Strategic Drivers of E-Retailer Loyalty in Emerging Markets: A Management-Oriented Analysis of E-Service Quality and Trust in Online Reviews

This study examines how e-service quality, perceived price fairness, and trust in online reviews are associated with e-retailer loyalty in Kazakhstan and Türkiye. A cross-sectional online survey generated 288 complete responses from consumers with prior online-shopping experience. The principal analytical sample comprised 284 respondents from Kazakhstan and Türkiye. E-service quality was modelled as a higher-order construct comprising system efficiency, fulfilment, and privacy, while perceived price fairness, trust in online reviews, and loyalty were specified as first-order constructs. The proposed relationships were tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), bootstrapped mediation analysis, predictive assessment, robustness checks, measurement-invariance analysis, and exploratory multi-group comparison. The model explained 65.8% of the variance in trust in online reviews and 70.3% of the variance in e-retailer loyalty. E-service quality showed a strong positive association with trust and the largest total association with loyalty. Trust was positively associated with loyalty and partially mediated the relationship between e-service quality and loyalty. Perceived price fairness showed no significant direct association with loyalty but contributed indirectly through trust, indicating an indirect-only mediation pattern. The main structural relationships remained stable after response-quality screening and demographic adjustment. Cross-country coefficient differences were not statistically significant. However, full compositional invariance was not established for higher-order e-service quality, so national comparisons should be interpreted as exploratory. The study integrates operational service performance, price fairness, and trust in consumer-generated information within a single loyalty framework and clarifies their complementary but non-equivalent roles in post-adoption e-commerce behaviour.