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Behaviour & Information Technology

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Comparing the effects of website quality on customer

initial purchase and continued purchase at e-
commerce websites
a b c
Huei-Huang Kuan , Gee-Woo Bock & Vichita Vathanophas
a
Department of Information Systems, School of Computing , National University of
Singapore , 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore, 117543
b
School of Business Administration , Sungkyunkwan University , 53 Myeongnyun – dong 3 ga,
Jongno-gu, Seoul, 110-745, Korea
c
College of Management , Mahidol University , 69 Vipawadee Rangsit Rd, Din Daeng,
Bangkok, 10400, Thailand
Published online: 25 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Huei-Huang Kuan , Gee-Woo Bock & Vichita Vathanophas (2008) Comparing the effects of website quality
on customer initial purchase and continued purchase at e-commerce websites, Behaviour & Information Technology, 27:1,
3-16

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 Behaviour & Information Technology, Vol. 27, No. 1, January – February 2008, 3 – 16

Comparing the effects of website quality on customer initial

purchase and continued purchase at e-commerce websites
HUEI-HUANG KUAN*{, GEE-WOO BOCK{ and VICHITA VATHANOPHASx

{Department of Information Systems, School of Computing, National University of Singapore,

3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543
{School of Business Administration, Sungkyunkwan University, 53 Myeongnyun – dong
3 ga, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-745, Korea
xCollege of Management, Mahidol University, 69 Vipawadee Rangsit Rd, Din Daeng,
Bangkok 10400, Thailand
Downloaded by [University of Bath] at 03:00 07 October 2014

To succeed in the highly competitive e-commerce environment, it is vital to understand

the impact of website quality in enhancing customer conversion and retention. Although
numerous contingent website attributes have been identified in the extant website quality
studies, there is no unified framework to classify these attributes and no comparison done
between customer conversion and retention according to the different website quality
attributes and their varying impact. This study adopts the model of Information Systems
(IS) success by DeLone and McLean to provide a parsimonious and unified view of
website quality, and compares the impact of website quality on intention of initial
purchase with that on intention of continued purchase. With the proposed framework, we
seek to understand how a company can increase customer conversion and/or retention.
Our findings demonstrate the strength of our framework in explaining the impact of
website quality on intention to purchase on the Web, and that website quality constructs
exert different impact on intention of initial purchase and intention of continued
purchase. The results suggest that an online company should focus on system quality to
increase customer conversion, and on service quality for customer retention.

Keywords: Website quality; Intention of initial purchase; Intention of continued

purchase; Customer conversion; Customer retention

on their home pages that were prominent enough to cause

1. Introduction
The years since 1995 have witnessed a surge in business-to-
consumers (B2C) e-commerce activities over the Internet. In
fact, the growth of sales over the Internet has outpaced that
of traditional retailing (Levy and Weitz 2001). Accordingly,
attracting new customers and retaining existing customers
through a website is vital to B2C success, with evidence
indicating that many consumers who search websites with
the intention to make purchases subsequently abandon their
purpose due to the low quality of the websites (Forrester
Research 1999, Boston Consulting Group 2000). In its
review of 239 well-known B2C websites, Jupiter Research
(2003) found that one in seven B2C websites displayed errors
visitor defection. Since an e-commerce website represents
the online presence of a company, low website quality
reflects poorly on the company and undermines customer
intention to make purchases or return to the website
(Nielsen 2000). Creating quality websites with attributes
that attract both first-time purchase and repeat visits from
customers are important objectives for e-commerce websites
(Vassilopoulou et al. 2001).
Accordingly, there has been a plethora of research on
identifying various attributes of website quality influencing
e-commerce website success (e.g. Chau et al. 2000, Liu and
Arnett 2000, Koufaris et al. 2001, Koufaris 2002, Palmer
2002, Raganathan and Ganapathy 2002). However, these

*Corresponding author. Email: mkuan@comp.nus.edu.sg

Behaviour & Information Technology

ISSN 0144-929X print/ISSN 1362-3001 online ª 2008 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/01449290600801959
 4 H.-H. Kuan et al.
studies are often fragmented (Raganathan and Ganapathy
2002), offering isolated website quality attributes that could
be linked to a certain level of customer satisfaction
(Vassilopoulou et al. 2001). The literature has yet to provide
a unified view of website quality or a standardized frame-
work for classifying the known attributes of a website for the
evaluation of its quality. Moreover, certain website quality
studies have used user satisfaction or other outcomes of
website quality as surrogate measures for the impact of
website quality on customer purchase behaviour, leading to
confusion over the definition of website quality and failure to
differentiate the direct impact of website quality on intention
to purchase for the first time and intention to purchase again
from the website in the future. In an attempt to fill this
research gap, this study focuses on developing a parsimo-
nious website quality model that unifies the various website
quality attributes identified by past research. With the
proposed model, which is based on DeLone and McLean’s
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model of IS success (DeLone and McLean 1992, 2002, 2003),
we investigate the impact of website quality on two types of
purchase intention: intention of initial purchase and inten-
tion of continued purchase.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The
next section reviews past website quality studies and
considers their inherent limitations. The third section of
the paper presents DeLone and McLean’s model of IS
success and its relevance to analysing the differing impact of
website quality on intention of initial purchase and intention
of continued purchase. The fourth section discusses our
research models and develops hypotheses to differentiate the
impact of website quality on the two types of purchase
intention. The fifth section describes our research methods
while the sixth reports our data analysis. The seventh section
discusses the results, their implications for research and
practice, and directions for future research. The last section
summarizes the study’s contributions.
2. Website quality
As the web storefront is a primary user interface for internet-
enabled business, it is important to assess website quality
attributes of the website and what users and customers
would want at the website (Straub and Watson 2001).
Moreover, given the large investments that organizations
make in their web storefronts, it is essential for them to
evaluate what makes their e-commerce websites effective
and successful (DeLone and McLean 2003). These needs
underlie the research interest in measuring website quality.
In several research attempts to examine website quality,
the concept of website quality was initially limited to
usability. Usability is a characteristic of systems design and
is defined by the International Organization for Standardi-
zation as the extent to which a product can be used by
specific users to achieve goals with effectiveness, efficiency
and satisfaction (ISO 9241-11, 1998). Several studies have
measured website usability using these three measures (e.g.
Lindenberg and Neerinex 1999, Frokjaer et al. 2000, Teo
et al. 2003). Frokjaer et al. (2000) argued that effectiveness,
efficiency and satisfaction should be studied as an
independent aspect of usability and be included in usability
testing. Lindenberg and Neerinex (1999) suggested a
generic test environment that would facilitate usability
testing of web-based services using the measures of
effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Generally, prior
usability research has indicated that usability is associated
with numerous positive outcomes (such as reduction in the
number of errors, enhanced accuracy, more positive
attitude towards the target system, and increased usage;
Lecerof and Paterno 1998, Nielsen 2000). However, such
indicators are outcomes of usability rather than measure-
ments of website quality dimensions or website attributes
per se (e.g. the product information provided by the
website).
Website quality is a broader concept which encompasses
usability. In several well-documented questionnaire-based
website assessment techniques such as the Questionnaire
for User Satisfaction (Harper et al. 1997) and the Website
Analysis and Measurement Inventory (Kirakowski et al.
1998), researchers measured user satisfaction against the
design of web user interfaces with traditional usability
evaluation measurements such as attractiveness, control,
efficiency, affect and learnability. However, both techniques
are lacking in the following ways: (1) they do not
adequately address the features of an e-commerce website,
and (2) they still rely on user satisfaction as a surrogate
measure of usability, which is also an outcome of usability.
To overcome the first limitation, many Information
Systems (IS) researchers have focused on examining the
effects of characteristics inherent in a web storefront on
e-commerce success. Some factors influencing e-commerce
website success include download delay, ease of navigation,
interactivity, responsiveness and quality content (Palmer
2002); search mechanisms (Koufaris et al. 2001); and
design, security and privacy (Raganathan and Ganapathy
2002, Dinev and Hart 2004). Although the findings of these
studies may lead to the conclusion that website quality is
crucial for e-commerce success, they have done so by
examining numerous disparate website attributes, and there
is no unified model or framework to classify the attributes
for use in assessing e-commerce website quality.
In assessing website quality, the measurement of user
satisfaction is not a good gauge of actual customer online
buying behaviour. The findings of Neal (1999) support the
observation that the relationship between satisfaction and
repeat purchase behaviour is weak. This is consistent with
evidence from the psychology literature, which suggests
that the measurement of behavioural intention is a better
predictor of the actual behaviour of an individual than
 Effects of website quality
satisfaction (Davis 1989). This suggests that researchers
need to investigate the direct relationship between actual
website quality dimensions and customer intention of
purchase (instead of user satisfaction); this is a need that
has been neglected in prior e-commerce website quality
research.
There are two types of intentions pertinent to
e-commerce website quality studies: intention of initial
purchase and intention of continued purchase, and they are
closely related to the customer conversion and retention
rates of e-commerce websites. Customer conversion is
defined as the extent to which the website is able to convert
prospective customers into purchasing customers (Gefen
et al. 2003) while customer retention refers to the extent to
which the website is able to attract existing customers of
the website to purchase again in the future (Ittner and
Larcker 1998, Reichheld and Schefter 2000). Although
the distinction between intention of initial purchase
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and intention of continued purchase is crucial, previous
studies have failed to differentiate between the effects of
website quality on one from those on the other. Some
have chosen to simply investigate the effects of website
quality on intention of purchase, which includes both
initial and continued purchase (e.g. Vassilopoulou et al.
2001). Others have focused on intention of returning
to the website, which does not necessarily reflect the
purchase intention of customers (e.g. Koufaris et al. 2001,
Koufaris 2002, Palmer 2002). Liang and Lai (2002)
reported that better-designed online stores can increase
actual online purchases, intention to revisit and intention to
purchase again in the future; however, they did not
differentiate the effects of online store design on actual
online purchases from those on intention to purchase again
in the future.
It is crucial from both the academic and practical
perspectives to distinguish between the effects of website
quality on intention of initial purchase and those on
intention of continued purchase. From the academic point
of view, the psychology literature has shown that past
purchase experience at a website can affect intention to
return and purchase (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975, Eagley
and Chaiken 1993). The relationship marketing literature
has also pointed out that web technology can provide a
better understanding of customer needs, create value,
enable long-term relationships to be forged, and subse-
quently draw customers back to the website to make
purchases (Gordon 2000, Sisodia and Wolfe 2000). From
the practical point of view, companies need strategic focus
in investing their limited resources: whether they should
increase customer conversion rate or retention rate at a
certain point of time. Thus, we deem it vital in this study
to differentiate the effects of website quality on intention
of initial purchase from those on intention of continued
purchase.
5
3. DeLone and McLean’s model of IS success
Although prior research efforts have presented other
website quality models to evaluate the effectiveness of
e-commerce websites (i.e. Zhang and Dran 2002, Kim and
Stoel 2004), some quality dimensions of these website
quality models pertain to the outcomes of using the website
and do not directly evaluate website attributes per se. For
example, the 11 website quality dimensions of Zhang and
Dran (2002) include cognitive outcomes (whether the user
learns new knowledge) and enjoyment (whether the website
is fun for the user to explore). Likewise in another study,
the 5 website quality dimensions of Kim and Stoel (2004)
include emotional appeal (whether the user is happy using
the website) and trust (whether the user feels safe using the
website). Clearly, there are various disparate website
quality models and a unified view of website quality in
previous literature is lacking. To provide a parsimonious
and unified view on website quality, we adopt the IS success
model of DeLone and McLean (1992, 2002, 2003) to
directly assess the attributes of an e-commerce website. In
contrast with previous website quality models, DeLone and
McLean’s IS Success model (1992, 2002, 2003) provides
only three quality dimensions, namely system quality,
information quality and service quality, which can effec-
tively capture all the attributes identified in previous
website quality studies (see table 1).
Using these three quality dimensions, various existing
website attributes can be organized to form a more
parsimonious website quality framework. System quality
corresponds to the technical level (characteristics of the e-
commerce system on the website which produces product
information) of Shannon and Weaver (1949), while
information quality relates to their semantic level (success
of product information on the website in conveying
intended meaning). The IS success model has recently been
extended to include service quality to reflect the success of
online peripheral support provided through a website (e.g.
feedback, frequently asked questions) (Pitt et al. 1995,
DeLone and McLean 2003). Accordingly, we define website
quality as consisting of three dimensions: system quality,
information quality and service quality (DeLone and
McLean 1992, 2002, 2003). Other constructs such as use,
user satisfaction, individual impact and organizational
impact are omitted from the definition of website quality
as they fall under Shannon and Weaver’s classification of
effectiveness or influence level which are measured by the
two different types of intention of purchase examined in
this study.
The three quality dimensions of DeLone and McLean’s
IS success model (1992, 2002, 2003) are also relevant to the
philosophy of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
in e-commerce. In CRM, quality reflects how well the needs
of customers are met (Lengnick-Hall 1996) and it can
 6 H.-H. Kuan et al.

Table 1. Mapping of website quality attributes to DeLone and company on the website for its customers. Following
McLean’s three quality dimensions. DeLone and McLean’s (2003) argument that system
Website quality
quality, information quality and service quality affect
Quality attributes from intention of IS use, we examine the impact of these three
dimensions past research References website quality dimensions on intention of purchase in the
context of e-commerce. We take the additional step of
System Ease of use, Ease Dumas and Redish
differentiating intention of purchase into intention of initial
quality of navigation, 1993, Nielsen 1993,
Consistency of Abels et al. 1997, purchase, which we relate to the conversion of a potential
layout, Visual Lin and Lu 2000, customer into an actual customer, and intention of
appeal, Fast check Liu and Arnett 2000, continued purchase, which we relate to retention of existing
out, Download delay Raganathan and customers.
Ganapathy 2002,
Vassilopoulou et al.
2001, Palmer 2002 4. Model and hypotheses
Information Relevance, Accuracy, Bailey and Pearson
quality Timeliness, 1983, Doll and Utilizing the reorganized website quality dimensions based
Content, Format, Torkzadeh 1988, on DeLone and McLean’s model of IS success, we analyse
Completeness, Srinivasan 1985, Lin
the differing impact of website quality on intention of initial
Understandability and Lu 2000, Liu and
Arnett 2000, Zhang purchase and intention of continued purchase. Figure 1
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and Dron 2001,
Palmer 2002,
Rai et al. 2002
Service Effectiveness of product Abels et al. 1997, Liu
quality search and compari- and Arnett 2000,
son, Interactivity, Novak et al. 2000,
Responsiveness, Vassilopoulou et al.
Clarity on security 2001, Liang and Lai
and privacy polices, 2002, Palmer 2002,
Assurance, Empathy, Raganathan and
Product tracking Ganapathy 2002
enable organizations to attract new customers and increase
retention of profitable relationships (Lengnick-Hall 1996,
Bradshaw and Brash 2001). Reinartz et al. (2004) has cited
that the success of CRM is affected by how well the
company uses supporting information technology in its
interaction with users and customers. Similarly in the CRM
framework of Payne and Frow (2005), the technologies
used to support the activities that involve direct interface
with customers are crucial for CRM success. Since the
e-commerce website is a primary interface for customers to
interact with the company (Straub and Watson 2001),
website quality (how well the website meets the online
purchasing needs of customers) would be critical for
companies to effectively manage customer relationships
online. The three quality dimensions of DeLone and
McLean’s IS success model encompasses all the aspects of
the customer’s online interaction with the company on the
website. System quality captures the customers’ desired
characteristics of an e-commerce system on the website
such as ease of navigation and download delay. Informa-
tion quality captures customers’ desired attributes of
product content provided by the company on the website.
Service quality is the overall support provided by the
depicts the research models to be compared in this study.
4.1 Website quality antecedents of initial and continued
purchase intention
Intention of initial purchase is defined in this study as the
likelihood that a potential customer will purchase from an
e-commerce website for the first time at a given point of
time (Davis 1989), while intention of continued purchase is
defined as the likelihood that an online customer will return
to the website and purchase again in the future (Davis
1989). The two types of purchase intention are fundamen-
tally different, as intention of initial purchase refers to the
subjective probability that the customer will make a
purchase right after experiencing the website for the first
time while intention of continued purchase refers to the
subjective probability that the customer will return to the
website in the future and make a purchase after the first
and/or subsequent purchases. Hence, we will hypothesize
the different impacts of quality dimensions on these two
distinct yet related intentions in section 4.2. The relation-
ships between website quality beliefs and intentions of
purchase in our research models are based on behavioural
intention theories such as the theory of reasoned action, the
technology acceptance model and Triandis’ model of
human behaviour (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975, Triandis
1982, Davis 1989).
4.1.1 Perceived system quality. Previous usability studies
have referred to usability as a form of system design
characteristic which corresponds to system quality (Harper
et al. 1997, Kiraskowski et al. 1998). Similarly, we define
perceived system quality as the degree to which the user
believes the website is easy to navigate (Palmer 2002) and
the interface interaction is consistent (Vassilopoulou et al.
2001, Raganathan and Ganapathy 2002). Usability
 Effects of website quality
Figure 1. Research models for initial purchase intention and continued purchase intention.
researchers suggest that organization and navigation are
‘important to outcomes’ (Nielsen 2000). The design, layout
and sequencing of web pages should make it easy for
customers to navigate (Schonberg et al. 2000). Yoo and
Kim (2000) revealed in their study that designing effective
link structures for customer interfaces is vital for the
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success of e-commerce websites. Similarly, difficulties in
navigating e-commerce websites have been cited as a barrier
for online purchases (Palmer 2002, Raganathan and
Ganapathy 2002), while well-designed navigation is noted
to exert a positive impact on sales at the website (Bellman
et al. 1999). A good website interface will sustain customer
interest in continuing to navigate the website. It enhances
customer experience, and eventually, increases the like-
lihood of purchase at the website. Consistency of interface
interaction is also important in system quality
(Vassilopoulou et al. 2001, Palmer 2002, Raganathan and
Ganapathy 2002). This means similar operations at a
website should follow the same procedure; for example, the
same blue button on each page should be clicked on to
activate the search function (Vassilopoulou et al. 2001).
Hence, we propose:
Hypothesis 1: The perceived system quality of an
e-commerce website is positively associated with inten-
tion of initial purchase and intention of continued
purchase.
4.1.2 Perceived information quality. Perceived information
quality is defined in this study as the degree to which the
user believes that the information at the website possesses
the attributes of content, accuracy, format (Rai et al. 2002)
and timeliness (Doll and Torkzadeh 1988). Empirical
findings support the observation that information quality
positively influences user satisfaction (Negash et al. 2003)
and perceived usefulness (Lin and Lu 2000). Palmer (2002)
found that high information quality is positively associated
with website success. In the e-commerce context, consumers
are not fully informed about the quality of products and
services offered at a website. As such, consumers seek
information that allows them to distinguish a seller of high-
quality goods and services from a seller of low-quality
7
goods or services (Boulding and Kirmani 1993). As there
can be several websites offering information about similar
products and services, what may draw users to a particular
website to make purchases are the attributes of the
information provided by the website (Raganathan and
Ganapathy 2002). Thus, we propose:
Hypothesis 2: The perceived information quality of an
e-commerce website is positively associated with inten-
tion of initial purchase and intention of continued
purchase.
4.1.3 Perceived service quality. Perceived service quality is
defined in this study as the degree to which the user believes
the website is responsive, interactive (Palmer 2002), clear
about security and privacy policies, and effective in its
search and comparison capabilities (Vassilopoulou et al.
2001). Customer service on the Web can take many forms,
such as answering customer enquiries and providing
search and comparison capabilities (Koufaris et al. 2001,
Vassilopoulou et al. 2001). Tools that enhance customer
service include personalized web pages, the listing of
frequently asked questions and web-based helpdesks. These
tools may be classified under the service categories of
interactivity and responsiveness. Interactivity includes the
ability to customize the look, feel and content of the site as
well as the provision for interaction with the user (Palmer
2002). Responsiveness is the provision of feedback to users
and the availability of response from customer representa-
tives (Palmer 2002). Websites must also demonstrate that
the information they provide is to the benefit of customers
and will not be used in any way detrimental to customer
privacy concerns (Dinev and Hart 2004). Assurance that
the website is secure for transactions is necessary to allay
fears that the information customers send will not be
intercepted by others (Sisodia and Wolfe 2000). Therefore,
we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 3: The perceived service quality of an
e-commerce website is positively associated with inten-
tion of initial purchase and intention of continued
purchase.
 8 H.-H. Kuan et al.
4.2 Comparison of impact of website quality on initial and
continued purchase intention
The direct relation that various website quality constructs
maintain with intention of initial purchase and intention of
continued purchase have not been closely examined in the
IS literature. However, gleaning from related findings in
other literature, we posit that different website quality
constructs are likely to demonstrate different effects on the
two types of purchase intention.
First, we expect system quality to exert a stronger effect
on intention of initial purchase than on intention of
continued purchase. As system quality is the primary
interface between the user and the online company, it
provides the user with the initial experience of the vendor,
and could act to confirm or undermine initial impressions
of the website. If users find the interface too difficult to use
in achieving their purpose, they would have a poor
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impression of the company and defect to a rival website
(Jupiter Research 2003). Conversely, if users are comfor-
table navigating the website on their first visit, they will be
impressed with the ease of use of the website, gain
confidence in it, and extend the confidence to the online
company (McKnight et al. 2002). As users who have
experience with a website are less likely to be daunted by
the system features that have appeared at the site since their
previous visit (Luhmann 1979), we posit that the impact of
perceived system quality is weaker on intention of
continued purchase than on intention of initial purchase.
Hypothesis 4. The positive association of perceived
system quality with intention of continued purchase is
weaker than that with intention of initial purchase.
Second, we argue that the respective effects of informa-
tion quality on the two types of purchase intention are not
significantly different. The information that an online
company provides through its website is the primary means
by which the customer understands more about the product
or service being offered, and the decision to purchase or
return in the future is often dependent on the information
(Agarwal and Venkatesh 2002, Raganathan and
Ganapathy 2002). Providing the correct and appropriate
amount of information in a timely manner and in a suitable
format at the website’s interface is critical to converting
prospective customers into purchasing customers. It is also
critical to maintaining satisfying relationships with existing
customers (Sisodia and Wolfe 2000), and consequently,
motivating them to return to the website to make
purchases. As customers buy different products and
services at various times and the information related to
these products and services can change over time, the
timeliness of information is often carefully examined for
each purchase. Hence, quality of information is essential
for the decision to purchase at the website for the first time
as well as for making purchases in the future. Accordingly,
we postulate that the impact of information quality on
intention of initial purchase and that on intention of
continued purchase are not significantly different:
Hypothesis 5: The positive association of perceived
information quality with intention of initial purchase is
not significantly different from that with intention of
continued purchase.
Service quality often constitutes the purchase experience
of customers with an online vendor as well as their
expectations of it (Parasumaran et al. 1985), which cannot
be evaluated easily until the transaction is experienced. The
relationship marketing literature emphasizes the impor-
tance of purchase experience for retaining existing custo-
mers over acquiring customers (e.g. Ganesan 1994, Doney
and Cannon 1997). With enhanced service quality made
available at the website by the online vendor, value delivery
improves, and longer-term relationships with customers are
established, resulting in greater customer retention and
loyalty (Reichheld and Schefter 2000, Sisodia and Wolfe
2000). Rogers and Peppers (1997) advocated that learning
relationships, where web technology is used to maintain
records of customer preferences and taste (e.g. personaliza-
tion, transaction history, recommendations and customized
search), can enhance customer convenience. Hence, we
hypothesize that the impact of service quality is stronger on
intention of continued purchase than on intention of initial
purchase:
Hypothesis 6: The positive association of perceived
service quality with intention of continued purchase is
stronger than that with intention of initial purchase.
5. Methodology
In this section, we empirically validate the application of
DeLone and McLean’s IS success model to a website quality
study to predict customer intention of initial purchase and
intention of continued purchase. We also seek to compare the
differing impact of website quality on the two types of
purchase intention using a website quality questionnaire.
5.1 Measurement of variables
Wherever possible, we draw on the existing literature and
adapt existing instruments for measuring the variables in
our study (Churchill 1979). In particular, we adapt the
definition of intention to use in Davis (1989) to develop the
constructs of intention of initial purchase and intention of
continued purchase in e-commerce. Prior research has
empirically justified the use of one item to measure
 Effects of website quality
intention (e.g. Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). The other items
are adapted from studies which measured the quality
constructs in various contexts (see table 2). The variables
were measured with a seven-point Likert scale (1 ¼ strongly
disagree, 2 ¼ disagree, 3 ¼ slightly disagree, 4 ¼ neutral,
5 ¼ slightly agree, 6 ¼ agree, 7 ¼ strongly agree).
To verify the questionnaire, a pre-test was conducted
with 20 students in a large university a month before the
final questionnaire was administered. The main purpose of
the pre-test was the validation of instruments and to check
if all the constructs were statistically free of problems in
terms of reliability and validity of items. As we wanted to
know if the respondents clearly understood the difference
between intention of initial purchase and intention of
continued purchase, we also conducted interviews during
the pre-test. All the respondents reported that intention of
initial purchase referred to the decision to purchase at a
particular point of time, whereas intention of continued
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purchase referred to the decision to return and make
purchases again in the future.
5.2 Sample and research procedure
Students from a large university were chosen to take part in
the study from 21 to 31 October 2002. They were selected
for their substantial experience in using websites for
projects, assignments, interests and purchases. We focused
on online service websites in the study as online customers
obtain information about services on offer almost exclu-
sively through the features of the website, unlike tangible
products whose information can be obtained from offline
sources. This meant that website features would play a
more prominent role in user purchase decisions on the
website. Moreover, much consumer research on intention
to purchase and e-commerce website success has already
been done on retail websites (e.g. Gefen and Straub 2000,
Liu and Arnett 2000, Vassilopoulou et al. 2001). Service
websites therefore were the better option for our study.
Table 2. Constructs and measurements.
Number Measurement sources
Constructs of items (adapted)
Perceived system 7 Davis 1989, Vassilopoulou
quality et al. 2001, Rai et al.
2002
Perceived information 7 Doll and Torkzadeh 1988,
quality Rai et al. 2002
Perceived service 7 Vassilopoulou et al. 2001,
quality Agarwal and Venkatesh
2002
Intention of planned 1 Fishben and Ajzen 1975,
purchase Davis 1989
Intention of continued 1 Fishben and Ajzen 1975,
purchase Davis 1989
9
Specifically, Travelocity.com and Expedia.com, two
international online travel companies, were chosen for
our study. They were relatively unknown to the subjects,
who were more exposed to local travel companies with an
online presence. The choice of the two sites thus helped
eliminate the effects of social influences on intention of
initial purchase and intention of continued purchases
among the subjects. Both the Travelocity and Expedia
websites offered comprehensive features that allowed
personalization, easy navigation and feedback, and they
provided expert advice on vacation planning.
The students were invited to take part in the research
through advertisements, and a cash reward was offered for
their participation. Of all the students selected, 50 were
randomly assigned to use Travelocity.com and the other 51
to Expedia.com. All confirmed they had not heard of or
used the target websites before participating in the study.
The subjects were asked to assume the role of a customer
planning a vacation at a fixed destination in Asia with a
given budget. The prices offered by both travel websites for
the destination were very similar, and since only one
destination within the budget was used, the effects of price
and type of service offered on intention of initial purchase
and intention of continued purchase were controlled for.
The subjects had to follow a comprehensive set of
procedures on an instruction sheet to simulate the scenario
of an online travel planning experience. This ensured the
subjects went through the full decision making process that
required them to access the various features necessary to
making a purchase, such as frequently asked questions,
personal preferences, policies of the website and search
facilities. They stopped at the point before actually
purchasing the air tickets and accommodation (for
example, the stage where they were asked for their credit
card information). The participants wrote down the choice
of their flights and accommodation in the first part of the
questionnaire and proceeded to complete the rest of the
questionnaire (see Appendix A).
6. Data analysis and results
The website quality models for customer conversion and
retention were linear multiple regression models. We tested
the relationships using SPSS version 12.0.0. The beta
coefficients of these two models were compared using a
procedure described in Cohen et al. (1990, 2003) to
determine if they were significantly different for a single
sample.
6.1 Descriptive statistics
Means and standard deviations for the constructs in the
research model are reported in table 3. To compute these
descriptive statistics, multiple-item scales were summed and
 10 H.-H. Kuan et al.

averaged. The means of all the variables were between 4.5
and 5.5. Standard deviation values were less than þ1.50.
6.2 Reliability and validity
To ensure that the items comprising each variable were
internally consistent, we carried out reliability assessment
using Cronbach’s alpha. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients
for system quality, information quality and service quality
were all above 0.90, exceeding the minimum acceptable
level of 0.70 recommended by Nunnally (1978). The
independent variables showed no problems of multicolli-
nearity, with the Variance Inflation Factors all less than
2.50. The item-total correlation for each item was at least
0.65, demonstrating satisfactory convergent validity.
Table 4 shows the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for each
construct and the item-total correlation for each item.
Factor analysis using Principal Component Analysis with
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To examine if the website quality dimensions have
differing impacts on intention of initial purchase and
intention of continued purchase, the beta coefficients of
both models were compared following the procedure of
Cohen et al. (1990, 2003). The procedure began with saving
the standardized predicted score of intention of initial
purchase which consisted of the sum of the bi weighted zi
scores. This score was then subtracted from the standar-
dized score of intention of continued purchase. The
difference was used as a dependent variable in a regression
analysis of the three website quality constructs. The overall
test of the significance of the R2 would indicate whether the
independent variables held different relationships with
intention of initial purchase and intention of continued
purchase collectively, and the tests of the individual bis
would indicate which coefficients differed significantly and
in which direction.
The R2 of the resulting regression analysis described in

VARIMAX rotation showed clean loadings in the factor the procedure above was 16.8% and was significant at
structure and demonstrated discriminant validity (see p 5 0.01. This illustrates that the three website quality
table 5). Thus, the questionnaire items possess construct constructs collectively held different relationships with the
validity. two dependent variables. Pertaining to the two dependent
variables, system quality and service quality demonstrated
significant differences. The b coefficient of system quality in
6.3 Hypotheses testing
the initial purchase intention model (0.421) was higher than
Figure 2 summarizes the results of the relationships for the b coefficient in the continued purchase intention
both models. In both the models of intention of initial model (0.290), and they were significantly different at
purchase and intention of continued purchase, all the
relationships were significant. The three website quality
Table 5. Factor analysis.
beliefs: perceived system quality, perceived information
quality and perceived service quality explained 75.9% of Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3
the variation in intention of initial purchase and 70.3% of System Information Service
the variation in intention of continued purchase. Item quality quality quality

A1 0.856 0.223 0.295

Table 3. Descriptive statistics. A2 0.803 0.191 0.194
A3 0.851 0.249 0.236
Construct Mean Standard Deviation A4 0.725 0.343 0.334
A5 0.756 0.334 0.221
System quality 4.90 1.13 A6 0.807 0.335 0.269
Information quality 5.29 0.89 A7 0.689 0.316 0.190
Service quality 5.34 0.89 B1 0.338 0.686 0.175
Intention of planned purchase 4.96 1.30 B2 0.252 0.794 0.180
Intention of continued purchase 5.04 1.25 B3 0.257 0.820 0.189
B4 0.290 0.741 0.345
B5 0.295 0.691 0.392
Table 4. Cronbach’s alpha, item-total correlations and B6 0.209 0.631 0.323
variance inflation factors (VIF). B7 0.258 0.703 0.221
C1 0.162 0.101 0.788
Cronbach’s Item-total C2 0.209 0.240 0.777
Construct alpha correlation VIF C3 0.238 0.204 0.779
C4 0.324 0.323 0.646
System quality 0.947 0.90, 0.78, 0.88, 0.81, 2.078 C5 0.309 0.462 0.536
0.81, 0.88, 0.71 C6 0.278 0.284 0.621
Information quality 0.917 0.71, 0.77, 0.80, 0.81, 2.337 C7 0.212 0.424 0.681
0.79, 0.66, 0.70 Eigenvalue 5.300 4.970 4.359
Service quality 0.900 0.65, 0.74, 0.76, 0.73, 2.188 Percent explained 25.237 23.667 20.759
0.69, 0.65, 0.75 variance
 Effects of website quality
Figure 2. Results for models of initial purchase intention and continued purchase intention.
p 5 0.01 (t ¼ 72.66). Similarly, the b coefficient of service
quality in the initial purchase intention model (0.250) was
lower than the b coefficient in the continued purchase
intention model (0.429) at p 5 0.05 (t ¼ 2.26). As we
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expected, the b coefficients of information quality in the
two models were not significantly different, although the
beta coefficient of information quality in the initial
purchase intention model (0.312) was higher than the beta
coefficient in the continued purchase model (0.226)
(t ¼ 71.95). Therefore, the results lend empirical support
to all the hypotheses.
7. Discussion and implications
The result that all the website quality beliefs are positively
related to intentions of initial and continued purchase
provides support for applying DeLone and McLean’s model
of IS success to examine website quality. Besides, the three
dimensions of website quality explain over 70% of variance
of intention of initial purchase and intention of continued
purchase. This means that our research models can serve as a
strong and robust yet more unified and parsimonious
framework for website quality studies in the future.
In addition, the results show that the impact of each
quality dimension is different not only in each model but
also between models. First, our analyses demonstrate that
the positive impact of system quality on initial purchase
intention is higher than that of all the other website quality
dimensions in the initial purchase intention model, and this
impact is significantly stronger on initial purchase intention
compared to continued purchase intention. Second, service
quality’s positive impact is the greatest in the continued
intention model, and this impact is also significantly
stronger on continued purchase intention than on initial
purchase intention.
The stronger impact of system quality in the initial
purchase model concurs with the argument in Nielsen
(2000) that users decide whether they stay or leave the
website based on their initial experience with the system at
the website. Users form a certain degree of confidence and
11
trust in system quality after a favourable experience at the
website. Users form beliefs about the attributes of an
unknown vendor partly on the basis of their perceptions of
system quality at the website (McKnight et al. 2002), and they
seek assurance for their beliefs through experiential evidence
(Fazio and Zanna 1981), which is obtained by navigating the
website. If the system at the website makes it difficult for
visitors to achieve their purposes (searching for product
information and purchasing), the visitors are more likely to
form negative impressions of the online company and defect
to a rival website. Therefore, perception of system quality is
more critical for customer conversion. Once customers have
accumulated positive experience and are familiar with the
website, system quality may only have limited impact in
determining continued intention to purchase due to the
formation of confidence and trust in the website system.
Conversely, unpleasant customer service at the website
can ruin good first impressions about system quality (which
come from easy navigation and consistent interfaces) and
discourage customers from returning to the website. This
leads to the conclusion that service quality exerts a greater
influence on customer retention than on customer conver-
sion. This is consistent with the relationship marketing
literature, which emphasizes long-term relationship with
consumers with the creation of values through technology
(e.g. Rogers and Peppers 1997, Sisodia and Wolfe 2000).
Properly and promptly answering customer inquiries, web
pages that can be personalized, the frequently asked
questions feature, responsive helpdesks, assurance on
security and return policies, etc., can enable customers to
define the value they want and enhance value for customers
in the long term (Gordon 2000). As a result, customers are
likely to return to the website continually in the future.
Effective relationship management can be done through the
website quality dimension of service quality, which is
essential for customer retention in B2C commerce (Sisodia
and Wolfe 2000).
On the other hand, the impact of information quality on
customer conversion and retention is evident but not
significantly different. This does not mean that information
 12 H.-H. Kuan et al.
quality is not significant. Rather, the result suggests that
information quality is similarly important for both initial
purchase and continued purchase. Customers who visit
travel websites similar to those in our experiment are not
likely to find an identical travel package at every travel
website they visit. Hence, carefully analysing product or
service information is always essential regardless of the
number of visits customers make. Besides, timeliness of
information is one of the critical success factors for travel
websites because the price of airline tickets, for example,
keep changing even by seconds. Customers use the
attributes of information provided by websites to distin-
guish the seller of high quality goods or services from the
seller of low quality goods or services (Boulding and
Kirmani 1993).
We believe our research has contributed academically in
three main ways. First, in view of the fragmented nature of
the extant website quality research, our proposed model,
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which is fashioned after DeLone and McLean’s model of IS
success, has served to unify past website quality studies by
cogently classifying website quality attributes that have
previously been identified into three quality dimensions.
The statistical results, including reliability and validity
tests, show that all the classifications are acceptable. Thus,
these three website quality dimensions can be used to
provide a more parsimonious model in website quality
research in the future.
Second, we have tested three broad website quality
dimensions against intention to purchase, unlike previous
studies which simply examined website attributes against
the outcomes of usability (e.g. satisfaction or effectiveness).
Although satisfaction or effectiveness can be a surrogate
measure of website quality, it may not lead to purchase,
which is the final goal of improving website quality. Hence,
we believe that the direct measurement of purchase
intention which we have offered is a significant improve-
ment in examining website quality.
Third, we have tested and found support for the
differences in effects of website quality dimensions influen-
cing customer initial purchase and continued purchase. The
findings on the two types of purchase intention can be used
by practitioners to tackle customer conversion and reten-
tion problems at e-commerce websites. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the first study to differentiate the effects
of website quality on initial purchase intention from those
on continued purchase intention. This is a major and novel
contribution as we have observed that past IS literature did
not provide insight how the two types of purchase intention
can be different. Our findings further confirm that
consumers are affected by different dimensions of website
quality based on their experience at the website. With this
understanding, practitioners can efficiently differentiate
website measures for converting visitors into customers
and retaining existing customers.
To differentiate website quality measures for customer
conversion and retention, a company can put more
resources into improving system quality if it wants to
increase the conversion rate while it can focus on service
quality if it wishes to increase customer retention. In system
quality, practitioners would do well to work on ease of
navigation and consistency in layout. Appropriate sequen-
cing of web pages and arrangement of various functional-
ities (i.e. standardized location of the search, purchase or
check-out buttons) across web pages can increase navig-
ability and consistency in layout. By more rigorously
testing alternate site designs (Palmer 2002), website
managers would know which sequences of web pages and
what types of functionalities arrangement within each web
page customers prefer. In service quality, websites should
provide opportunities for customers to customize their
experience in terms of the look, feel and content of the
website. Product search and comparison can be made more
effective with the inclusion of customer preferences in
product search and compare tasks so that results of more
relevance to the customer may be obtained. Customer
feedback and questions should be addressed in the shortest
possible time to show the website is responsive to
customer needs. The privacy and security policies of the
website ought to be conspicuously shown and easily
understood by readers to address customer privacy and
security concerns.
In addition, due to the proliferation of B2C websites, it is
crucial for companies to ensure that the information they
provide satisfies the needs of users and customers
(Raganathan and Ganapathy 2002); by so doing, a
company would distinguish itself from the competition
and improve both its customer conversion and retention
rates. Managers of websites need to realize that sufficiency
and depth of content are vital for customers to make a
purchase. Besides content, format of information affects
whether the information is effectively communicated and
understood. Hence, websites need to evaluate if the
information they present in terms of content and format
is in line with customer perspectives. This can be achieved
through customer polls whenever product information is
presented to the customer. In a dynamic world where
information is rapidly changing, customers would want the
information to be accurate and timely. Providing informa-
tion which is accredited as trustworthy and giving the
timestamp of the information can increase customer
perceptions about the accuracy and timeliness of the
information provided.
Looking beyond the contributions of this paper, we
consider the limitations of our study and how our findings
may be further validated and extended in the future. First,
our findings can be further validated with actual first-time
customers instead of a student sample engaged in an online
purchase scenario. As all respondents went through a
 Effects of website quality
comprehensive set of procedures in this study, future
research can be conducted with customers who are
exploring website features on their own initiative to achieve
greater realism and generalizability of results. Moreover,
this study assumed that respondents had made the initial
online purchase in answering the questionnaire item of
intention of continued purchase. Future research can utilize
actual first-time customers to measure intention of con-
tinued purchase. Additionally, we have only looked at the
effects of website quality on a specific online travel service
while consumer behaviour and expectations may vary when
consumers are presented with other products (Bevan and
McLeod 1994). Thus, this study can be further extended to
examine consumer website quality perceptions across a
range of products and services.
8. Concluding remarks
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E-commerce websites no longer simply provide informa-
tion on companies but seek to convert users into
customers and retain existing customers to increase the
bottom line of the company. Therefore, website quality
studies are of major interest to managers and web
designers. This study has offered a robust and parsimo-
nious model of website quality as a framework to classify
disparate website quality attributes. Moreover, this study
has distinguished the effects of website quality on initial
purchase intention and continued purchase intention, and
has illustrated how the different impacts of website quality
dimensions can affect companies’ strategic choice on
resource allocation in terms of improving customer
conversion and retention. We believe the model and the
findings hold considerable promise in helping practitioners
and researchers better understand the relationship between
the three website quality dimensions and the two types
of purchase intention. We hope that this study can lay
the groundwork for future studies in investigating
the relationship between website quality and actual
initial purchase and continued purchase behaviour at
e-commerce websites.
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 Effects of website quality 15

Appendix A. Website Quality Questionnaire

A. Details of Vacation:

Departure Flight Number: _____________

Return Flight Number: _____________
Roundtrip Air-ticket price: __________

Hotel Name: ____________________________________

Nightly Room Rate: $ _____________

Please indicate your agreement with the next set of statements in the following sections using the following rating scale.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Strongly disagree Disagree Slightly disagree Neutral Slightly agree Agree Strongly agree

A. System Quality:
Strongly Strongly
disagree agree
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1. The Travelocity website is easy to use. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2. It is easy to become skilful in using the Travelocity website. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. Learning to operate the Travelocity website is easy. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. The Travelocity website is flexible to interact with. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5. My interaction with the Travelocity website is clear and understandable. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. It is easy to interact with the Travelocity website. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7. The overall page layout is consistent throughout the Travelocity website. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

B. Information Quality:
Strongly Strongly
disagree agree
1. Travelocity provides accurate information I need to purchase travel services. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. Travelocity provides sufficient information to enable me to purchase travel services. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. Travelocity provides enough depth of information about its service products. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. The information provided is helpful to me in purchasing travel services. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5. The information is clear for me to make a purchase. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. Travelocity uses graphics or animation effectively to communicate the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
information necessary for me to purchase its services.
7. Travelocity provides up-to-date information. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

C. Service Quality:
Strongly Strongly
disagree agree
1. It is easy to contact the customer representatives of Travelocity. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. Travelocity allows me to provide feedback about the website and services. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. Security and privacy policies are conspicuously displayed. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. I am satisfied with the content of the security and privacy policy of Travelocity. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5. Travelocity is able to personalize the type of information to suit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
my needs in making a decision in vacation choices.
6. The frequently asked questions (FAQs) feature has assisted me in my use 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
of the Travelocity website.
7. The search facility is useful in my search for information on 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
flights and accommodation.
 16 H.-H. Kuan et al.

D. Intention of Initial and Continued Purchase:

Strongly Strongly
disagree agree
1. Assuming I have the budget, I am very likely to purchase vacation services 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
from the Travelocity website.
Why?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Strongly Strongly
disagree agree
2. Assuming I have the budget, I am very likely to purchase again from the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Travelocity website in the future.
Why?
_____________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
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