Antecedents of Customer Loyalty in the Online Shopping Environment

Literature has stressed the importance of customer retention (loyalty) as it is considered to be a vital source in attaining not only competitive advantage but also improved business performance. A number of studies on online shopping behavior have indirectly related customer satisfaction to repurchase intention. But very few studies have explicitly studied the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the online environment. However, recently researchers have argued that customer satisfaction may not be a good indicator of customer loyalty and suggested that perceived value may be a better predictor. In other words, “distinct value propositions” could be used to develop customer loyalty. Therefore, in this paper, we study the relationship between perceived value (developed via web technologies) and customer loyalty. We propose that relational benefits factors formulate the “distinct value propositions” (perceived value) needed to generate customer loyalty in the online environment.