No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Sales on the internet are rising, and now account for eight per cent of total retail sales with clothing emerging as the number one product category. While there is academic interest in internet retailing, the clothing sector remains neglected with attention focused on retail web sites and the internet consumer. The aim of this thesis is to examine the success factors in the use of the internet by clothing specialist retailers in the UK and how they may maximise the potential for internet sales growth. To achieve this, the focus was placed on the strategic use of the internet by clothing specialist retailers, retail websites and the internet consumer within the context of one study. ...:' -: . In following the philosophical assumptions within the pragmatist paradigm, the research design and methodology adopted a mixed methods approach and combined quantitative and qualitative methods. Adopting a mixed method approach, the research was undertaken in two stages and comprised of three empirical phases. Stage One, Phase one of the empirical research adopted a phenomenological approach to an exploration of the strategic use of the internet by clothing specialist retailers. Stage two consisted of two quantitative phases of empirical research. Phase Two examined the service quality provision on retail websites and Phase Three explored consumer shopping motivations of browsers and purchasers on clothing specialist websites and evaluated service quality on the websites from a consumer perspective. The main conclusions are that for clothing specialist retailers to achieve internet sales growth objectives, they need to develop transactional websites. The analysis revealed 4 retail options currently in use by Clothing Specialist Retailers. It also identified the role of 'Replication' within strategic decion making. The research conceptualises and tests a model of e-service quality applicable to the websites of Clothing Specialist Retailers. Through a retailer and consumer analysis, the research identifies gaps in the provision of service quality and highlights key dimensions that require immediate attention to improve the provision of service quality on retail websites. The research profiles the internet consumer and demonstrates the importance of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values in attracting browsers and purchasers to the web sites of Clothing Specialist Retailers. Thus, the research contributes to knowledge by conceptualising a model that details how success factors contribute to internet sales growth; explains the links between the strategic use of the internet, the website and the consumer; identifies a range of retail options for the development of transactional websites and identifies the role of Replication in strategic decision making; conceptualises and tests a model of e-service quality; understands the consumer profile and shopping motivations of the internet clothing consumer; and fmally, provides Clothing Specialist Retailers with direction in the development of internet strategies.

The primary aim of this study is to gain important new insights into e-commerce success, by empirically exploring how approaches to e-service quality, when coupled with levels of e-commerce adoption, might affect the overall success of retailers' on-line operations. This study is governed by positivist epistemological perspective, and therefore, it was undertaken using a quantitative research methodology, based upon questionnaires. The primary data collection generated a total of 225 useable questionnaires, completed by senior managers, working within the UK's on-line retail sector. Factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were then used to thoroughly explore the relationships between the various constructs, which comprised the research model. The results of the statistical analysis demonstrate that internal factors (e.g. as management strategy and resources) - are a stronger determinant, than external factors, of both. Perhaps more importantly, it has been shown that the perceived success of a retailer's e-commerce operations is also strongly associated with the management approaches to e-service quality and the level of e-commerce adoption. Finally, a mediation analysis provides interesting new insights into the relationship between adoption levels, e-service quality and success: the management approaches to e-service quality significantly mediates the relationship between the level of e-commerce adoption and the perceived e-commerce success. Given the central role that e-service quality plays in this study, a customer focused study of e-service quality was also conducted, to provide a more complete and holistic view of this complex phenomenon. This supplementary study sought to explore how customers' perceptions of e-service quality, particularly in terms of identifying those elements of service quality that influence their use of the retailers' on-line services. An on-line questionnaire survey was designed and pre-tested before targeting it at 800 students, of whom over 25% responded. An ‘importance-performance' analysis of this data was conducted to explore whether there were significant differences in customers' perception of the importance against the performance of retailers' ability to manage e-service quality. By and large, the results of this analysis should provide some reassurance to the on-line retailers, as the customers generally believed that the retailers were performing well in the areas that were most important to them. However, when the results of the customer and retailer studies were compared, some interesting imbalances were revealed. For example, the retailers perceived the provision of privacy policies to be extremely important, whilst generally; the customers weren't too concerned with this aspect of e-service quality. The thesis concludes by highlighting its contribution to the body of current knowledge, reviewing the limitations of the research and exploring the implications for practice of the many interesting new insights generated through this empirical study.

Organisations are continuously under the pressure of change, which is often stimulated and shaped by technology nowadays. Change impacts individuals' perceptions of the world, their needs and expectations. Inevitably, in an everchanging environment, organisations have to adapt their products and offerings and implement strategies to better understand the beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviours of their customers. Quite possible the biggest change we have witnessed in the last two decades was the emergence of the Internet. This, coupled with the digitalisation of data and the globalisation of business, created both opportunities and threats to bricks and mortar organisations and enabled the burst of dotcom companies. New products and services appeared, while the existing ones were reshaped. Similar to the traditional context, delivering superior service online appears to be prerequisite for success. However, knowing what 'superior service' means for the users of the service is not straightforward. Knowing the factors affecting users' service quality assessments is critical. In the absence of objective measures, service quality can be measured through users' perceptions of quality. This is where marketing scales come into play.

A significant trend in buying behaviour is consumer information search on the Internet and subsequent purchase online. However, conversion rate from search to purchase has been lower than anticipated leaving marketers and academicians to contemplate how best to turn browsers into buyers. A move in this direction entails a more thorough understanding of ongoing search and goal-directed search online. In this study, we examine a causal link between ongoing search/browsing and goal-directed/ pre-purchase search which has yet to be tested in empirical research in offline and online environments.

In the current era of state-of-the-art cutting edge technologies, businesses and organisations are rushing to transform their trade into e-business. The opportunity to utilise e-business improves their chances of gaining a larger market share by maximizing product availability, reducing the day-to -day business activity processing time, and providing related services in a convenient and inexpensive way to their customers. However in this race, the e-business growth pendulum is only swinging one way, and it is easy to understand the reason for this by observing today's business market. Due to the current financial condition, small business organizations (e.g. local retail shops) cannot afford costly IT systems and the associated maintenance/administration costs, but despite these financial constraints they have an overriding need for computing facilities in order to survive and compete with larger competitors by expanding their businesses. In this research, Web 2.0 and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) technology are used to provide a middleware collaboration model between data persistence logic and an operation's requests. This layer helps to overcome the hard-coded service mapping with interface and generic customized workflow problems. This research further provides a mediation platform for request brokers and a high level of abstraction by encapsulating the low level details of the system. These are the most vital requirements to provide a platform, which have the capability of customizing business logic and handle both generic and customized workflows and subsequently to help SMEs (Small- to Medium-sized Enterprises) to convert their businesses to e-business swiftly at minimal cost.

E-commerce adoption among SMEs has been much discussed in management information technology and technological innovation literature. However, most of these prior studies focused mainly on e-commerce awareness or factors that influence e-commerce adoption. This study, on the other hand, attempts to develop a holistic insight into e-commerce adoption by SMEs. It investigates why some SMEs adopt e-commerce readily, and others do not. In addition, this study investigates the appropriateness of government support for SMEs encouraging them to adopt e-commerce. There is very little research that assesses e-commerce adoption by SMEs, certainly none as extensive as this, and there is also very limited empirical investigation of government support for SMEs to adopt e-commerce. This study helps to fill this gap by exploring these issues relating to e-commerce and SMEs. The framework model proposed in this study was developed out of an integration of various perspectives using the technological innovation literature, specifically the DOl and TOE frameworks. This model considers internal factors (the demographic characteristics of managers and their organisations), external factors (particularly government support), and reasons for, benefits of, and inhibitors to e-commerce adoption. Data for this study were collected through a questionnaire survey of over three thousand SMEs in Malaysia and forty face-to- face semi-structured interviews with SME managers and government officials . ., Results show there is a low level of adoption of e-commerce by SME managers whether or not they received government e-commerce supports. E-commerce usage hardly extends beyond e-mail. Online buying and complex websites, such as websites with online ordering and online payment facility are not common. Websites are used to provide contact details and information about the firm and information about its goods and services only, without displaying prices. The SME and SME manager demographic characteristics show significant association with e-commerce adoption. Two important factors that facilitate e- commerce adoption emerge from these characteristics namely SME location and the manager's experience of living abroad. To encourage e-commerce adoption, SMEs in developing countries need not only to have appropriate technology infrastructure installed, but also to be in a location with good public transportation services and efficient delivery methods. SME managers also need experience of buying and selling on the Internet, which they might gain while living abroad. The interviews raise a number of questions about the effectiveness of government support programmes, and the ulterior motives of SMEs. The benefits of e-commerce are more often perceived than achieved. Interestingly, the reason that SMEs adopt e-commerce is to enhance company image, rather than its efficiency. From the research findings, a series of recommendations for e-commerce adoption among SMEs in Malaysia emerges, providing guidance for policymakers, practitioners, and academics. Many recommendations, such as the need to evaluate e-commerce initiatives, may perhaps be extended to government K'T policies in the developing world as a whole. The study exposes many gaps, often overlooked, between the rhetoric of e-commerce adoption and the reality. The model proposed in this study may be comprehensive for e-commerce adoption in firms. Future research can build on and extend the proposed integrated model by including other potential factors from different contexts. It will be helpful to explore other statistical analysis, either in the current model or in an enhanced one. The findings will help towards a better understanding for firms and government and suggest a quantitative basis for them to determine favourable policies and conditions for expanding their e-commerce. This study provides the impetus for future research on many issues.