Ebay: Case Study on Online Shopping's Influence on Customer Loyalty

This case study investigates the impact of online shopping on customer loyalty, focusing on the e-commerce platform Ebay. The research begins with a proposal that clearly defines the research question, which is "To investigate the effects of online shopping on customer loyalty." It includes a comprehensive literature review covering the concept of online shopping, its impact on customer loyalty, its importance in increasing sales and brand image, and the relationship between online shopping and customer loyalty. The study outlines the research methods, including a descriptive research design, non-random sampling with a convenience sampling approach involving 30 respondents, and the use of interpretivism philosophy. Data collection methods involve questionnaires for primary data and secondary data from books, magazines, and journals. The study plans to use thematic analysis for data analysis and acknowledges limitations such as time constraints. The study examines the core concepts, impact, importance, and relationships to fully assess the effects of online shopping on customer loyalty within the context of Ebay.

Case study

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
P1) Research proposal which clearly define question and hypothesis with literature review....1
P2) Research methods and approaches to primary and secondary research...............................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

TITLE:
“To investigate the effects of online shopping on the customer loyalty. A case study on
Ebay”
INTRODUCTION
Online shopping introduce as an effective process whereby clients directly purchase
services or goods from a seller. It is more essential and important for both company and
customer by enhancing its productivity and performance. For this report, given organisation is
Ebay which is an American multinational e-commerce organisation. Company mainly specialise
in providing of online shopping services to the customers. Such type of services help an
enterprise to maximise trust and loyalty of customers and also support them to retain long term
relation with them. This proposal includes research aim, objectives, questions, literature review
and different methods of data collection.
TASK 1
P1) Research proposal which clearly define question and hypothesis with literature review
It is identify as a first chapter of research project which includes entire detail about the
topic and company. Different points included in this part are determined as under:
Background of the research:
Online shopping refer as an essential process of searching for an buying services and
goods over the internet via the application of web browser (Online shopping – definition and
meaning, 2018). Ebay is a multinational e-commerce company and provide online shopping
services to its clients. It was founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar in San Jose, California, US.
Therefore, online shopping is essential for the business entity to enhance customer loyalty and
retain long lasting relation with them. Thus, it is also essential for the company to improve their
brand image and increase sales.
Rational of the research:
Main reason behind choosing this topic is to analysis the impact of online shopping on
customer loyalty. Thus, it is essential and important for the customer because there is no crowds,
no pressure and provide more variety at reasonable price (Hsu, Chang and Chuang, 2015). It will
also support an enterprise to enhance their brand image and achieve better results within
predetermined time period.
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Aim of the research:
“To investigate the effects of online shopping on the customer loyalty. A case study on
Ebay”
Objectives of the research:
 To investigate the basic concept of Online shopping.
 To identify the impact of online shopping on customer loyalty.
 To analysis importance of online shopping in increasing sales and brand image of Ebay. To analysis relationship between online shopping and customer loyalty.
Questions of the research:
 What are the basic concept of Online shopping?
 How Online shopping impact on customer loyalty?
 What is the importance of online shopping in increasing sales and brand image of Ebay? What are the relationship between online shopping and customer loyalty?
Literature Review
Concept of Online shopping
According to the Bilgihan, (2016), it is an electronic commerce in which a customer is
able to buy the products and services online with the help of a browser and application. The trend
of online shopping has increased in a number of years globally. This is because online shopping
provide various benefits in comparison with the traditional shopping. To start online shopping a
customer has to visit the website or application of the service provider. The customer requires,
password, internet, payment options either by card or thorough cash on delivery. These are the
essential of online shopping to a customer.
For instance: in case of Ebay is the company which provides facility to purchase products
through online sources: shoes, clothes, electronics, phones, health and care products, etc. There
is no physical store of ebay so consumers purchase products through online media, payment is
also done through online mode. Consumers can purchase products through online portable
mobile application of ebay.
Impact of online shopping on customer loyalty.
As per the point of view of Verhoef, Kannan and Inman, (2015), the expansion of online
shopping has increased a trust among its customers. The reliability of customers through online
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shopping has increased. In the starting phase of online shopping customers does not rely on
online shopping but at present situation customer relies on online shopping. With the help of this
reliability, customer is able to transact over online platform without any hesitation. When
customer gets loyal with online shopping, it uses this service on frequent basis. Shopping
experience also increases as the trust increases between customer and online shopping.
When employees are purchasing products through online sources, then it is responsibility
of managers of ebay to provide good quality services. For instance; there is some specific time
which is required to deliver product. Hence managers of ebay must try to deliver product within
specified time. This helps to provide satisfaction to consumers. There are possibilities that
consumers requires to return product because of size issue, then there must be easy return or
exchange policies with instant money transfer. This helps to creates consumer loyalty for ebay.
Importance of online shopping in increasing sales and brand image of Ebay.
According to the Al-Debei, Akroush and Ashouri, (2015), online shopping is considered
to be as the advanced technology in purchasing of goods and services. If a company is not
providing thus service than it would be a huge loss to its bonding with customers. Online
shopping not only provides facilities to customers but also it helps Ebay to develop its business.
If Ebay is provident its services online than it would give it a chance to stand among its rivals.
With the sue of online shopping, Ebay also increases the experience of its customers which
creates a greater opportunity to increase its business in future.
In current market, there is trend of purchasing by setting anywhere through mobile
application and internet connection. Sales and profits of ebay gets improved because of this
trends and for e- commerce company, it is easy to understand changes which are taking place in
market. Marketing activities are easy and cheap because of social media advertisement, pictorial
representation, sales, festive discounts, etc. Hence there is improvement in sales and profits of
ebay.
Relationship between online shopping and customer loyalty.
According to the Hsu, Chang and Chuang, (2015), as the online shopping has increased
its way in market the issues also increases in it. The technology friendly person also resolved
those issues so that they can win the trust of their customers in this new advanced way of
shopping. When a customer is purchasing a product online the biggest threat is of fraud. If a
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customer is providing the assurance of legal products and payment methods it will increase trust
amongst the customers and thus it is the relationship of online shopping to customer loyalty.
For ebay, customer loyalty is important. It has direct relationship with growth and
development of association. In case of online business i.e. e- bay, there is no direct contact with
consumers and they are not able to test products. Hence in order to maintain brand loyalty,
quality of product is required to be best and price is affordable, so each and every consumer can
prefer to purchase products.
P2) Research methods and approaches to primary and secondary research
Research design: This entire research depends on the researcher design which is being
carried out by an investigator for the identification of an impact of online shopping on customer
loyalty. There are basically three types of the research design namely descriptive, exploratory
and experimental (Sharma and Lijuan, 2015). For this topic, descriptive research is more suitable
and relevant to get over conclusion over this topic to understand impact of customer's loyalty.
Survey: It is another important and essential method for collecting accurate and
appropriate amount of information from the respondents. There are two types of sampling
namely random sampling and non-random sampling. For this topic, non-random sampling will
be taken into the consideration. In this, convenience sampling will be used with respondents of
30 people to be surveyed and interviewed. After this, classification and analysis of an
information will be perform to arrive at the common results about the topic.
Research philosophy: Research philosophy refers to the method through which
information is collected for recording, analysing and storing data. There are three types of
philosophy i.e. interpretivist, positivist, pragmatism. In this topic, interpretivism philosophy has
been used here which would helpful in evaluating the further results to arriving at the suitable
conclusion and results. Apart from this, positivism philosophy is not suitable for carrying out the
research further.
Data collection: Data collection is the method of collecting information about research
topic. This is the way to understand reason behind specific opinion. For the collection of data,
there are basically two types of data collection namely primary and secondary data collection. In
context with primary data collection, questionnaire will be made which is helpful in getting an
appropriate data and information from the respondents over this topic (Jiang, Jun and Yang,
2016). On the other hand, secondary data collection which includes books, magazines and
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journals will be used to get suitable information over an impact of online shopping on customer
loyalty. After the data collection, brief will be done to arrive at an appropriate results and
conclusion over this topic.
Data analysis: An analysis of collected information will be perform with the help of
thematic analysis. In this topic, various themes would be made which will help in carrying out
the research effectively and properly (Pereira, de Fátima Salgueiro and Rita, 2016). Such themes
will be made for each and every question mentioned in the survey, which will the researcher in
getting in better and effective analyse of an information to arrive at the common conclusion
about the impact of online shopping over the customer loyalty.
Limitation: There are various limitation which is going to be witnessed in this research
study. One of the major limitation is lack of time. This is because topic is vast and information is
huge to analysis and arrive at the common conclusion in the possible time and duration.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bilgihan, A. (2016). Gen Y customer loyalty in online shopping: An integrated model of trust,
user experience and branding. Computers in Human Behavior. 61. 103-113.
Verhoef, P. C., Kannan, P. K., & Inman, J. J. (2015). From multi-channel retailing to omni-
channel retailing: introduction to the special issue on multi-channel retailing. Journal of
retailing. 91(2). 174-181.
Al-Debei, M. M., Akroush, M. N., & Ashouri, M. I. (2015). Consumer attitudes towards online
shopping: the effects of trust, perceived benefits, and perceived web quality. Internet
Research. 25(5). 707-733.
Hsu, M. H., Chang, C. M., & Chuang, L. W. (2015). Understanding the determinants of online
repeat purchase intention and moderating role of habit: The case of online group-buying
in Taiwan. International Journal of Information Management. 35(1). 45-56.
Sharma, G., & Lijuan, W. (2015). The effects of online service quality of e-commerce Websites
on user satisfaction. The Electronic Library, 33(3), 468-485.
Jiang, L., Jun, M., & Yang, Z. (2016). Customer-perceived value and loyalty: how do key service
quality dimensions matter in the context of B2C e-commerce?. Service Business. 10(2).
301-317.
Pereira, H. G., de Fátima Salgueiro, M., & Rita, P. (2016). Online purchase determinants of
loyalty: The mediating effect of satisfaction in tourism. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services. 30. 279-291.
Online
Online shopping – definition and meaning. 2018. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://marketbusinessnews.com/financial-glossary/online-shopping-definition-
meaning/>.
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