Customer Satisfaction and Purchasing Behaviour in a Web-based Shopping Environment

This paper investigates the relationship between shopping experience and consumers' purchasing behaviour in a computer mediated shopping environment. To perform the experiment we signed up volunteers who performed actual purchases in a Web-based grocery shop. The participants used two alternative interface designs of the shop: conceptual maps and a conventional list-type presentation. Shopping experiences were recorded with online and offline surveys. The total sums of the purchases made were also recorded. The empirical analysis was based on a modified consumer optimization model. The results of the study show that the interface design does not have any direct effect on the purchases made. However, there seems to be a significant indirect effect. Our previous results show that the shopping experience can be significantly enhanced with a map-type interface, and the results of this study indicate a strong positive relationship between the shopping experience, i.e. the level of consumer satisfaction, and the amount of purchases made.