the cost of internet use, and the growing number of
internet users. In the year 2011, research shows that E-commerce was one of the
primary reasons that most Indians as well as non-Indian residents visited the internet
(Chanana & Goele, 2012). The past number of years have observed a considerably
large number of organizations and businesses actively engage in E-commerce with
the primary objective of enhancing and facilitating the effectiveness and the efficiency
of the services that they provide to their customers.
The E-commerce industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India. The country
has an internet user base of 354 million as of the June 2015 and this value is growing
(Chaithralaxmi & Shruthi, 2016). Despite the country being the second largest base of
internet users in the world, the penetration and acceptance of E-commerce in the
country remains low as compared to other countries such as the United States.
However, it is worth noting that this e-commerce user base is growing at
unprecedented rates, with an addition of approximately 6 million new entrants every
month (Chaithralaxmi & Shruthi, 2016).
According to the statistics of the internetworldstates.com collected in the year 2012,

Asia has approximately 44.8% of the world internet users. The pie chart shown below
shows the distribution of internet users in the world according to internetworldstates in
the year 2012.
13
Figure 10: Internet use by region
Source: Internetworldstates.com
According to Waghmare (2012), many countries in Asia are today taking advantage of
E-commerce through opening up their economies, which is essentially and
significantly important for promoting competition and diffusion of internet technologies.
As detailed in the research conducted by Gangeshwer (2013), India is expected to
have an internet user’s base of between 30 and 70 million people, which will be higher
than the user base in most developed nations. With the expected increase in the
number of internet users, it is expected that E-commerce will considerably grow with
the coming years. According to a recent report by the Internet and Mobile Association
of India revealed that E-commerce industry in India is growing at a rate of 70% on an
annual basis and that the industry has grown by over 500% for the past three years.
The assessments made in the research conducted by Zai & Manish (2012) showed
that revenues obtained through the application of E-commerce are expected to grow
$1.6 billion in the year 2012 to $ 8.8 in the year 2016. This increase is attributed to the
significant increase in the number of internet users and the proliferation in the use of
smart devices, which make it easy for the users to engage in E-commerce
transactions.
India’s E-commerce industry has been continually growing for the past 10 years. In
the work of research by Devaraju (2016), from a net worth of $ 3.8 billion in the year
2009, the Indian E-commerce industry had grown to a net worth of $12.6 billion as of
the year 2013. The research also demonstrated that the E-retail section was worth $
2.3 billion in 2013. According to these observations, Devaraju (2016) explains that
14
approximately 70% of the E-commerce industry in India is related to travel. The
statistics from google for the year 2014 showed that in India alone, there were more
than 35 million online shoppers in the first quarter of 2014 and this number was
expected to increase to above 100 million by the end of the year 2016.
There are numerous drivers of E-commerce in the Indian E-commerce industry. First
and essentially the most important driver for E-commerce in India is the large
percentage of population that is subscribed to the broadband internet and the
introduction of 4G internet in the country that have attracted additional internet users.
The second factor is the explosive growth in the number of smartphone users. The
third is the rising standards of living due to the fast decline rate of poverty. This has
enabled most people in the country to have the ability to make purchases of
smartphones and personal computers, which are essential tools of E-commerce
(Devaraju, 2016).
2.3 CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY
The need and the requirement for the identification of the problems that are associated
with the satisfaction of the customers in the E-commerce industry and the approaches
that are incorporated in its evaluation plays an important role in the determination of
the primary approaches and ways of improving the services that are offered to the
customers. The satisfaction of the consumers plays a pivotal role in the evaluation of
the processes of consumption, shopping, service or product utilization and thus
playing an important role in gathering information and data on the processes.
With the understanding of the importance of customer satisfaction within organizations

and corporations, researchers and scholars have made considerable strides in
understanding these concept. According to Campo and Yague (2009), the first works
of research on customer satisfaction dates to as early as the 1950s. Gupta et al. (2003)
defines customer satisfaction as the gauge of performance of the perceived
organizational products or services relative to the expectations of the buyers. If the
products fail to meet the expectations of the consumers, then the customers are
dissatisfied and if the performance of the product copes up with the expectations of
the customers, the customers are satisfied (Kotler, 2005). Oliver as cited in Danesh &
Nasab (2012) defines customer satisfaction as the summary psychological state that
results from the coupling of the emotions surrounding disconfirmed expectations of
the consumers with the consumers feeling with regard to prior use of the product or
service under consideration.
Ensuring that the customers are highly satisfied with the products and services offered
by an organization serves as the most important and significant competitive advantage
as compared to the competitors. Apart from satisfied customers increasing their sales,
15
they also become important external marketers and advertising elements for the
organization (Gupta et al., 2003).
In the assessment of the satisfaction of the customers, numerous researchers and

scholars have established different models. One of the most applicable models is the
model established by Gupta and Zenithal (2006). According to this research, there are
three elements as demonstrated in the figure below that determine the level of
customer satisfaction. Each of the factors have a positive and a significant impact on
the satisfaction of the customers. The five factors include the customer relationship
management, the value added services, the availability of the products, the variety of
the products offered to the customers and Ambience.
Figure 11: Customer satisfaction model
Source: Gupta and Zenithal (2006)
Another important model that has been developed and has been used to assess the
satisfaction of the customers in the E-commerce industry is the framework developed
by (Mustafa, 2011). According to this model, the satisfaction of the E-commerce
customers is a result of the combination of factors such as the user interface quality,
the information quality, information security and privacy of the customer’s information.
These factors also pose a significant impact on the belief of the E-commerce
customers with regard to the particular E-commerce company. Consequently, E-
customer satisfaction and E-customer belief directly impacts on the loyalty of the
customers with regard to the E-commerce services.
16
Figure 12: E-customer loyalty model
Source: Mustafa (2011)
Although different works of research as have been demonstrated above have

demonstrated a considerable growth in the use and application of E-commerce, most
of them have clearly demonstrated that most E-commerce companies demonstrate
significantly low levels of customer satisfaction. In the traditional business format,
service quality assessment was performed on the basis of five main attributes of the
products including the reliability of the products, their responsiveness, assurance,
tangibles and empathy. However, these measures as discussed by Radziszewska &
Częstochowska (2013) cannot adequately handle and assess the satisfaction the
customers obtained from E-commerce. According to the research article by
Radziszewska & Częstochowska (2013), some researchers have proposed the
assessment of the quality of the E-commerce website attributes such as the efficiency
and reliability as the determinants of the E-commerce customer satisfaction.
2.4 DETERMINANTS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN E-COMMERCE
With the understanding of the importance of customer satisfaction in the E-commerce

industry, many researchers and scholars have set out to assess the main factors that
affect and determine the satisfaction of E-commerce customers. In a work of research
conducted by Zhang et al. (2006) concluded that the important and significant factors
that affect E-commerce satisfaction include the perceived convenience and the
security that the website offers to the customers as well as the customers’ own
experience and skills. The study by Lin (2007) also highlighted on the importance of
the website quality with regard to its design and information in E-commerce systems.
According this research, the design, information provided and the interactivity provided
by the system provides plays an important role in satisfying customers and making
them loyal to the particular E-commerce system. Other factors that were observed as
17
being important in ensuring a high customer satisfaction include the security of the site
and the presence of the company in social media.
The other work of research by Bai et al. (2008) explained that the E-commerce
consumers demand for privacy when engaged in an economic activity with a particular
company through the internet for satisfaction. According to the respondents in this
work of research, privacy to them meant that the information of the consumers as well
as all their transactions could be kept safe, handled with care and that no third party
individuals should be able to use or view the information of the consumers. The ability
of the E-commerce companies to retain and store the information about the consumers
and the adequate use of these information was observed to be one of the primary
concerns of the consumers with regard to the privacy of the consumers.
The research conducted by Jianchi and Xiaohong (2009) observed that there are five
main factors determining the satisfaction of the E-commerce users. These factors
included the design of the E-commerce website, the services or products provided by
the website to the consumers, the quality of information displayed by the website,
website intelligence especially with regard to personalization of adverts and
recommendations to the customers as well as the security of the entire E-commerce
system. These findings are in particularly important to the E-commerce service
providers as they directly relate to the performance of the sites. As the research of Eid
(2011) demonstrated, the loyalty of the customers in B2C E-Commerce industry highly
and positively affected the satisfaction of the customers.
In another work of research as conducted by Brilliant and Achyar (2013) investigated

the sales of E-commerce at a global scale with the primary objective of assessing how
satisfied the customers are with the system and how these relates to the E-commerce
sales. According to the work of research, the quality of information on an E-commerce
website affects the satisfaction of the E-commerce customers. The study also
demonstrated that E-commerce trust affects the loyalty of the customers with regard
to the B2C E-commerce system.
With regard to the above discussion, the main categories of factors determining the
level of satisfaction of the customers with the E-commerce sites include the quality of
the user interface of the E-commerce site, the quality of information provided by the
E-commerce site, the services offered to the customers by the E-commerce site as
well as the security and privacy of the system. According to the work of research as
conducted by Shankar et al. (2003), the ease of obtaining information from the
particular E-commerce website has a significant impact on the satisfaction of the
customers in cases when the services are selected online than offline. The work by
Liu et al. (2008) found out that the quality of information provided by the E-commerce
sites are among the most important facts of determining the satisfaction of E-
commerce customers in China. Finally, the study by Sadeh et al. (2011) also
18
demonstrated that quality of information directly and positively determines the
satisfaction of the customers who make use of the particular E-commerce website.
Numerous works of research have clearly suggested that a firm may focus primarily
on the quality of customer service as a means of facilitating and enhancing the
satisfaction of their consumers. According to the research article by Yang and
Peterson (2004), customer service refers and represents the representatives that has
the important knowledge and information with regard to the questions raised by the
customers. The study by Liu et al. (2008) also demonstrated that customer service is
a significant contributor to the satisfaction of the customers in E-commerce industry.
The design of the website was particularly observed to have a substantial effect on
the satisfaction of the online users of E-commerce. The design of the website is
directly related to the perception of the consumers of the organization as well as the
order within the particular E-commerce Company and organization (Wang et al.,
2010). In the work of study as conducted by Park and Kim (2003) clearly found that
the user interface of the E-commerce system directly influences and affects the
satisfaction of the customers as it directly and explicitly depicts the competence of the
service providers as well as the ability of the company to provide effortless use of the
particular services offered by the company. The study by Cyr (2008) also observed
similar results on the direct impact of the design of the user interface.
With the growth and development of cyber insecurity and cyber-attacks, the security
of the E-commerce companies have a considerable impacts on the satisfaction of the
customers. A positive perception of financial security determines the level of trust that
the customers have on the particular E-commerce site. According to the works of
research by Eid (2011) and Sadeh et al. (2011), the perceived security risks and
privacy provided by the E-commerce website directly determines E-commerce service
satisfaction. Customer trust is also observed to be an essential determinant of success
of online business (Hou, 2005).
In concluding this section, the literature described above describes some of the main
factors that affect and determine the satisfaction of users in the E-commerce industry.
According to the description provided, the main factors determining the satisfaction of
customers in E-commerce include the appearance of the E-commerce site, the
utilization and ease of use of the E-commerce system, the relevance and accuracy of
the information provided in the systems, privacy and security of the users’ information
and the support for the products and services on sale by the system. According to
most of the scholars, attributes relating to the E-commerce system and the
appearance of the E-commerce website has the largest significance in the
determination of the satisfaction of the consumers. The table shown below explains
the main attributes and factors of consideration with regard to the above five classes
of factors determining the satisfaction of E-commerce users.
19
Table 1: Determinants of Customer Satisfaction in E-commerce
MAIN FACTORS OF SUB-FACTORS AND ATTRIBUTES

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Appearance Ø Physical appearance of the Flipkart website

Ø Ease of use of website’s user interface
Ø Availability of reviews from others
Ø Availability of advanced reviews of products
such as use of videos
Information and content Ø Product variety
Ø Accuracy of the information
Ø Notifications for order confirmation and
completion
Ø The relevance of the information
Ø Simplicity and understandability of the
provided information
Ø Reliability of the website content
Ø Transparency on the price and changes of
products and services respectively
Privacy and security Ø Security and privacy of the user’s personal
information
Ø Security of information users enter onto the
website system
Usability and Performance Ø Opportunities for automated transaction
Ø Ease of successfully completing transactions
Ø Availability of customized search facilities
Product & service support Ø Time of order delivery
Ø Mode of delivery
Ø Facilities of product return
Ø Product trial facility
Ø Satisfaction with after-sale services
Ø Assistance on product selection
Ø Re-dress support for products and services
Ø Availability of administrative support
Ø Stability of the website system
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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
T
his chapter presents detailed information about how the work of research was
conducted and the different methods and techniques that will be applied in
collection and analysis of the collected data. This chapter will primarily offer
details on the design of the research study, the data to be collected, the sources of
these data, the research instruments and protocols, the population and sample of
interest in the research, the data collection techniques to be applied, the data analysis
techniques to be applied, the measures to ensure reliability and validity of the study
and the ethical considerations for the study.
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN
The research design of a project refers to the particular arrangement of the conditions
necessary for the collection, organization and analysis of the data from the participants
of the research in order to ensure a combined relevance of the purposes and aims of
the study ensuring the consideration of the economic factors in the selected
procedures (Kothari, 2004). The design primarily constitutes the blue print for the
collection, measurement, evaluation, assessment and analysis of the collected data
as well as the measures to be taken during the research. It establishes and represents
the logical, strategic and systematic plan that is prepared to direct the research study,
the aims and objectives of the study and the approach in completing the study
(Krishna, 2006).
Owing to the nature of this study, the research will follow the quantitative approach to
complete the research. Unlike the qualitative researches which make use of words
and text as responses from the research participants, quantitative researches are
numerical representation and manipulation of the observations and findings obtained
from the participants that is mainly applied for the purpose of explaining or describing
the phenomena that those observations represent (Sukamolson, 2011). As such,
quantitative researchers collect responses from the respondents in numerical formats
that allow statistical representation and analysis. With regard to this particular work of
research, I analyzed the literature review to establish a total of 25 different factors that
were found to be of particular importance in assessing E-commerce customer
satisfaction. Through the use of questionnaires, I sought to collect measures of the
perception of the participants with regard to the 25 different factors of consideration.
These factors were set to assess the user’s perception with regard to the appearance,
the use of the system, the information and content provided by the website system,
privacy and security as well as support for the products and services offered in the
website system.
21
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY
3.2 DATA TO BE COLLECTED
As was originally explained in the introductory section of this report, the objective is to
assess the satisfaction of the customers and users of Flipkart. The study seeks to
establish the existing relationship between the services and the products provided by
Flipkart and the satisfaction of the consumers with these services. The literature
review section clearly demonstrated a number of factors which are essential in the
determination of the level of satisfaction in E-commerce industry. In order to effectively
achieve the objectives of this study, I collected the views, in the form of ratings, from
the respondents on a pre-set 25 different variables of E-commerce satisfaction.
3.3 SOURCES OF DATA
In the research conducted by Yin (2009), there are six categories of data sources
which provide essential information on researches. These include documents, archival
records of data, questionnaires and interviews, direct observation and observation by
the research participants. Although all these different sources are considerably
significant in researches, they are not all applicable in all different works of research.
The main sources of data in the current work of research included documents,
questionnaires and the observations by the research participants. The secondary data
was particularly helpful in the triangulation process for the validation of the findings
collected from the research participants. Moreover, the application of multiple sources
of data provides the benefits in that the research can easily establish and develop
lines of convergence and inquiry about the work of research.
3.4 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS AND PROTOCOLS
As was earlier discussed and explained in the chapter, this study seeks to apply the
concepts and practices of quantitative studies. Particularly, the data collection
processes were conducted through the application of questionnaires. The main
instrument of the study was the questionnaire which was applied for the purposes of
collecting data and findings from the research participants. However, as Xu & Storr
(2012) explains, researchers are the main instrument in both qualitative and
quantitative research. This is for the reason that the researchers are the medium
through which the actual work of research is conducted. In the current work of study,
as the main researcher, I played the primary role of managing the different phases of
study and integrating all these phases to see the completion of the study. I was
responsible for conducting some of the major activities in the study including the
design and planning of the entire work of research, design of the questionnaires,
sampling of the respondents, conducting the pilot study, collection of the actual data
22
as well as the analysis and interpretation of the data to solve the primary questions of
research.
3.5 POPULATION OF THE STUDY
Although this work of research will focus on the customer satisfaction in the E-
commerce industry in India, the primary scope of the current study is Flipkart. Flipkart
is one of the largest E-commerce companies in India and takes a considerable amount
of customers who make use of the company’s website to make purchases as well as
to complete transactions. With this regard, the population of focus in this study
comprised of two groups of people. First is the group of users to apply the use of the
Flipkart website system to make purchases or do any one particular form of
transaction. These users are particularly important in the study as there are the
primary source of revenue for Flipkart E-commerce Company. The other group is the
support and maintenance individuals at the company. While the customers are the
primary group for whom the system was established and developed for, and interact
with the front-end side of the website system, the support team, especially the website
engineers focus on the back-end side of the website system. From the above
described population, I sought out to understand their experience with the system.
3.6 SAMPLE OF THE STUDY
As explained above, Flipkart is the largest E-commerce company in India. According

to the article by Sudha & Bharathi (2015), Flipkart is present across the entire India
with more than 14 different product and service categories and with reach in more than
150 cities. As of the year 2015, Flipkart was a 10000 member team including over
3000 sellers and more than 7000 buyers and delivered more than 5 million shipments
on a monthly basis. This is a considerably very large population for application in a
work of research. In such cases, sampling is applied to obtain a group of individuals
who represent the larger population of the users.
In the current study, and integrated random-purposive sampling technique was

applied. First, a random sampling procedure was adopted to avoid any particular form
of biasness in the selection of the research participants. Secondly, a purposive
sampling technique was adopted in order to further reduce the random sample and to
ensure the selection of the participants with a knowledgeable and in-depth
understanding of the website under consideration and importantly to better represent
the entire population under focus in the research study. Purposive sampling is one of
the most widely applied technique of sampling (Parlinkas, 2013) particularly due to the
many advantages and benefits that the sampling technique offers to the users.
23
First, the sampling technique offers the researchers with the ability to select
respondents with a personal and individualized experience in the topic of study as well
as the area of research and those who are best suited for the provision of the data and
information required in the work of research. According to Plano Clark (2010),
purposive sampling technique is particularly important in the provision of detailed, in-
depth information on the topic of study, which is particularly essential in the completion
of the current study. In order to effectively represent the entire population under
consideration in this research, I set the sample size at 100 respondents in line with
other previous works of researches as have been observed in the review of literature
section.
3.7 DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES
As had earlier been explained and discussed, this research project follows the
concepts and aspects of quantitative studies. In line with this approach and orientation
of the study, I sought to apply questionnaires for the collection of data for this project.
Questionnaires, as described in the work of research by Bush et al. (2010), is one of
the most effective, efficient and suitable approach to data collection. They are
particularly important in assisting the researchers to gauge the perceptions and
expectations of the users with regard to particular aspect as is the case in the current
work of research. Bush et al. (2010) explains that questionnaires are research tools
primarily comprising of a series of questions for the purposes of directing the collection
of data from the various respondents.
There are basically two main types of questionnaires which are highly applicable in
quantitative studies. These includes the open ended and close ended questionnaires.
Open ended questionnaires are questionnaires in which the users are allowed to
answer the posed questions in their own words, in sometimes even explaining their
answers. On the other hand, close ended questionnaires present the questionnaires
to the users and then set a number of options from which the users are expected to
select as their most preferred answer for the question (Kaplan, 2009).
As observed in the literature review section, there are a number of factors which are
especially of consideration in the design of questionnaire. The questions in the
questionnaire were primarily based on these factors. The factors regarding the
products include information on product variety, the time it takes from the time of
ordering to the delivery of the products, door-to-door delivery of products and services,
facilities of product return, facilities for product trials such as clothes and shoes. The
information on the services provided by the company will include the availability of
automated transaction facilities, the ease of the transaction process, the after sale
services, assistance with the selection of the products and services as well as the
redress support for the products and services.
24
The third main factor that was observed to largely affect the satisfaction of the E-
commerce website was the different aspects on the website system. The main factors
of consideration in this study included the availability of administrative support on the
website, the stability of the website system, security and privacy of the information of
the users including their personal possessions such as the card numbers, the security
of the data that the users enter on the website system during any particular transaction
or during the opening of an account and the confirmation of the orders through either
messages or emails.
On the information provided within the website system, the primary factors of concern
included the accuracy of the information on the website, its relevance to the users, its
simplicity, its reliability and transparency with regard to the prices of the products and
services. Finally, the other category of factors of consideration in the study included
information on the website system. These includes the availability of multimedia or
video reviews on the products and services provided in the website system, the
physical appearance of the website, the simplicity and ease of use of the user
interface, the availability of the customized search facilities for the products and
services of use and the availability of the product and service reviews by other users
of the website system.
There are varied ways in which questionnaires can be administered to the participants.
As explained in the work of research by Mellenberg (2008), the researchers may
personally administer the questionnaires to the users. Other models include the pencil-
type administration of the questionnaire and the administration of questionnaires
through the internet. In the current work of research, I sought out to apply the face to
face administration and over the internet administration. Apart from having a higher
rate of response, face to face administration of the questionnaires also provides for
support to the respondents in answering the questions contained in questionnaire.
3.8 DATA ANALYSIS AND PROCESSING
After the collection of the data from the respondents, the next step in quantitative
researches is the analysis and interpretation of data. As compared to qualitative
research works, quantitative researches, especially the ones that make use of closed
ended questionnaires, result in data easier for analysis and interpretation. One of the
most applied method of analysis in quantitative researches is statistical analysis.
Statistical analysis of data refers to the collection, examination, summarization,
manipulation and interpretation of quantitative data with the primary objective of
understanding the underlying patterns, relationships and trends in the data.
Particularly, this research focuses on the application of descriptive statistical
25
measures such as the mean, the range, the variance and standard deviation with
regard to various responses from the respondents.
The advancement and development in information technology have had considerable

impacts on quantitative analysis. There has been the establishment of a number of
statistical analysis packages which have been developed primarily for assisting in
quantitative researches. In this study, I made use of the statistical package for social
sciences (SPSS) and assistance of ANOVA analysis system for the analysis of data
collected from the respondents. SPSS is a quantitative data analysis package that was
developed by Windows for the computerized analysis of data collected from different
works of researchers. It was selected for this research due to its increased application
and popularity in both academic as well as business researches which has made it
the most applied software package for data analysis (Arkkelin, 2014). According to
Greasley (2008), SPSS is also a considerably versatile package of data analysis that
allows for varied types of analyses, data transformations as well as different forms of
data.
In particular, SPSS suits this work of research for numerous reasons. First, SPSS, as
described by Greasley (2008), is most suited for works of research in which the
researchers make use of closed ended questionnaires in which the respondents are
expected to select the option that best describes their experience with regard to the
particular research question. Secondly, based on the various types of factors for
assessment in the current work of research, I am primarily interested in the summaries
of these different variables and responses of the participants. These includes
descriptive statistics including the average response, the lowest-quality response as
well as the highest quality responses.
3.9 MEASURES TO ENSURE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
Among the main factors and aspects determining the success of any particular works
of research, is the validity and reliability of the research. Researches require
considerably high levels of validity and reliability in order to ensure a higher level of
acceptability among the different stakeholders of the research. With this
understanding, it is essential and imperative that researchers and scholars implement
measures, techniques and mechanisms towards ensuring that their works of research
are reliable, credible and valid. As described by the research article by Anney (2013),
these three measures determine the acceptability as well as the believability of the
results and findings of the particular works of research.
Anney (2013) defines credibility of a work of research as the critical assessment of

whether the results and findings of the work of research represent plausible
information and whether the conclusion drawn from the research has been drawn
26
based on the evidence observed in the research. Credibility seeks to assess whether
the particular work of research is trustworthy, believable and whether the conclusions
made in the research reflect the findings collected from the participants. Validity, on
the other hand, seeks to assess the suitability and the appropriateness of the method
and approach taken in the completion of the work of research in achieving the set
goals and objectives of the study. Finally, the reliability of a research concerns the
accuracy of the measuring instruments applied for the particular research.
In order to ensure the validity, credibility and reliability of this research, I employed the
use of member checking and triangulation techniques. These two approaches assess
the validity, credibility and reliability of works of research by comparing the approach
and findings with a particular pre-specified basis. In member-checking, the participants
in the research are allowed access to their own responses, to go through the
responses and verify that how they responded to the different questions primarily
represented their own experience. According to Stevenson & Muhmut (2013), the
responses from the respondents corroborates the basic instrument from which the
particular aims and objectives of the research are met, and that these findings have a
direct impact on the accuracy of the particular work of research. Harper & Cole (2012)
explains that the participants in the research should be offered an opportunity to review
their responses as a method of ensuring and facilitating the accuracy and correctness
of the study.
In this research, I conducted member checking in parallel to the data collection phase
by requiring the respondents to go through their responses before the findings can be
used in the work of research. As was explained in the work of research by Harvey,
continuous member checking during the process of data collection is important as it
ensures that whatever is transcribed in the questionnaire represents the actual
experience of the user. The other technique applied in the research is triangulation.
While member checking requires the participants to individually and personally verify
the data, triangulation compares the findings collected with the findings of the works
of study by other researchers and scholars or researches which have been conducted
following other methods of approaches. According to the research article by Yeasmin
& Rahman (2012), the application of various methods and approaches to the work of
research, I overcame the weaknesses and challenges of intrinsic biasness to research
which a common challenge in most works of research. These biasness includes the
measurement biasness, sampling bias and procedural biases.
3.10 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Before the actual work of research, it is essential to establish the main ways and
approaches that will be taken in order to ensure the protection of the different
stakeholders from the impacts of either directly or indirectly participating in the study.
27
Since the stakeholders of the research are essentially the most important assets of
any research, there are a number of ethical considerations that should be taken care
of before the actual commencement of the study. Boutin-Foster (2012) explains that
the best work of research is one that considers all the different ways in which a work
of research may affect the different stakeholders. With regard to this, Boutin-Foster
(2012) explains that a work of research should ensure the consideration of the inter-
personal factors, the policy-based factors, the community-based factors, the
organizational factors as well as the intrapersonal factors, and how these factors may
relate to the research study.
The first consideration is the consent of the participants in the research. The objective
of the consents is to ensure that the participants in the research have full knowledge
about the research, what they are expected of in the study and how this study might
impact them. I began by sending out invitation forms to the selected number of
participants, inviting them for participation in the study and informing them of the study.
Although the sample size for the study was selected at 100, the invitation forms were
sent out to more users of Flipkart to provide room for user who may not be able to
participate. As explained in the study by Kneep (2014) and Tu, Li & Shi (2012), there
are various factors affecting the signing of the consent forms. Among these factors is
stress. In order to evade the effect of these factors, I approached the situation by
offering the participants with a total of 21 days to read through the consent forms,
request for more information and sign the forms.
The other ethical consideration was the need for privacy and confidentiality with regard
to the responses of the research. As was earlier explained, some of the participants
in the study were employees at the company, particularly the employees from the
support team. The lack of privacy and confidentiality of the responses could lead to
substantial damages to the employees as well as Flipkart Company as a whole. In
response to the above requirement, all the data collected from the participants were
kept private and confidential with only access to the researcher. Secondly, as a way
of ensuring the confidentiality and anonymity of the data collected, the names of the
participants and the organizations they represent will remain anonymous and will not
be used anywhere during the research study or its documentation. Instead, I selected
labels to represent these participants and organizations.
28
CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS
T
he primary objective of this chapter is to present and interpret the findings
obtained from the different respondents as selected in the study. The research
study brought together a total of 100 respondents including both the users of
Flipkart system as well as the individuals responsible for ensuring the support of the
system. For ease of the collection of data as well as the requirement for data
availability for the completion of the work of research, purposeful sampling technique
resorted to be applied which enabled for the selection of participants with a primary
experience with the system. It is however important to note that due to the requirement
for privacy and confidentiality, the names and the identity of the different research
participants will not be provided from the findings. The chapter has been divided into
numerous sections including a presentation of the demographic factors of the
respondents and the presentation of the findings from the study.
4.1 DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS OF THE RESPONDENTS
As was earlier explained, this work of research brought together Flipkart as well as
support individuals in the company. Most of the respondents are Indians living in New
Delhi. Being an online company, it rendered itself difficult to access the individual
customers as the customers complete their transactions through the phone, computer
or laptops. As such, I accessed the product review section of Flipkart’s website to
make attempts to contact some of the customers through their email. The invitation
was a requirement to ensure to inform the potential respondents of the research, its
important and request for their participation in the study. Without the knowledge of
who will agree to the request, I sent invitation emails and comments to as many
Flipkart users as possible. From the responses that I received from Flipkart, I
conducted a telephone call conducting a brief interview to assess the suitability of the
respondents. This enabled me to break down the list of potential participants to 100
purposively selected respondents.
The collection of the data from the respondents demonstrated that most of the
individual users of the company are youths particularly between the age of 18 years
and 35 years. A total of 75% of the respondents are of age between 18 and 25 years,
23% were between 26 and 35 years while the remaining 2% were aged above 35
years. Moreover, it was also observed that men are the main users of Flipkart with
men comprising of 58% of the total number of respondents and women comprising
the remaining 42% of the respondents. Although there were numerous non-Indian
nationals in sample selected for research, the non-Indians were observed to comprise
a considerably low proportion of the total number of users of Flipkart. Indian citizens
29
CHAPTER 4 PRESENTATION OF FINDING
comprised of 92% of the respondents while the non-respondents comprised of the

remaining 8%.
The level of education of the participants also ranged considerably with regard to the
age of the respondents. According to the responses from the respondents, only 2% of
the respondents had PhD degrees, 10% with Master’s Degree, 22% were high school
leavers and the remaining 66% of the respondents were graduates from various
universities in the country. The respondents varied in professional background and
occupation. 5% of the respondents were business people, 15% were managers at
their places of work, 39% were students in various institutions but most of them were
also involved in part time work, 21% are involve in teaching in various levels of
institutions in India, 8% are administrative employees, 4% are casual laborers and the
remaining 8% are not working and do not own any particular business premises of
their own. Most of the non-working participants were housewives.
I also sought out to assess the level of income for the various respondents in the
research. In order to achieve these objective, I designed the questionnaire so that the
respondents will tick on their range of household income. Approximately 34% of the
respondents earned below 1000 US dollars, 35% earned between 1000 and 4999
dollars, 13% earned between 5000 and 10000 dollars while the remaining 18% earned
above 10,000 US dollars. 27% of the respondents had used online purchasing
websites for a period of less than one year, 33% for between 1 and 2 years, 12% for
between 2 and 3 years, 6% for between 3 and 4 years, 6% for between 4 and 5 years
and the remaining 16% for over five years. Table 2.5: Professional background of respondents
Respondents Numbers Ratio
Table 2.1: Age range distribution of respondents Businessmen 5 5%
Respondents Numbers Ratio Managers 15 15%
18 – 25 years 75 75% Students 39 39%
26 – 35 years 23 23% Teachers 21 21%
> 35 years 2 2% Administrative emp. 8 8%
Casual Labours 4 4%
Table 2.2: Gender ratios of the respondent Not working 8 8%

Table 2.6: Income distribution of respondents
Male 58 58%
Female 42 42%
< $1000 34 34%

Table 2.3: Nationality of respondents $1000 - $4999 35 35%
$5000 - $9999 13 13%
> $10000 18 18%
Indians 92 92%
Non-Indians 8 8% Table 2.6: Period of using website distribution
Table 2.4: Educational background of respondents < 1 year 27 27%
Respondents Numbers Ratio 1 – 2 years 33 32%
High School passed 22 22% 2 – 3 years 12 12%
Graduates 66 66% 3 – 4 years 6 6%
Post Graduates 10 10% 4 – 5 years 6 6%
Doctorate 2 2% > 5 years 16 16%
Table 2: Details of 100 respondents
30
4.2 PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS
The results and findings of the work of research were entered into the SPSS for the
purposes of analysis. However, as earlier explained, the first process in the analysis
was to group the various questions in the questionnaire in groups based on the
particular factor under assessment. Five main factors which were under consideration
in the present work of research included the appearance of the Flipkart’s E-commerce
system, the interactivity of the E-commerce system, the information content provided
by the website system, Privacy and security of the Customers’ information and the
support for products and services provided by the E-commerce system. These factors
and attributes of the Flipkart’s E-commerce system were assessed based on the
various factors of consideration as described under the methodology section.
One of my primary concern in the work of research was on the manner in which the
respondents came to know of Flipkart. As observed in the pie chart shown below, 20%
of the respondents responded to hearing of Flipkart on television advertisements, 42%
from newspapers, 26% from hoardings and 12% from the internet.
Sources of Information
Internet Television
advertisements
advertisement
Hoarding 12% 20%
26%
Newspapers
42%
Television advertisement Newspapers Hoarding Internet advertisements
Figure 13: Sources of information for Flipkart
After assessing the satisfaction level on all sub-factors and attributes, I found major
issue with after-sale services. I sought out to assess whether the respondents are
satisfied with the after-sale services that the company offers to the users. This
question sought to assess how the participants in the work of research perceived their
satisfaction with the after-sale services from the company. According to the pie chart
shown in the figure below, 12% of the respondents were highly satisfied with the after-
sale services, 21% are satisfied, 43% are average on their view of after sale services,
31
19% are dissatisfied while the remaining 5% are highly dissatisfied with the after-sale
services.
After-sale service satisfaction
Highly dissatisfied
Highly satisfied
Dissatisfied 5% 12%
19% Satisfied
21%
Average
satisfaction
43%
Highly satisfied Satisfied Average satisfaction Dissatisfied Highly dissatisfied
Figure 14: Satisfaction of the Flipkart's users with the After-sale services
Finally, I sought out to assess the overall satisfaction of the users with their experience
on Flipkart. The results from the respondents demonstrated that 20% of the
respondents are highly satisfied with Flipkart, 36% are satisfied, 10% are averagely
satisfied, 17% are dissatisfied and the remaining 2% are highly dissatisfied with their
overall experience in Flipkart. The pie chart shown in the figure below briefly depicts
these findings.
Overall satisfaction at Flipkart
Highly dissatisfied
Dissatisfied 2% Highly Satisfied
20% 24%
Average
12%
Satisfied
42%
Highly Satisfied Satisfied Average Dissatisfied Highly dissatisfied
Figure 15: The respondents' overall satisfaction with Flipkart
32
As also described, the data analysis was done following the statistical approach.
These included the application of descriptive statistics as well as regression statistics.
The table below shows the mean and the standard deviation for the various factors as
were indicated above. Each of the factors were expressed in the form of a question
requiring an answer ranging from 1 (highly satisfied), 2 (satisfied), 3 (Not sure), 4
(dissatisfied) and 5 (highly dissatisfied). The table lists the various variables, the total
number of participants who responded to the question, the average (mean) response,
the standard deviation and the interpretation of the average response. The following
data is calculated using SPSS software.
Table 3: Descriptive statistics of the different factors of consideration
Standard
No. Sub-factors N Mean Interpretation
deviation
1 Product variety (SWF1) 100 1.84 0.88 Satisfied
2 Time of order delivery (SWF2) 100 2.40 0.92 Satisfied
3 Mode of delivery (SWF3) 100 2.54 0.66 Average
4 Facilities of product return (SWF4) 100 2.42 0.94 Satisfied
5 Product trial facility (SWF5) 100 2.66 0.82 Average
Opportunities for automated

6 100 2.71 0.72 Average
transaction (SWF6)
Ease of successfully completing the
7 100 2.76 0.74 Average
transactions (SWF7)
Satisfaction with after-sale services
8 100 2.84 1.03 Average
(SWF8)
Assistance on product selection
9 100 2.54 0.95 Average
(SWF9)
Re-dress support for products and
10 100 2.86 0.79 Average
services (SWF10)
Availability of administrative support
11 100 2.57 0.89 Average
(SWF11)
Stability of the website system
12 100 2.51 0.85 Average
(SWF12)
Security and privacy of the user’s
13 100 2.50 0.83 Average
personal information (SWF13)
Security of information users enter
14 100 2.64 0.70 Average
onto the website system (SWF14)
Notification for order confirmation and
15 100 2.70 0.64 Average
completion (SWF15)
Accuracy of information provided
16 100 1.63 0.75 Satisfied
(SWF16)
33
The relevance of the information

17 100 1.84 0.83 Satisfied
(SWF17)
Simplicity and understandability
18 of the provided information 100 1.62 0.66 Satisfied
(SWF18)
Reliability of the website content
19 100 1.55 0.58 Satisfied
(SWF19)
Transparency on the price and
20 changes of products and 100 1.69 0.91 Satisfied
services respectively (SWF20)
Availability of advanced reviews
21 of products such as use of 100 1.99 0.94 Satisfied
videos (SWF21)
Physical appearance of the
22 Flipkart’s website system 100 1.92 1.24 Satisfied
(SWF22)
Ease of use of the website’s
23 100 1.64 0.86 Satisfied
user interface (SWF23)
Availability of customized search
24 100 1.58 0.91 Satisfied
facilities (SWF24)
Availability of reviews from other
25 100 2.02 0.94 Satisfied
users (SWF25)
Overall satisfaction of Flipkart’s
26 100 2.40 1.06 Satisfied
website system (SWF26)
Table 4: Descriptive Statistics of sub-factors as obtained from SPSS
Screenshot from SPSS
34
After analyzing these variables (i.e. SWF1, SWF2……SWF25) it was observed that
these independent variables may be reduced to lesser number of independent
variables as also shown in table 1 of literature review chapter. Final pattern was
obtained having factors and sub-factors as shown below:
Information and Privacy and Usability and Product & service

Appearance
content security Performance support
•Physical •Product variety • Security and •Opportunities for •Time of order
appearance of •Accuracy of the privacy of the automated delivery
the Flipkart information user’s personal transaction •Mode of delivery
website •Notifications for information •Ease of •Facilities of
•Ease of use of order •Security of successfully product return
website’s user confirmation and information users completing •Product trial
interface completion enter onto the transactions facility
•Availability of •The relevance of website system •Availability of •Satisfaction with
reviews from the information customized after-sale services
others •Simplicity and search facilities
•Assistance on
•Availability of understandability product selection
advanced reviews of the provided •Re-dress support
of products information for products and
• Reliability of the services
website content •Availability of
•Transparency on administrative
price & changes support
of products & •Stability of the
services respt. website system
Table 5: Descriptive Statistics of sub-factors
Screenshot from SPSS
35
However, the above data can also be calculated manually using the following
formulae:
Equation 1: Mean & Standard deviation formula
Mean = (∑ xi / n)
Where,
xi is the ranking response from the respondent
N is the sample size for the study
is the mean of the data as obtained from the above formula
With regard to the variables described in the table above, the users of Flipkart E-
commerce tend to be satisfied with the various factors of the E-commerce website as
these received on average a satisfactory measure from the users (A low standard
deviation value reflects that the data are clustered closely to the mean which is more
reliable and vice-versa for high standard deviation). However, the above tabled result
demonstrates that users of Flipkart demonstrate average satisfaction for various
including service support and website system support. Moreover, the observations
indicate that there is a significant room for improvement for Flipkart in order to achieve
an overall high level of customer satisfaction. With regard to the security and privacy
of the customers’ information as well as the information that relate to the transactions,
the customers seemed to have a mixed reaction. This is probably to the lack of
information and awareness on the measures that Flipkart has taken to ensure the
security, privacy and confidentiality of the customers’ information. According to a
closer look into the availability of support from the website administration, it was
observed that 4% of the respondents supported the statement that the website offered
efficient support to the respondents.
4.3 REGRESSION ANALYSIS
The other form of analysis that I conducted on the responses from the participants was
regression testing. Regression analysis is done to investigate/ estimate the
relationship among variables, it is primarily applied for the assessment of the strength
of relationship that exist between the different factors of consideration in the study.
This was performed using the satisfaction of the participants as the dependent variable
and the five main proposed factors of customer satisfaction as the independent
variables. The correlation matrix showed and demonstrates the relationship between
each variable of the model of customer satisfaction and the actual level of customer
satisfaction at Flipkart. I primarily sought to apply the t-test to assess the significance
36
of these values from SPSS software but can also be calculated from using the below
formula.
Equation 2: Formula for t-test
where:
ΣD is the sum of the differences between the factors
ΣD2 is the sum of the squared differences
(ΣD)2 is the square of the sum of the differences
N is the total sample size
According to this analysis, The ANOVA table the f-statistics for this test is 175.648 with
significance value of 0.000, therefore there is a significant relationship between
customer satisfaction and system support, service support, information support and
service agility.
The first variable, availability of product and service support has a significant effect on
the satisfaction of the customers at Flipkart. The t-value for the product and service
support was observed to be 0.665 significant at 0.507 level. The study observed that
the availability and quality of product and service support is statistically significant
demonstrating a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and product and
service support.
The second variable that was observed to constitute a substantial impact on the
satisfaction of the users of Flipkart, as any other form of E-commerce website was
system use and system support. The t-value for system support was 7.882 as shown
in the figure below as the level of significance of 0.000. This value indicates a strong
existing relationship between the system support and satisfaction of the E-commerce
customers.
The third variable under consideration in the study was on the information content and
support offered by the system. As it was earlier explained, the accuracy, transparency
and relevance of the information provided in an E-commerce website directly impacts
the level of satisfaction that the users get from the particular E-commerce system.
Upon a regression testing of the information content and support, t-value for this factor
was found to be 6.934 at a significant level of 0.000. Based on these findings, these
results support the hypothesis that information content and support afforded to the
users have a direct significance as a factor determining the satisfaction of the
customers in E-commerce.
37
The fourth factor of consideration in the current study was on privacy and security of
the information the clients and the sellers enter into the Flipkart E-commerce website
either during the account opening stage or during the completion of transactions. With
the growing number and sophistication of cyber-attacks and the increase in cyber
criminals, cyber security and privacy of information has become one of the most
important considerations in any particular over-the-internet endeavor. On conducting
a t-value analysis of the findings, the t-value for security and privacy of the E-
commerce website was obtained to be 0.106 at a significant rate of 0.916. This value
indicates a clear positive relationship between the information privacy and security of
the E-commerce website and the satisfaction of Flipkart users.
Finally, the fifth factor of consideration in the current work of research was the effect
and impact of the appearance of the E-commerce website and the satisfaction of the
consumers. The appearance of a web system has for long been observed to have a
major impact on the initial perception of a user with regard to the system and also
directed whether the users will appreciate the system or they will not. The review of
literature also observed that the first appearance of the E-commerce website had a
significant relationship on whether the users are likely to visit the website another
instance. In the current work of study, I sought out to assess the existing relationship
between the appearance of Flipkart E-commerce website and the satisfaction of the
users. The t-value for appearance was 26.645 at a significant level of 0.000. With the
high level of t-value, it can be concluded that it has a considerable impact on the
satisfaction Flipkart system.
Table 6: Regression analysis result from SPSS software
38
Moreover, I also conducted a correlation analysis of the various factors of satisfaction
to assess their relation with each other. The correlation matrix was conducted using
the Pearson correlation method demonstrated below.
39
Equation 3: Pearson correlation equation
In which, cov represents the covariance between the two factors, ∂x is the standard
deviation of factor x and ∂y is the standard deviation of the factor y. The matrix
demonstrated in the figure below shows the correlation coefficients of the five main
factors of consideration in the study.
Table 7: Correlation matrix for Flipkart satisfaction factors
Screenshot from SPSS software

The above table shows the correlation between the five factors of analysis and
assessment of Flipkart E-commerce website and the satisfaction of customers and
users of the company.
4.4 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
From the factor analysis, I found out that there are 25 different factors that have an
impact on the satisfaction of the Flipkart users. However, these factors could be
grouped together into five main factors including system support, the appearance of
40
the website system, the information content, privacy and security of the website
system, as well as the available support for products and services. The analysis
demonstrated that the youths are the primary users of Flipkart, most of whom have
accessed information on the website through newspapers and television
advertisements. The research demonstrated a positive relationship between customer
satisfaction and each of the five factors under consideration. This demonstrated a
considerably high room for improvement for Flipkart, even though the company
remains the best and the largest E-commerce company in India.
41
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION
T
his chapter discusses the results and findings from the survey conducted, with
the primary objective of answering the research question. This chapter outlines
and discusses the results from the previous chapter about the main factors that
were observed to have a considerable impact on the satisfaction of the users with
Flipkart.
5.1 MAIN FACTORS AFFECTING THE SATISFACTION OF FLIPKART USERS
According to the work of study, there are five main categories of factors that have a
significant impact on the satisfaction of Flipkart, and which were observed to also have
a similar impact on other E-commerce companies in India. According to the results
from the study, the participants demonstrated a considerable concern about the
appearance, the usage of the system, the information content on the website, privacy
and security of the users’ data and the available support for the services and products
available on the website. The discussion below explains each of these factors at a
deeper depth.
5.1.1 APPEARANCE
The first aspect that the consumers and users of E-commerce come into contact with
in an E-commerce transaction is the front-end website of the company. According to
the responses from the participants, many raised concern on the design and the
general appearance of Flipkart. The average rating for the appearance of Flipkart
website was obtained to be 1.89. As they say, the first impression makes the best
impression holds comfortably in the present situation. The layout, presentation and
design of the website determines this first impression of the users and as such directly
determines the view and the customers’ satisfaction with the website system. A poor
website design and appearance is an automatic put off for the customers and users of
an E-commerce customers. Most E-commerce users prefer websites that are
aesthetically appealing and have a good visual expression.
There should be no cluttering on the design of the website and the outlay and display
of the textual content, images and buttons should be ensured to be good. Most
importantly, this requires that E-commerce companies ensure a high visual quality of
the website system employing high quality interface designs. The physical appearance
of a website system deals primarily with the visual aspects of the website system and
the manner in which the website presents itself to the users as well as the general
public.
42
As discussed in the introduction section, the scope of this work of research was the
satisfaction of the users of the Flipkart website. There are various ways and
approaches to assessing the appearance of an E-commerce website and particularly
how the website appears to the consumers. These include assessments and
evaluations based on the physical appearance of the website system, the quality of
the design of the website system, the consistency as can be observed in the system’s
user interface among other essential qualities of the system. In the current study, the
physical appearance of the Flipkart website was assessed based on the physical
appearance of the website, ease of using the website’s user interface, availability of
reviews from others, availability of advanced reviews of products such as use of
videos. On a scale of between very satisfied and very dissatisfied, all these qualities
obtained an average score of satisfied. This clearly demonstrates that although the
Flipkart users are satisfied with the system, they believe that much more can be done
to improve the physical appearance of the Flipkart’s website system.
The design of the E-commerce website plays a substantial role in the determination of
the satisfaction that the users obtain from the particular website. This is primarily for
the reason that the users directly interact with the systems during their transactions.
The specific characteristics of the E-commerce website determines the perceptions
towards the online store. As was observed in the case of Flipkart, the design of the
Flipkart website has a direct implication on the perception of the users towards the
website system. As Guo et al (2012) explains, this perception is primarily important for
the first time visitors of the E-commerce system. Besides this, previous research work
have demonstrated that the appearance of the website system has a substantial
impact on the ability of the users to access the products or services that they need.
The design of a website system also plays a major role in reducing the possibility of
mismatch of the searches of the users against the content within the website system.
Luo, Ba & Zhang (2012) explains that excellent design of websites adds value on the
experience of the customers and also assists the low visibility retailers on the post-
transaction satisfaction which is a considerably important component of customer
satisfaction. The research conducted by Mustafa (2012) also demonstrated that the
design of the E-commerce website have a direct impact on the satisfaction of the users
of the particular website. Park & Kim (2003) also found and explained that the manner
in which an E-commerce website is designed portrays the competence of the company
under consideration in providing convenience, reliable services to the consumers and
thus an overall impact on the satisfaction of the users.
As was observed in the work of research, the participants were particularly interested
on the appearance of the website and the simplicity of use of the Flipkart’s website’s
user interface. According to the results analyzed in the previous chapter, although the
participants feel that the physical appearance of Flipkart E-commerce website is
43
CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION
significantly superior, they still demonstrate that there is room for Flipkart to improve
on its appearance. Similarly, the results from the participants demonstrated that the
system is averagely easy to use but leaves room for improvement of the usability of
the system.
5.1.2 SYSTEM USABILITY AND PERFORMANCE
The other main category of factors that affects and determine the satisfaction of
Flipkart website is the usability and performance of the system. Approximately 90% of
the respondents demonstrated concern that the usability of E-commerce websites
poses one of the significant factors of satisfaction of the E-commerce customers. As
outlined in the research by Chen et al. (2005), the usability and performance of E-
commerce have a direct correlation between to the satisfaction of the E-commerce
customers. In addition to this, the usability and performance of an E-commerce system
have a direct impact on the trust of the customers on the transactional e-commerce
website (Bedi & Banati, 2006).
Previous works of research have demonstrated that the usability and performance
relates mainly to the design of the system (Ghandour, Benwell, & Deans, 2010).
Usability of any information system relates to all the different factors and parameters
that relate to the manner in which the users make use of the system. It refers to the
manner in which the users interact with the system in question. Based on the
responses of the participants, clearly the usability and performance of the Flipkart
system is considerably high but the responses demonstrate the need to enhance and
facilitate these factors. In assessing the usability and performance of the Flipkart’s E-
commerce website, I focused on numerous attributes and parameters relating to the
websites. These mainly included the stability of website system, availability of
customized search facilities, opportunities for automated transaction and ease of
successfully completing transactions.
On a closer look at the responses from the participant’s in the study, the users of
Flipkart are satisfied as the mean for this factor was 2.35. However, it is worth noting
that with going to “highly satisfied”, the fact that most of the participants preferred
Flipkart to be put in a “satisfied” rank means that although the participants feel that the
system is satisfactorily usable and its performance is in accordance to their
expectation, they still believe that more can be done to enhance and facilitate the
usability and performance of the website system. Moreover, the performance of the
website system with regard to the above-mentioned factors was observed to be
different meaning that the responses varied with the attribute of consideration.
Most notable of these factors is the average ranking on the ease of successfully
completing transactions on Flipkart. This is one of the most important factors that
44
determine the view and the perceptions of the participants in the study with regard to
the performance and usability. The mean response for this question was observed to
be 2.76 meaning that the participants are averagely satisfied on this factor. The
standard deviation was obtained 0.74 meaning that the responses ranged between
satisfied and dissatisfied. This is a rating worth concern especially with there being a
substantial proportion of respondents who demonstrate concern of dissatisfaction in
completing transactions. On factors including the availability of customized search
facilities, and opportunities for automated transaction, the average rating of these
factors was 1.58 (satisfied), and 2.71 (averagely satisfied). These results indicate that
most of the respondents expressed views that the website system is satisfactory
based on these main factors of consideration.
5.1.3 INFORMATION CONTENT
The main category of factor are those factors that relate to the information that is
availed on the website system. The E-commerce industry has quite a number of
advantages and benefits as compared to the traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.
First and foremost, E-commerce websites offer the customers with a wide range of
products and services, competitive prices of the products and most importantly ease
of access to the product information (Khristianto et al., 2012). In E-commerce,
information content has a significantly important role on the decision making process
of the customers as it guides them through following the absence of the physical
interaction with the products themselves (Ghasemaghaei & Hassanein, 2013).
According to Guo et al. (2012), there are four main factors and dimensions of
information content that are particularly essential in E-commerce systems. These
includes the accuracy of the information, content, format and the timeliness of the
information. Khristianto et al. (2012) explains that these factors are essential in the
determination of the satisfaction of the users of the E-commerce system. Park & Kim
(2003) defines information quality based on the manner in which the customers and
the users perceive the information. Customers are at a high likelihood to make better
judgments when they are offered the correct information and data. As such, it is correct
and highly accurate to conclude that the effectiveness of the customers’ decision
making depends on the accuracy of the information that the customers are provided
with.
Over 80% of the participants in the study agreed that the website content is one of the
primary factors determining the satisfaction of Flipkart users. All the participants who
participated in the study demonstrated an above average view on the importance of
information content on the satisfaction of the users. The highest percentage of
participants demonstrated that information content is a critical and a highly relevant
factor to transactional e-commerce websites such as Flipkart. As a consequence, this
45
study concluded that in the development of any particular E-commerce website, the
content presented within the website is a particularly significant factor of consideration.
The content of an E-commerce website is usually considered as a significantly

important factor in expressing the services and products provided by the E-commerce
system. As explained in the work of research by Leea & Kozarb (2006), the quality
and relevance of the website content has a considerably significant impact on the
satisfaction of the customers and as a consequence the success of the E-commerce
system.
In the current work of research, I sought to apply the various factors of assessment of
the quality of information provided on Flipkart as well as addition of some numerous
factors. The main factors under consideration in the current research included the
accuracy, the relevance, the simplicity, the reliability and transparency of the
information. These are the factors that are particularly essential in the determination
of the quality of information provided on a specific website system. On overall, and
according to the responses from the research participants as detailed in the previous
chapter, the participants rated the information averagely sufficient to support their
decision making processes.
The mean score on the accuracy of information provided at Flipkart was obtained to
be 1.63. This means that most of the respondents feel that the content is satisfactorily
accurate but the company has room to enhance the accuracy of the information. These
means that most of the respondents feel that the information of the Flipkart’s website
is satisfactorily relevant but there is still room for improving on the relevance of the
information provided on the website. However, the standard deviation of 0.75
demonstrates that the responses of the participants varied primarily between highly
satisfied, satisfied and average meaning that the information is satisfactorily relevant.
The third factor of consideration on the information in the research was the simplicity
and understandability of the information. Information is necessary to the users if the
users can understand the information. With this understanding, the ability of the users
to understand the information provided on the E-commerce website is primary to the
satisfaction of the users with the E-commerce website. This study demonstrated mean
of 1.62 and deviation score of 0.66 for simplicity and understandability of the
information. This means that the responses of the participants ranged between very
satisfied and averagely satisfied with a small group of respondents feeling that the
information is not easily understandable as should be the case. However, the
satisfactory rating on the simplicity of the information shows that most of the
respondents understand the information but feel that there is still room for
improvement on ensuring the accuracy of the information.
46
The other two main factors of concern on the information provided are the reliability of
the information and the transparency with regard to issues such as the cost of the
different products and services. The average score for the reliability of the website’s
content of 1.55 and transparency on the price and changes of product and services
respectively of 1.69 indicating a significantly higher score as compared to the previous
factors of consideration on the information provided by the Flipkart website system.
The scores indicate that the information Flipkart provides on the products and services
it provides to the user is satisfactory but there is still room for improvement on the two
factors.
Another factor was notification for order confirmation and completion, and product
variety, mean of which was 2.7, and 1.84 respectively, meaning participants were
averagely satisfied, and satisfied respectively. With regard to the above findings, on
average, the participants in the study have a satisfactory feeling with regard to the
information provided on the website.
5.1.4 PRIVACY AND SECURITY
In today’s business environment, security and privacy are paramount on any online
company. Security refers to the right that the users have with regard to the particular
information that they wish to share on the online platform. Like any other internet-
based company, E-commerce companies handle a lot of sensitive information such
as the names and identifying data about their users, the addresses of the users, bank
details, credit and debit card details among others. The disclosure of these information
to any other party should be done at the discretion and awareness of the users
themselves. The understanding is that the E-commerce companies have no
ownership of the information about the users of the website and they only make use
of the information in the processing of the transactions only.
According to the work of research as conducted by Guo et al. (2012), security refers
to the ability of the website system to protect the personal information of the users
from any form of unauthorized use or the disclosure of the information relating to either
the users or the transactions to any unauthorized parties. The study conducted by
Mustafa (2011) showed that in light of the increasing cases of cyber-attacks and
insecurity, the security of the customer’s information have become a vital element of
concern for the internet users. It has been demonstrated that security and privacy of
the users’ data play a major role in determining the trust that the users have with
respect to the E-commerce website under consideration. With regard to the security
of the users, this can be divided into two main aspects including the security of the
data that is related to the individual transactions and the data regarding the
authentication of the E-commerce users.
47
In a study by Chellapa (2002), 61% of the respondents explained that they would
continue with E-commerce transactions if their security and privacy were maintained
across the e-commerce platform. This proves the significance of security and privacy
to the E-commerce users and its relation to the satisfaction of the users. As such, it
can easily be concluded that developing and designing website systems with
exceptional security helps customers to be more confident and eventually to feel
satisfied with the services they are offered with by the E-commerce company.
In this study, the results also demonstrated the same level of significance of security
and privacy in the determination of the satisfaction of the E-commerce users. In order
to assess the satisfaction of the Flipkart users with regard to the security offered by
the website, I focused on assessing two main factors that relate to the topic including
the security and privacy of the users’ personal information as entered during the
creation and establishment of the account for operation, and the security of the
information that the users enter during the transactions. According to the respondents,
the mean rating for the two factors are 2.5 and 2.64 respectively, and standard
deviation of 0.83 and 0.70 respectively means that the participants have an average
view with regard to the security of their information during account opening and when
conducing their operations during transactions. This is a major concern for the
company as it represents a considerably low view and perceptions of the company’s
security systems.
5.1.5 PRODUCT AND SERVICE SUPPORT
The other main category of factors that was observed to be of significant importance
in the determination of the satisfaction of the customers at Flipkart was the support
offered by the company with regard to the products and services. This is particularly
important during the initial customer stages at the company and during the
implementation of transactions. In the current work of study, I employed various factors
to enable me in assessing the satisfaction of the customers with regard to the support
they obtain on products and services. The main factors under consideration include
time of order delivery, mode of delivery, facilities for product return, satisfaction with
after-sale services, assistance on product selection, re-dress support for products and
services, availability of administrative support, and stability of the website system.
These factors were particularly observed as being essential in the study as they relate
directly to the support of the users.
With Flipkart being one of the largest and essentially the main E-commerce website
in India, the company’s customer satisfaction on product and service support is
considerably low. With regard to the stability of the website system, the response from
the participants in the research showed an average rating of 2.51 meaning averagely
48
satisfied, most of the participants expressing views that the users are between
dissatisfied and satisfied ratings of the website. Like the other above factors, the
significant number of respondents expressing views of dissatisfaction with the
Flipkart’s website is a serious concern for the company particularly in the view of the
future performance of the website system.
With regard to the after-sale services and product selection, the mean rating of 2.84
as obtained from the participants with a standard deviation of 1.03 translates to an
average satisfaction of the participant’s view on the two variables of concern. The
factor, assistance on product selection had the mean response of 2.54 with standard
deviation of 0.95. This means that most of the respondents are averagely satisfied
about this factor. Moreover, the standard deviation shows that the largest proportion
of participant’s responses ranged between satisfied and dissatisfied with a significant
percentage of the participants expressing views that the assistance provided on the
selection of products and services does not exist or is insufficient for the system. The
other factor of concern was
With regard to administrative support (mean = 2.57 & deviation = 0.89) and re-dress
support for products and services (mean = 2.86 & deviation = 0.79), the participants
seem to be averagely satisfied. With regard to other factors i.e. time of order delivery,
and facilities on product return had mean of 2.40, and 2.42 respectively meaning
participants were satisfied with these factors. The other factors mode of delivery, and
product trial facility had mean of 2.54, and 2.66 respectively meaning participants were
averagely satisfied with these factors.
49
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
T
his is the conclusion chapter providing a conclusion into the study and
recommendations for action as well as recommendations for future works of
research.
6.1 CONCLUSION
As was explained in the introductory section of this study, the primary objective of the
study was to assess the main factors that affect the satisfaction of customers at
Flipkart. The study has established that the satisfaction of the users with Flipkart is
higher beyond average but the study also observed that there still exists room for
improvement on the different aspects of the study. In the today’s information age, the
satisfaction that the users obtain from their use of the products and services from a
company determines the performance of the company and its competitiveness in the
market.
The study has established five main factors that have a major impact on the
satisfaction of customers at Flipkart. These factors include the appearance of the
website system, the usability and performance of the E-commerce system, the
information provided in the E-commerce website, support for products and services
as well as the security and privacy of the customer’s data. Each of these factors were
however observed to be comprised and affected by various sub-factors. The
appearance of the website was observed to directly relate to the physical appearance
of the website system, ease of use of website’s user interface, availability of reviews
from others, availability of advanced reviews of products. The usability of the system
relates to the ease of successfully completing the transactions, stability of the website
system, availability of customized search facilities and the opportunities for automated
transaction.
On the other hand, the security and privacy aspect of the website was observed to
directly correlate to the security of the information that the users enter during the
creation of account for the users and the information that the users enter during
transactions. On the matters regarding the information provided by the website, the
main factors of concern include the accuracy of the information, its relevance,
simplicity, reliability and transparency. Finally, issues that relate to the support for
products and services include the availability of administrative support, facilities for
product return, after-sale services such as the mode of delivery and the time of
delivery, redress support for both services and products, product trial facility,
assistance on product selection, and stability of the website system.
50
6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
Flipkart has successfully placed itself into the prospects mind making in Indian E-
commerce industry and the largest E-commerce company in India. The expectations
is that soon Flipkart will make strategies into the international market. With regard to
these, there is a dire need for the management of the company to make the necessary
arrangements towards ensuring the satisfaction of its customers. With the entry of
other E-commerce companies into the Indian market, the competitiveness of Flipkart
primarily relies on the connection and relationship between the company and the
customers, both Indians and non-Indians. From the current work of research, the study
has observed that the customers of Flipkart has a considerably high view and
perception of most of the customer satisfaction factors. However, the study has also
demonstrated that there is need for improvement on the different factors of
satisfaction. According to the results of the study, Flipkart needs to improve on each
of the identified factors include the physical appearance of the E-commerce website,
the information that the company provides with regard to the services and products on
sale, the security and privacy of the information system, the support that the company
offers to the customers and the use of the system including ease of use and
performance of the system.
6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The current work of research was focused primarily on the identification of the main
factors that affect and determine the satisfaction of the customers. As such, the study
was not focused on the actual satisfaction level of customers at Flipkart. With the
understanding that the E-commerce industry in India has observed considerable entry
of companies such as Amazon, this study proposes a work of research with the
objective of assessing and comparing the level of satisfaction of customers with the
various E-commerce companies in India. Also, the study recommends a work of study
to assess and evaluate the relationship between the performance of the E-commerce
companies in India and the perceived satisfaction of the users.
51
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE
Thank you for your participation in this work of research. This questionnaire intends to
collect your views on the various satisfaction determinants in E-commerce with regard
to Flipkart. Please be as honest as possible. Note that the information provided in this
questionnaire will only be used for the research only.
What is your gender?

Male :
Female :
What age bracket do you fit in?
Less than 18 years :

18 – 25 years :
26 – 35 years :
Above 35 years :
What is your nationality?

Indian :
Non-Indian :
What is your educational background?

High school passed :
Graduate :
Post Graduate :
Doctorate :
None of Above :
What is your professional background?

Businessman :
Manager :
Student :
Teacher :
Administrative employee :
Casual labour :
Others :
52
Not working :
Please select the range of your income?

Less than $1000 :
$1000 - $4999 :
$5000 - $9999 :
More than $10000 :
From how long you are using Flipkart for purchasing products online?
Less than 1 year :
1 – 2 years :
2 – 3 years :
3 – 4 years :
4 – 5 years :
More than 5 years :
How did you come to know about Flipkart?

Television Advertisement :
Newspapers :
Hoarding :
Internet advertisement :
Others :
For the section below, please choose the appropriate number for your response with
regard to the questions that follow.
How satisfied are you with:
Response
1 - Highly satisfied
2 - Satisfied
No. Factor of consideration
3 - Average satisfaction
4 - Dissatisfied
5 - Highly dissatisfied
1 Product variety 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
2 Time of order delivery 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
3 Mode of delivery 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
4 Facilities of product return 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
53
REFERENCES
5 Product trial facility 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
6 Opportunities for automated transaction 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
Ease of successfully completing the

7 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
transactions
8 after-sale services 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
9 Assistance on product selection 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
10 Re-dress support for products and services 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
11 Availability of administrative support 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
12 Stability of the website system 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
Security and privacy of the user’s personal

13 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
information
Security of information users enter onto the
14 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
website system
Notification of order confirmation and
15 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
completion
16 Accuracy of information provided 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
17 The relevance of the information 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
Simplicity and understandability of the

18 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
provided information
19 Reliability of the website content 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
Transparency on the price and changes of

20 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
products and services respectively
Availability of advanced reviews of products
21 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
such as use of videos
Physical appearance of the Flipkart’s
22 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
website system
54
23 Ease of use of the website’s user interface 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
24 Availability of customized search facilities 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
25 Availability of reviews from other users 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
Overall satisfaction of Flipkart’s website

26 1____ 2 ____3____4_____5____
system
55
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Rajesh Kumar Yadav

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University

I would first like to thank my supervisor Chris Ellegaard, Professor of Relationship

Rajesh Kumar Yadav

The advancement in technology has led to a substantial impact in commerce and

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................... 7

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................ 21

CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS ........................................................................ 29

FIGURE 1: A TYPICAL E-COMMERCE TRANSACTION ........................................................... 7

India has particularly received a high attention from investors in E-commerce

1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Previous works of research on customer satisfaction have clearly demonstrated

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.5 VARIABLES OF RESEARCH

Independent Support level

1.6 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

1.8 IMPORTANCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

Of particular importance, this study is essential to establish an understanding of the

1.9 THESIS STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION

2.1 E-COMMERCE AND E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY

Figure 1: A Typical E-commerce transaction

Source: Kenneth & Carol (2014)

Figure 2: Difference between E-business and E-commerce

Source: Kenneth & Carol (2014)

2.1.1 DIFFERENT E-COMMERCE CONSUMER MODELS

CONSUMER-TO-BUSINESS Figure 6: C2B

BUSINESS-TO-GOVERNMENT Figure 7: B2G

provide basic services to the citizens.

2.1.2 NORMAL SALES AND E-BUSINESS SALES CHANNELS

2.1.3 DRIVERS AND BENEFITS OF E-COMMERCE

INCREASED PRODUCT RANGE

According to a work of research as conducted by Brynjolfsson et al. (2003), in which

2.2 E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY IN INDIA

For growing economies, such as India, E-commerce offers considerable opportunities

According to the statistics of the internetworldstates.com collected in the year 2012,

Figure 10: Internet use by region

2.3 CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY

With the understanding of the importance of customer satisfaction within organizations

In the assessment of the satisfaction of the customers, numerous researchers and

Figure 11: Customer satisfaction model

Source: Gupta and Zenithal (2006)

Source: Mustafa (2011)

Although different works of research as have been demonstrated above have

2.4 DETERMINANTS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN E-COMMERCE

With the understanding of the importance of customer satisfaction in the E-commerce

In another work of research as conducted by Brilliant and Achyar (2013) investigated

Table 1: Determinants of Customer Satisfaction in E-commerce

MAIN FACTORS OF SUB-FACTORS AND ATTRIBUTES

Appearance Ø Physical appearance of the Flipkart website

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

3.2 DATA TO BE COLLECTED

3.3 SOURCES OF DATA

3.4 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS AND PROTOCOLS

3.5 POPULATION OF THE STUDY

3.6 SAMPLE OF THE STUDY

As explained above, Flipkart is the largest E-commerce company in India. According

In the current study, and integrated random-purposive sampling technique was

3.7 DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES

3.8 DATA ANALYSIS AND PROCESSING

The advancement and development in information technology have had considerable

3.9 MEASURES TO ENSURE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

Master's Thesis

Master's Thesis

1 Product variety 1__ 2 34_5__

2 Time of order delivery 1__ 2 34_5__

3 Mode of delivery 1__ 2 34_5__

4 Facilities of product return 1__ 2 34_5__

5 Product trial facility 1__ 2 34_5__

6 Opportunities for automated transaction 1__ 2 34_5__

8 after-sale services 1__ 2 34_5__

9 Assistance on product selection 1__ 2 34_5__

10 Re-dress support for products and services 1__ 2 34_5__

11 Availability of administrative support 1__ 2 34_5__

12 Stability of the website system 1__ 2 34_5__

16 Accuracy of information provided 1__ 2 34_5__

17 The relevance of the information 1__ 2 34_5__

19 Reliability of the website content 1__ 2 34_5__

24 Availability of customized search facilities 1__ 2 34_5__

25 Availability of reviews from other users 1__ 2 34_5__