This study Key Success Factors of Online
Food Ordering Services:An Empirical Study
Pallavi kumari,MBA 1st year ,Bharath Institute of Higher Education and
Research
ABSTRACT
This study examines the determinants of the customer ordering experience, which
include website trust, customer satisfaction and loyalty. The determinants are
represented by website quality and service quality. A survey data of 353 online food
ordering customers were used to test the research model using structural equation
modelling (SEM). Results reveal that not only is there a significant positive relationship
between website quality and website trust but also a significant positive relationship
between service quality and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, significant positive
relationships are also found not only between website trust and customer satisfaction
but also between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Finally, the study also found an
unexpected direct link between service quality and loyalty. Overall, the study provides
valuable insights for operating online food ordering services successfully.
Key Words: Website quality, service quality, website trust, customer satisfaction, loyalty
INTRODUCTION
Consumers’ response to the Internet has broadened opportunities for many businesses, ranging
from small to large corporations. The creation of online banking has further facilitated various
online businesses including online food ordering. Online food ordering satisfies the needs of
busy individuals living in the city who place their order online and receive delivery within
a few minutes. Prior studies on food ordering have investigated the determinants of trust,
satisfaction and loyalty mostly in the offline consumer environment. However, researchers
have recently discovered that the online environment offers great opportunities for interactive
and personalised marketing (Burke, 2002). Unlike the offline environment, the online
environment (Wind and Rangaswamy, 2001) offers more opportunities for interactive and
personalised marketing. The Internet provides an impulsive shopping channel (Phau and Lo,
2004). Customers can easily search the competitive providers that match their expectation
(Singh, 2002), besides receiving input from peers through interactive media such as blogs,
Facebook and Twitter) in making purchase decisions (Herring et al., 2005; Bernoff and Li,
2008).
Recently, customer trust has also been examined in the context of online business (McKnight
and Chervany, 2002) as its presence helps maintain sustainable relationships with customers
(Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Several researchers have studied the area of information quality,
privacy/security, and efficient payment system (e.g., Liu et al., 2008) and focused on the
effects of website design on trust, satisfaction and loyalty (Cyr et al. (2008). Liu et al. (2008)
and Shankar et al. (2003) have found that delivery and customer services have significant
relationship with satisfaction.
The research questions investigated by this study are as follows:
1. How is website quality consisting of information quality, website design, security/privacy
and payment system related to building customer’s online trust to place their foods and
food order online?
2. How is service quality consisting of delivery, customer service and food quality related to
customer satisfaction?
3. What can be the mediating effect of website trust on the relationship between website
quality and customer satisfaction?
4. What can be the mediating effect of customer satisfaction on the relationship between
service quality and loyalty?
Therefore, this current study posits that website quality – consisting of information quality,
website design, security/privacy and payment system – is critical in building customers’ online
trust to place their food order online. It also posits that service quality – consisting of efficient
delivery, excellent customer service and food quality – is critical to satisfy the customers and
increase their loyalty towards the online food ordering operators. Based on these rationales,
this study formulated and tested a conceptual model with four hypotheses. The next section of
the paper presents the literature that incorporates the key determinants of the conceptual model
and hypotheses. Other sections report the findings of the study and suggest its theoretical and
practical implications.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The following section discusses research of all variables and their relationships.
Website Quality
The last decade has witnessed extensive literature on website quality as a cue for customer
satisfaction; a factor that drives purchase intention. Website quality comprises factors like
interactivity, customisation, care, cultivation, choice, community, character and convenience
(Srinivasan et al. 2002); interactivity, novelty and complexity (Huang, 2003); community,
individualisation, free services, technical integration and convenience (Wirtz and Lihotzky,
2003); information quality, connectivity playfulness, learning and interactivity (Chiu et al. 2005);
appearance, content quality, specific content and technical adequacy (Liao et al. 2006);
Recently, a number of researchers have conducted empirical study on website quality such
as Dickinger and Stangl (2013), Rahimnia and Hassanzadeh (2013), Liu, Li and Hu (2013),
Xu, and Benbasat and Cenfetelli (2013). Therefore, the preceding discussion proposes four
important elements of website quality, namely information quality, website design, security
and payment system.
Service Quality
Service quality plays an important role for customer satisfaction because it is the customers
who are the patrons of the products or services. Consequently, efficient tools to assess service
quality are invaluable to companies who earn their revenues or part of it from delivery of
[Link] core sustainable strategy for online food ordering companies is the provision of
excellent service to the [Link], perceived quality of the service provided by the
online food ordering companies has a large influence on the customer satisfaction.
Based on the above discussion, three dimensions have been identified as critical for satisfying
and retaining the customers, namely delivery, customer service and food quality.
Relationship between Website Trust and Customer Satisfaction
Trust is earned based on previous experience of the customer. In the e-commerce environment,
if the customer has positive experience from his or her previous use of a product or service,
then he or she will choose the same website to place the order. Likewise, in the case of online
food ordering, customers will revisit the website if they trust it.
.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Setting
In order to test the aforementioned hypotheses, a quantitative study was conducted at one of
the largest public universities in Malaysia whose respondents comprised a mixture of local and
international students. The respondents were chosen because of their easy access to several
online food ordering companies operating nearby such as Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Domino’s,
Nando’s, Papa John’s and Room Service Deliveries.
Data Collection
The questionnaires were distributed to 600 undergraduate students of the Kulliyyah of
Economics and Management Sciences requesting them and their friends or family members
who had experienced ordering food online to participate in the research project. Using a
questionnaire is the most economical method of data collection, allowing for wide distribution
and is best suited to handle complex questions.
Measurement of Research Variables
All constructs were measured using multiple items, 7-point Likert scales ranging from
strongly disagree to strongly agree. Website quality consists of four scales namely information
quality, website design, security and payment system. Information quality will be evaluated
from three dimensions: information accuracy, information comprehensibility and information
completeness. These dimensions were adapted from the items initially developed by Jeong et
al.(2003) and Muylle et al. (2004). On the other hand, website design will be evaluated from four
aspects: navigation, colour combination and ease of [Link] survey instrument consists of two
sections. In the first section, respondents were requested to rate their agreement on statements
related to their latest online food ordering experience. Each item was measured on a 7-point
Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). In the second section, respondents
were asked to fill in their demographic profile.
DATA ANALYSIS
This study comprises three sections of data analysis. The first section is descriptive analysis
based on the demographic information of the respondents. The second section discusses the
validity of the research variable based on the confirmatory factor analysis. Lastly, section three
analyses structural equation modelling and test the hypothesised relationship.
Demo graphical Profile of the Respondents
The study generated 353 usable questionnaires which resulted in a response rate of 58.8%.
Table 1 summarizes important demographic characteristics of the respondents.
.children, 11.3 percent of respondents have one child, 10.8 percent of respondents have two
children and 21.8 percent of respondents have three or more children.
CONCLUSIONS
In this study, attempt was made to identify the key success factors that lead to loyalty in
an online ordering environment. Results suggest that online food ordering companies have
to emphasise on information quality, website design, security/privacy and payment system
towards their customers in order to increase the level of web trust and satisfaction. The service
providers could also enjoy continuous recurring revenues from the loyal customers if they
provide efficient delivery, reliable customer service and food quality.
Therefore, this empirical study offers several important findings, summarised as follows:
• Information quality has a positive impact on web trust which is consistent with the study of
Yoon (2002).
• Customer service has positive impact on satisfaction which is consistent with the study of
Zeithmal, Parasuraman and Malhotra (2002).
• Food quality has positive impact on satisfaction, which is consistent with the study of Qin
and Prybutok (2009).
• Customer satisfaction has positive impact on loyalty which is consistent with the study of
Flavian et al. (2006) and Yoon (2002).
Finally, an unexpected link between the second order factor namely service quality and loyalty
reflects that efficient delivery, reliable customer service and food characteristics (e.g. freshness,
presentation, healthy) are also essentials for operating successful food ordering services.
REFERENCES
Anderson, R. E., & Srinivasan, S. S. (2003). E-satisfaction and e-loyalty: a contingency
framework. Psychology and Marketing, 20(2), 123-138.
Anderson, E. W. (2003). The formation of market-level expectations and its covariates. Journal
of Consumer Research, 30(1), 115-124.
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Saad Andaleeb, S., & Conway, C. (2006). Customer satisfaction in the restaurant industry: an
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Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review
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