Description
Internet has grown exponentially in recent years, turning into popular tools for consumer to search for
information, make payment, shopping and so on. This study focuses on Generation Y's online website
satisfaction in the apparel industry. This study identified four important factors affecting the consumer
satisfaction on website: usability, credibility, service quality and transaction costs. The results show that
usability, credibility and service quality will affect the customers satisfaction when they purchase via
website.
Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase:
A study of Generation Y in Malaysia
Ying San Lim
*
, Pui Chuan Heng, Tuan Hock Ng, Chew Sze Cheah
Faculty of Business, Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 19 August 2014
Accepted 30 October 2015
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Website satisfaction
Credibility
Usability
Service quality
Transaction cost
a b s t r a c t
Internet has grown exponentially in recent years, turning into popular tools for consumer to search for
information, make payment, shopping and so on. This study focuses on Generation Y's online website
satisfaction in the apparel industry. This study identi?ed four important factors affecting the consumer
satisfaction on website: usability, credibility, service quality and transaction costs. The results show that
usability, credibility and service quality will affect the customers satisfaction when they purchase via
website.
© 2015 College of Management, National Cheng Kung University. Production and hosting by Elsevier
Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Internet usage has increased rapidly in recent years. In 2012,
there were 2405 million Internet subscribers worldwide, repre-
senting 34.3% of the total world population (Internet World
Statistics, 2014). The increasing number of Internet users world-
wide has created huge opportunities for online business. The rapid
expansion of internet adoption throughout the world has created
an extraordinary pace of change in the marketing landscape and
opened business opportunities for marketers (Lee, Cyril Eze, &
Ndubisi, 2011). For example, online business or e-commerce was
never heard of two decades ago. However, these are considered the
most exciting and ef?cient channels available in the markets this
century.
As online business or electronic business became important and
continues to grow, the numbers of consumer purchases online has
also increased amazingly. Among all products purchased online,
apparel purchases represent one of the increasing trends in online
shopping (Goldsmith & Goldsmith, 2002). Critics said online
apparel purchasing was unlikely to be successful in the early days of
e-commerce due to the habits of consumers who like to touch and
physically try on clothes. However, this changed recently when the
volume of apparel sold, including shirts, footwear and fashion
adornments increased steadily and online revenues for fashion or
apparel websites have grown also. Clothes retailers, such as
LandsEnd.com, GreatUniversal.com, and Littlewoodsdirect.com
have been jostled online by ‘brick’ apparel retailers as these busi-
nesses develop their multi-channel strategies and build their ex-
istence online (Rowley, 2004).
When online apparel purchase became common, consumers
became more accepting of it. Park and Stoel (2005) claimed that
many shoppers show strong enthusiasm and con?dence in pur-
chasing apparel using the Internet. In the USA, online apparel
provides the highest revenue amongst online product categories
(Park & Stoel, 2005). eMarketer (2012) reported that online apparel
merchandise in the USA reached $34.2 billion in 2012. The same
phenomenon happened in Asia, for example in Taiwan, online
apparel has become the biggest category of merchandise in online
sales (Cho & Wang, 2010). Annual sales in Taiwan have shown the
increasing rate of over 30% of total online sales every year.
Despite the growth of online apparel purchases globally, things
did not perform as expected in the Malaysian market. Many online
shoppers in Malaysia still hesitate to purchase apparel online.
Malaysia Crunch (2011) reported that Malaysian online consumers
have a relatively low adoption rate towards online apparel pur-
chases, providing only 10% of overall e-commerce sales in Malaysia.
Many Malaysians are still hesitant about the concept of online
shopping as an alternative channel to make their apparel
* Corresponding author. Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama, 75450 Bukit Beruang, Melaka,
Malaysia.
E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.S. Lim).
Peer review under responsibility of College of Management, National Cheng
Kung University.
HOSTED BY
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Asia Paci?c Management Review
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ apmrvhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
1029-3132/© 2015 College of Management, National Cheng Kung University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.
Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
purchases. They believe that apparel purchase needs direct
customer involvement (Ha & Stoel, 2004). Ha and Stoel (2004)
stated that consumers are likely to examine clothes physically to
assess colour, design, size and fabric during apparel shopping. Be-
sides, such clothing products differ extensively according to price,
quality, design and body ?t (Hansen & Jensen, 2009). Consumers
perceive that online apparel purchase is particularly risky
compared to traditional shopping because of uncertainty regarding
the product and trustworthiness of online purchasing websites.
Even though consumers' perceptions of the risk of purchase is
important in affecting their online apparel purchase, many online
marketers still overlook how website characteristics will impact
customer purchasing.
1.1. The importance of website characteristics
In the USA, the steady growth in numbers of online shoppers
has boosted online business sales. Rueter (2012) identi?ed that
most growth in e-commerce has resulted fromwebsite and service
improvements especially in the apparel and jewellery industries.
The large sales volume of online apparel was the main cause of the
rapid growth in online sales in the USA. However, despite this
rapid growth in the USA, online apparel retailers in Malaysia are
still facing dif?culties in improving sales, where the industry only
managed to obtain 10% of overall e-commerce sales (approxi-
mately RM181 million). Malaysian shoppers' continued hesitation
to buy apparel online is the main impact factor on online apparel
sales and has become the biggest challenge for the online apparel
industry.
Furthermore, according to Ahmad, Omar, and Ramayah (2010),
online apparel retailers in Malaysia are struggling to build the pool
of repeat customers since customers do not return even after
making a purchase. In fact, this dif?culty may be caused by the
online retailers themselves. Most online apparel retailers are un-
able to instil con?dence in customers and fail to persuade them to
return to their websites. This may be caused by the failure to
satisfy their customers. Therefore, every online industry and ?rm
tries its best to meet customers' needs and wants to establish and
maintain a positive long-term relationship with their online
shoppers. However, many tend to overlook the signi?cance of the
website element that plays a role in satisfying customers in
addition to being a channel for advertisement and promotion.
Once a customer is dissatis?ed, they will be reluctant to engage
further with the website. According to Fang, Chiu, and Wang
(2011), customer satisfaction is especially important to the suc-
cess of online stores as it is the key antecedent in?uencing
repurchase intention, something most online retailers have
overlooked.
In addition, most online marketers in Malaysia tend to spend a
huge amount of money on online advertisements to attract more
online shoppers to the online business environment. However,
most have overlooked website elements that are critical to ful?l
customer satisfaction. Research has proved that website quality
favours development of pro?table consumer behaviours, such as
satisfaction and loyalty (Casalo, Flavi an, & Guinalíu, 2008).
Therefore, instead of throwing money at website advertising, they
should ?rst consider how to improve website quality before online
traf?c.
Looking at the issues highlighted above, this research focuses on
factors that affect customer online website satisfaction in the online
apparel industry. In particular, it identi?es website quality as the
main cause of online apparel business failure in Malaysia. In addi-
tion, few studies have been conducted in Malaysia in the area of
online website satisfaction in the apparel industry that involve
Generation Y. Hence, this study tries to ?ll this research gap.
2. Research methodology
Online website satisfaction can be described as customer satis-
faction towards online website attributes or quality. Oliver (1980)
de?ned customer satisfaction as customer evaluations of a prod-
uct or service based on individual expectations and perceived
performance.
Online businesses face dif?culties retaining existing online
shoppers' satisfaction and loyalty to current websites due to
intense competition in the market. According to Wolff (1998),
business failures are increasing because most customers are
dissatis?ed with online website performance. Customer satisfac-
tion has been regarded as the key to success for online businesses
(Fang et al., 2011). Researchers said elements of website quality
have different impacts on customers' online satisfaction.
Website usability can be de?ned as the extent to which it allows
online users to reach speci?ed objectives with effectiveness, ef?-
ciency, and satisfaction when undertaking a goal directed task on
the website (Jenny, Frances, & Geoff, 2010). Flavian, Guinaliu, and
Gurrea (2006) found that website usability was one of the key
antecedents for de?ning website quality. Website interface or us-
ability impacts on customer satisfaction with the website interface
(Cho & Fiorito, 2009; Maditinos & Theodoridis, 2010). Hence, the
hypothesis below:
H1. There is a signi?cant relationship between usability and
customer online website satisfaction.
Many studies have de?ned website credibility as believable,
trustworthy, reliable information provided on the website (Fogg &
Tseng, 1999; Alam, Bakar, Ismail, & Ahsan, 2008), secure and with
privacy (Wang, Wang, Lin, & Tang, 2003) during the online pur-
chase. Previous studies have stated that elements of online business
website quality, such as security and privacy, in?uences e-trust as
well as e-satisfaction (Kim, Jin, & Swinney, 2009; Maditinos &
Theodoridis, 2010). Thus, the hypothesis below:
H2. There is a signi?cant relationship between credibility and
customer online website satisfaction.
Service quality is de?ned as corresponding to the customer's
expectation and perception according to his/her needs and wants
(Edvardsson, 1998; Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988; Pizam &
Ellis, 1999).
Service quality in online business websites can in?uence cus-
tomers' satisfaction, retention, and long-term relationship. As re-
ported by Chang and Chang (2011), the failure of most online
businesses is due to poor service quality as service performance
does not meet customer expectations during the transaction and
delivery process. Service failures tend to create customer dissatis-
faction and decrease their con?dence in and commitment to the
particular website. Hence, the hypothesis below:
H3. There is a signi?cant relationship between service quality and
customer online website satisfaction.
Williamson (1975) de?ned online transaction costs as the total
costs of completing transactions either by one organizational form
or another throughtheinternet. Transactioncosts includesearching,
?nding, negotiating, and supervising the actions of potential part-
ners, suchas suppliers andcustomers. Devaraj, Fan, andKohli (2002)
identi?ed that lower transaction costs result in higher customer
satisfaction towards a website and create repeat purchase intention.
Furthermore, Yang, Wu, and Wang (2009) showed that transaction
cost in?uences online satisfaction. Therefore, the hypothesis below:
H4. There is a signi?cant relationship between transaction costs
and customer online website satisfaction.
Y.S. Lim et al. / Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5 2
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
2.1. Target respondents
According to Dholakia and Uusitalo (2002), Generation Y is the
main group of shoppers who buy products online compared to
other generations. Gutow (2012) also stated that Generation Y has
great buying power and, hence, is expectedly to be involved in
online purchases. Most members of Generation Y (Gen Y) spent ?ve
or more hours per week online and 96% of them visited online
stores to search for products before purchase. This has become an
opportunity for the online apparel industry to boost sales by
reaching the Gen Y market through online websites.
2.2. Measurement
A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data.
The questionnaire was divided into three parts: demographic, on-
line apparel purchase and research variables. All items were
adopted from previous studies: seven items from Casalo, Flavian,
and Guinalíu's (2007) usability measurement; three items from
Fang et al. (2011) on credibility, four items of service quality from
Fang et al. (2011); 10 items that measure transaction cost (Teo &Yu,
2005); and four items from Casalo et al. (2007) on online website
satisfaction. The questionnaire was sent for expert review before
data collection. Two hundred questionnaires were collected during
the data collection period.
3. Data analysis and discussion
3.1. Respondent pro?le
All respondents in this study were Generation Y, aged between
18 and 35 years, who had online apparel purchase experience in the
past six months. The majority of respondents used the internet
daily (178 respondents). Some used it several times a week (15
respondents) and three respondents used the internet once a
month.
In terms of the average number of hours spent online, most
respondents spent one to 4 h online per day (95 respondents), 66
spent ?ve to 8 h online per day, and 30 respondents spent more
than 8 h online per day. Only nine respondents spent less than 1 h
per day online.
In term of frequency of online apparel purchase in the past six
months, most respondents purchased apparel online three times
(140 respondents). Thirty respondents purchased apparel online
three to ?ve times in the past six months, 19 respondents ?ve to 10
times, six respondents more than 15 times, and ?ve respondents
10e15 times.
3.2. Reliability
The reliability test used was Cronbach's alpha; for all research
variables values were higher than 0.7. Cronbach's alpha for usability
was 0.883, credibility 0.834, service quality 0.728, transaction cost
0.882, and online website satisfaction 0.872. Cronbach's alpha
showed high internal consistency, implying that the measures are
reliable.
3.3. Hypothesis testing
Multiple regressions were used to identify the relationship be-
tween the independent and dependent variable. Results are shown
in Table 1.
The result shows that R-square was 0.387, which demonstrates
that independent variables explain 38.7% of the variance in online
website satisfaction. The linear relationship between usability,
credibility, service quality, and transaction costs with online web-
site satisfaction is signi?cant with an F-value of 30.713 at the 0.01
signi?cance level. Therefore, the model ?ts this study.
H1. There is a signi?cant relationship between usability and
customer online website.
Since the signi?cance level of usability with online website
satisfaction was 0.000, which is less than 0.05, H1 is accepted. Us-
ability was the second highest coef?cient (beta ¼ 0.283), hence, us-
ability has a signi?cant positive effect on online website satisfaction.
H2. There is a signi?cant relationship between credibility and
customer online website satisfaction.
Signi?cance level of credibility with online website satisfaction
was 0.000, hence, H2 is accepted. The beta value for credibility was
0.230. Therefore, credibility has a signi?cant positive effect on on-
line website satisfaction.
H3. There is a signi?cant relationship between service quality and
customer online website satisfaction.
The signi?cance level of service quality with online website
satisfaction shown in Table 1 was 0.000, therefore, H3 is accepted.
The test also showed that service quality had the highest co-
ef?cients (beta ¼ 0.304) compared to others. In other words, ser-
vice quality has the highest impact on online website satisfaction,
which in turn in?uences online shoppers. Thus, the study con-
cludes that service quality has a signi?cant positive effect on online
website satisfaction.
H4. There is a signi?cant relationship between transaction costs
and customer online website satisfaction.
According to the results shown, transaction costs did not have a
statistically signi?cant relationship with online website satisfaction
due to the signi?cance levels (0.740) being higher than 0.050.
Hence, H4 is rejected.
4. Discussion
4.1. Usability
According to Flavian et al. (2006), website usability is the key
antecedent that directly in?uences customer online website satis-
faction. Website usability helps a company satisfy online con-
sumers' needs and creates higher loyalty levels towards the
particular website (Casalo et al., 2007). Hence, possessing well-
managed usability on an apparel website is critical for the apparel
industry to attract more customers and increase online sales.
4.2. Credibility
The ?nding of this study regarding credibility is supported by Liu
and Arnett (2000) who indicated that credibility played the most
prominent role in online shopping services, including apparel web-
sites. According to Pavlou and Gefen (2005), if a website provides a
poor security/privacy policy or unreliable information, it will make
online shoppers reluctant to engage in online transactions. In addi-
tion, research also found that perceived lack of website credibility
was one of the main reasons why consumers distrust the internet
and, thus, disrupt the growth of e-commerce (Casalo et al., 2008).
4.3. Service quality
In the study of Worsfold (1999), service quality was considered a
performance indicator, providing added value and contributing to
Y.S. Lim et al. / Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5 3
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
competitive advantage for a company or website. Thus, superior
service quality on the apparel website may help a company or
owner gain competitive advantage over other industry competi-
tors. Santos (2003) also discovered that service quality of online
stores can be in?uential in satisfying customers. This can be
explained when superior service quality is considered a determi-
nant of competitiveness in satisfying and retaining customer loy-
alty (Ojo, 2010), since poor service quality, such as broken links,
leads to customer frustration and dissatisfaction.
4.4. Transaction costs
The ?nding of this study with regard to transaction costs is
inconsistent with previous ?ndings. Transaction cost is the time
and effort consumers spend searching, monitoring, and adapting
before they buy a product and service online. According to the
?ndings of this study, most respondents are not concerned with
sacri?cing time and effort (transaction costs) in searching for
apparel websites. This ?nding is consistent with Gutow(2012), who
reported that Generation Y are used to and do not mind searching
for product or service information before they make purchase de-
cisions. Gen Y will search online to learn more about products or
services and to con?rm whether or not what they saw on TV was
true and to compare prices and attributes among different online
stores. Cheesman (2012) indicated that Gen Y loves to search
products to look for reduced prices, offers, and better deals.
Furthermore, Gutow (2012) also found that Gen Y was the ?rst
generation to feel at ease shopping online, purchasing anything
from apparel to groceries. The author further explained that this
group of consumers likes to use smartphones to download retailer-
speci?c apps, making the purchasing process simpler, more
convenient, and time saving. These are all reasons why Gen Y thinks
searching activities before purchase are not transaction costs for
them. However, Gen Y likes to spend time and effort searching
information and feel shopping online is easy. Perhaps, the trans-
action costs would affect other generations of consumers' online
website satisfaction, but not Gen Y.
5. Conclusion
This research focused on the issues faced by the online apparel
industry in Malaysia. Overall, four hypotheses in relation to us-
ability, credibility, service quality, and transaction costs were
developed. With a sample of 200 Gen Y participants, the results of
the multiple regression test indicated that all variables, except for
transaction cost, were signi?cant predictors of customer website
satisfaction.
5.1. Implications
As shown in the results, there is a signi?cant relationship be-
tween website usability and online website satisfaction. Therefore,
the online apparel industry should further improve website
usability to satisfy online shoppers. Website owners could include a
site search engine to help customers locate and retrieve informa-
tion more easily. Additionally, they should also use appropriate
text-inside links; the establishment should provide a clear and
convenient link or navigation button to eliminate customer
confusion. Furthermore, the online apparel industry should also
keep website content clear and simple (Thomason, 2004). Not only
will this provide their customers with more information about the
company's products and services, but also help bond the relation-
ship with their customers.
The online apparel industry should also take privacy and secu-
rity issues on the sites seriously. No customers will shop there if
they feel insecure as to the website's credibility. It is important that
the transaction or payment is made strictly impersonal and anon-
ymous. Moreover, the website information must be reliable and
cited with several professional. In short, strong and improved
website security could create customer trust and ability to build
long-term relationships with online customers. Hence, this would
increase online shoppers' repurchase intentions on a particular
apparel website.
Nowadays, service quality on a website has become indispens-
able in satisfying online consumers or shoppers. Apparel websites
are strongly advised to provide superior e-services to online cus-
tomers, such as prompt service responses to customers' requests. If
the company or owner is unable to provide real-time customer
services, they can put a telephone service hotline number on their
webpage where it can be identi?ed easily by online customers. This
allows customers the opportunity to ask questions regarding
products and services if they have any doubts about the products.
Most important, a website owner should maintain the quality of
services provided, because a good service should be able to
persuade customers to repeat purchases in future.
By achieving the criteria mentioned earlier, the online apparel
website provider might be more competitive in the industry or
market. This is because if they are able to meet the perceptions and
expectations of their online customers, with regard to usability,
service quality, and credibility, they can better satisfy online
apparel shoppers. Consequently, the company should be able to
grab more market share and expand its business to the whole
Malaysian market, or global market, in the future.
5.2. Suggestions for future research
Future research should focus on the possible factors affecting
transaction cost and the in?uence of transaction cost for different
generations. In addition, a comparative study could be conducted to
see the differences in online apparel purchase among different
generations in different countries.
References
Ahmad, N., Omar, A., & Ramayah, T. (2010). Consumer lifestyles and online shopping
continuance intention. Business Strategy Series, 11(4), 227e243.
Table 1
Multiple linear regressions.
Unstandardized coef?cients Standardized coef?cients t Sig.
B Std. error Beta
Usability 0.312 0.069 0.283 4.517 0.000
Credibility 0.237 0.065 0.230 3.654 0.000
Service quality 0.302 0.063 0.304 4.825 0.000
Transaction costs 0.019 0.056 0.019 0.332 0.740
Dependent variable: online website satisfaction.
R
2
¼ 0.387, F ¼ 30.713, signi?cance level ¼ 0.000.
Y.S. Lim et al. / Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5 4
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
Alam, S. S., Bakar, Z., Ismail, H., & Ahsan, M. N. (2008). Young consumers online
shopping: an empirical study. Journal of Internet Business, (5), 81e98.
Casalo, L. V., Flavian, C., & Guinalíu, M. (2008). The role of satisfaction and website
usability in developing customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth in the e-
banking services. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 26(6), 399e417.
Casalo, L. V., Flavian, C., & Guinalíu, M. (2007). The role of security, privacy, usability
and reputation in the development of online banking. Online Information Re-
view, 31(5), 583e603.
Chang, W., & Chang, H. (2011). A dynamic system of e-service failure, recovery and
trust. In PACIS 2011 proceedings, Brisbane, Australia (pp. 1e13).
Cheesman, D. (2012). Don't call generation Y ‘cheap’: they're conscious, creative, but
coddled.http://generationalguru.com/2012/10/dont-call-generation-y-cheap-
theyre-conscious-creative-but-coddled/. Accessed 28.12.12.
Cho, H., & Fiorito, S. S. (2009). Acceptance of online customization for apparel
shopping. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 37(5),
389e407.
Cho, H., & Wang, Y. (2010). Cultural comparison for the acceptance of online apparel
customization. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 27(6), 550e557.
Devaraj, S., Fan, M., & Kohli, R. (2002). Antecedents of B2C channel satisfaction and
preference: validating e-commerce metrics. Information Systems Research, 13(3),
316e333.
Dholakia, R., & Uusitalo, O. (2002). Switching to electronic stores: consumer char-
acteristics and the perception of shopping bene?t. International Journal of Retail
& Distribution Management, 30(10), 459e469.
Edvardsson, B. (1998). Service quality improvement. Managing Service Quality
Journal: Research and Concept, 8(2), 142e149.
eMarketer. (2012). Apparel drives US retail ecommerce sales growth.http://www.
emarketer.com/PressRelease.aspx?R¼1008956. Accessed 23.07.12.
Fang, Y., Chiu, C., & Wang, E. T. G. (2011). Understanding customers' satisfaction and
repurchase intentions: an integration of IS success model, trust, and justice.
Internet Research, 21(4), 479e503.
Flavian, C., Guinaliu, M., & Gurrea, R. (2006). The role played by perceived usability,
satisfaction and consumer trust on website loyalty. Information & Management,
43, 1e14.
Fogg, B. J., & Tseng, H. (1999). The elements of computer credibility. In Proceedings of
CHI'99, human factors in computing systems, Pittsburgh, PA, (pp. 80e87).
Goldsmith, R. E., & Goldsmith, E. B. (2002). Buying apparel over the internet. Journal
of Product & Brand Management, 11(2), 89e102.
Gutow, A. (2012). Winning over generation Y.http://www.truaxis.com/blog/12746/
winning-over-generation-y/. Accessed 28.12.12.
Ha, Y., & Stoel, L. (2004). Internet apparel shopping behaviors: the in?uence of
general innovativeness. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Manage-
ment, 32(8), 377e385.
Hansen, T., & Jensen, J. M. (2009). Shopping orientation and online clothing pur-
chases: the role of gender and purchase situation. European Journal of Mar-
keting, 43(9/10), 1154e1170.
Internet World Statistics (2014).http://www.internetworldstats.com/ Accessed.
04.06.14.
Jenny, C., Frances, J., & Geoff, B. (2010). The usability and functionality of the online
catalogue. Aslib Proceedings, 62(1), 70e78.
Kim, J., Jin, B., & Swinney, J. L. (2009). The role of etail quality, e-satisfaction and e-
trust in online loyalty development process. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services, 16(4), 239e247.
Lee, C. H., Cyril Eze, U., & Ndubisi, N. O. (2011). Analyzing key determinants of online
repurchase intentions. Asia Paci?c Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 23(2),
200e221.
Liu, C., & Arnett, P. (2000). Exploring the factors associated with websites success
in the context of electronic commerce. Information and Management, 38,
23e33.
Maditinos, D. I., & Theodoridis, K. (2010). Satisfaction determinants in the Greek
online shopping context. Information Technology & People, 23(4), 312e329.
Malaysia Crunch. (2011). Malaysia's e-commerce statistics (updated).http://www.
malaysiacrunch.com/2012/03/malaysias-e-commerce-statistics-updated.html.
Accessed 18.07.12.
Ojo, O. (2010). The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction
in the telecommunication industry: evidence from Nigeria. Broad Research in
Accounting, Negotiation, and Distribution, 1(1), 88e100.
Oliver, R. L. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of
satisfaction decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, 17(4), 460e469.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1988). SERVQUAL: a multiple-item
scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality. Journal of
Retailing, 64(1), 12e40.
Park, J., & Stoel, L. (2005). Effect of brand familiarity, experience and information on
online apparel purchase. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Manage-
ment, 33(2), 148e160.
Pavlou, P., & Gefen, D. (2005). Building effective online marketplaces with
institution-based trust. Information Systems Research, 15(1), 37e59.
Pizam, A., & Ellis, T. (1999). Customer satisfaction and its measurement in hospi-
tality enterprises. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management,
11(7), 326e339.
Rowley, J. (2004). Online branding. Online Information Review, 28(2), 2131e2138.
Rueter, T. (2012). E-retail spending to increase 62% by 2016.http://www.
internetretailer.com/2012/02/27/e-retail-spending-increase-45-2016.
Accessed 20.07.12.
Santos, J. (2003). E-service quality: a model of virtual service quality dimensions.
Managing Service Quality, 13(3), 233e246.
Teo, T. S. H., & Yu, Y. (2005). Online buying behavior: a transaction cost economics
perspective. Omega, 33, 451e465.
Thomason, L. (2004). Web site usability checklist.http://www.netmechanic.com/
news/vol7/design_no4.htm. Accessed 25.12.12.
Wang, Y., Wang, Y., Lin, H., & Tang, T. (2003). Determinants of user acceptance of
internet banking: an empirical study. International Journal of Service Industry
Management, 14(5), 501e519.
Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and hierarchies: Analysis and antitrust implications.
New York, NY: Free Press.
Wolff, M. (1998). How I survived the gold rush years on the internet. New York, NY:
Simon and Schuster.
Worsfold, P. (1999). HRM, performance, commitment and service quality in the
hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management,
11(7), 340e348.
Yang, H. E., Wu, C. C., & Wang, K. C. (2009). An empirical analysis of online game
service satisfaction and loyalty. Expert System with Applications, 36(2),
1816e1825.
Y.S. Lim et al. / Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5 5
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
doc_772930478.pdf
Internet has grown exponentially in recent years, turning into popular tools for consumer to search for
information, make payment, shopping and so on. This study focuses on Generation Y's online website
satisfaction in the apparel industry. This study identified four important factors affecting the consumer
satisfaction on website: usability, credibility, service quality and transaction costs. The results show that
usability, credibility and service quality will affect the customers satisfaction when they purchase via
website.
Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase:
A study of Generation Y in Malaysia
Ying San Lim
*
, Pui Chuan Heng, Tuan Hock Ng, Chew Sze Cheah
Faculty of Business, Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 19 August 2014
Accepted 30 October 2015
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Website satisfaction
Credibility
Usability
Service quality
Transaction cost
a b s t r a c t
Internet has grown exponentially in recent years, turning into popular tools for consumer to search for
information, make payment, shopping and so on. This study focuses on Generation Y's online website
satisfaction in the apparel industry. This study identi?ed four important factors affecting the consumer
satisfaction on website: usability, credibility, service quality and transaction costs. The results show that
usability, credibility and service quality will affect the customers satisfaction when they purchase via
website.
© 2015 College of Management, National Cheng Kung University. Production and hosting by Elsevier
Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Internet usage has increased rapidly in recent years. In 2012,
there were 2405 million Internet subscribers worldwide, repre-
senting 34.3% of the total world population (Internet World
Statistics, 2014). The increasing number of Internet users world-
wide has created huge opportunities for online business. The rapid
expansion of internet adoption throughout the world has created
an extraordinary pace of change in the marketing landscape and
opened business opportunities for marketers (Lee, Cyril Eze, &
Ndubisi, 2011). For example, online business or e-commerce was
never heard of two decades ago. However, these are considered the
most exciting and ef?cient channels available in the markets this
century.
As online business or electronic business became important and
continues to grow, the numbers of consumer purchases online has
also increased amazingly. Among all products purchased online,
apparel purchases represent one of the increasing trends in online
shopping (Goldsmith & Goldsmith, 2002). Critics said online
apparel purchasing was unlikely to be successful in the early days of
e-commerce due to the habits of consumers who like to touch and
physically try on clothes. However, this changed recently when the
volume of apparel sold, including shirts, footwear and fashion
adornments increased steadily and online revenues for fashion or
apparel websites have grown also. Clothes retailers, such as
LandsEnd.com, GreatUniversal.com, and Littlewoodsdirect.com
have been jostled online by ‘brick’ apparel retailers as these busi-
nesses develop their multi-channel strategies and build their ex-
istence online (Rowley, 2004).
When online apparel purchase became common, consumers
became more accepting of it. Park and Stoel (2005) claimed that
many shoppers show strong enthusiasm and con?dence in pur-
chasing apparel using the Internet. In the USA, online apparel
provides the highest revenue amongst online product categories
(Park & Stoel, 2005). eMarketer (2012) reported that online apparel
merchandise in the USA reached $34.2 billion in 2012. The same
phenomenon happened in Asia, for example in Taiwan, online
apparel has become the biggest category of merchandise in online
sales (Cho & Wang, 2010). Annual sales in Taiwan have shown the
increasing rate of over 30% of total online sales every year.
Despite the growth of online apparel purchases globally, things
did not perform as expected in the Malaysian market. Many online
shoppers in Malaysia still hesitate to purchase apparel online.
Malaysia Crunch (2011) reported that Malaysian online consumers
have a relatively low adoption rate towards online apparel pur-
chases, providing only 10% of overall e-commerce sales in Malaysia.
Many Malaysians are still hesitant about the concept of online
shopping as an alternative channel to make their apparel
* Corresponding author. Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama, 75450 Bukit Beruang, Melaka,
Malaysia.
E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.S. Lim).
Peer review under responsibility of College of Management, National Cheng
Kung University.
HOSTED BY
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Asia Paci?c Management Review
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ apmrvhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
1029-3132/© 2015 College of Management, National Cheng Kung University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.
Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
purchases. They believe that apparel purchase needs direct
customer involvement (Ha & Stoel, 2004). Ha and Stoel (2004)
stated that consumers are likely to examine clothes physically to
assess colour, design, size and fabric during apparel shopping. Be-
sides, such clothing products differ extensively according to price,
quality, design and body ?t (Hansen & Jensen, 2009). Consumers
perceive that online apparel purchase is particularly risky
compared to traditional shopping because of uncertainty regarding
the product and trustworthiness of online purchasing websites.
Even though consumers' perceptions of the risk of purchase is
important in affecting their online apparel purchase, many online
marketers still overlook how website characteristics will impact
customer purchasing.
1.1. The importance of website characteristics
In the USA, the steady growth in numbers of online shoppers
has boosted online business sales. Rueter (2012) identi?ed that
most growth in e-commerce has resulted fromwebsite and service
improvements especially in the apparel and jewellery industries.
The large sales volume of online apparel was the main cause of the
rapid growth in online sales in the USA. However, despite this
rapid growth in the USA, online apparel retailers in Malaysia are
still facing dif?culties in improving sales, where the industry only
managed to obtain 10% of overall e-commerce sales (approxi-
mately RM181 million). Malaysian shoppers' continued hesitation
to buy apparel online is the main impact factor on online apparel
sales and has become the biggest challenge for the online apparel
industry.
Furthermore, according to Ahmad, Omar, and Ramayah (2010),
online apparel retailers in Malaysia are struggling to build the pool
of repeat customers since customers do not return even after
making a purchase. In fact, this dif?culty may be caused by the
online retailers themselves. Most online apparel retailers are un-
able to instil con?dence in customers and fail to persuade them to
return to their websites. This may be caused by the failure to
satisfy their customers. Therefore, every online industry and ?rm
tries its best to meet customers' needs and wants to establish and
maintain a positive long-term relationship with their online
shoppers. However, many tend to overlook the signi?cance of the
website element that plays a role in satisfying customers in
addition to being a channel for advertisement and promotion.
Once a customer is dissatis?ed, they will be reluctant to engage
further with the website. According to Fang, Chiu, and Wang
(2011), customer satisfaction is especially important to the suc-
cess of online stores as it is the key antecedent in?uencing
repurchase intention, something most online retailers have
overlooked.
In addition, most online marketers in Malaysia tend to spend a
huge amount of money on online advertisements to attract more
online shoppers to the online business environment. However,
most have overlooked website elements that are critical to ful?l
customer satisfaction. Research has proved that website quality
favours development of pro?table consumer behaviours, such as
satisfaction and loyalty (Casalo, Flavi an, & Guinalíu, 2008).
Therefore, instead of throwing money at website advertising, they
should ?rst consider how to improve website quality before online
traf?c.
Looking at the issues highlighted above, this research focuses on
factors that affect customer online website satisfaction in the online
apparel industry. In particular, it identi?es website quality as the
main cause of online apparel business failure in Malaysia. In addi-
tion, few studies have been conducted in Malaysia in the area of
online website satisfaction in the apparel industry that involve
Generation Y. Hence, this study tries to ?ll this research gap.
2. Research methodology
Online website satisfaction can be described as customer satis-
faction towards online website attributes or quality. Oliver (1980)
de?ned customer satisfaction as customer evaluations of a prod-
uct or service based on individual expectations and perceived
performance.
Online businesses face dif?culties retaining existing online
shoppers' satisfaction and loyalty to current websites due to
intense competition in the market. According to Wolff (1998),
business failures are increasing because most customers are
dissatis?ed with online website performance. Customer satisfac-
tion has been regarded as the key to success for online businesses
(Fang et al., 2011). Researchers said elements of website quality
have different impacts on customers' online satisfaction.
Website usability can be de?ned as the extent to which it allows
online users to reach speci?ed objectives with effectiveness, ef?-
ciency, and satisfaction when undertaking a goal directed task on
the website (Jenny, Frances, & Geoff, 2010). Flavian, Guinaliu, and
Gurrea (2006) found that website usability was one of the key
antecedents for de?ning website quality. Website interface or us-
ability impacts on customer satisfaction with the website interface
(Cho & Fiorito, 2009; Maditinos & Theodoridis, 2010). Hence, the
hypothesis below:
H1. There is a signi?cant relationship between usability and
customer online website satisfaction.
Many studies have de?ned website credibility as believable,
trustworthy, reliable information provided on the website (Fogg &
Tseng, 1999; Alam, Bakar, Ismail, & Ahsan, 2008), secure and with
privacy (Wang, Wang, Lin, & Tang, 2003) during the online pur-
chase. Previous studies have stated that elements of online business
website quality, such as security and privacy, in?uences e-trust as
well as e-satisfaction (Kim, Jin, & Swinney, 2009; Maditinos &
Theodoridis, 2010). Thus, the hypothesis below:
H2. There is a signi?cant relationship between credibility and
customer online website satisfaction.
Service quality is de?ned as corresponding to the customer's
expectation and perception according to his/her needs and wants
(Edvardsson, 1998; Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988; Pizam &
Ellis, 1999).
Service quality in online business websites can in?uence cus-
tomers' satisfaction, retention, and long-term relationship. As re-
ported by Chang and Chang (2011), the failure of most online
businesses is due to poor service quality as service performance
does not meet customer expectations during the transaction and
delivery process. Service failures tend to create customer dissatis-
faction and decrease their con?dence in and commitment to the
particular website. Hence, the hypothesis below:
H3. There is a signi?cant relationship between service quality and
customer online website satisfaction.
Williamson (1975) de?ned online transaction costs as the total
costs of completing transactions either by one organizational form
or another throughtheinternet. Transactioncosts includesearching,
?nding, negotiating, and supervising the actions of potential part-
ners, suchas suppliers andcustomers. Devaraj, Fan, andKohli (2002)
identi?ed that lower transaction costs result in higher customer
satisfaction towards a website and create repeat purchase intention.
Furthermore, Yang, Wu, and Wang (2009) showed that transaction
cost in?uences online satisfaction. Therefore, the hypothesis below:
H4. There is a signi?cant relationship between transaction costs
and customer online website satisfaction.
Y.S. Lim et al. / Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5 2
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
2.1. Target respondents
According to Dholakia and Uusitalo (2002), Generation Y is the
main group of shoppers who buy products online compared to
other generations. Gutow (2012) also stated that Generation Y has
great buying power and, hence, is expectedly to be involved in
online purchases. Most members of Generation Y (Gen Y) spent ?ve
or more hours per week online and 96% of them visited online
stores to search for products before purchase. This has become an
opportunity for the online apparel industry to boost sales by
reaching the Gen Y market through online websites.
2.2. Measurement
A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data.
The questionnaire was divided into three parts: demographic, on-
line apparel purchase and research variables. All items were
adopted from previous studies: seven items from Casalo, Flavian,
and Guinalíu's (2007) usability measurement; three items from
Fang et al. (2011) on credibility, four items of service quality from
Fang et al. (2011); 10 items that measure transaction cost (Teo &Yu,
2005); and four items from Casalo et al. (2007) on online website
satisfaction. The questionnaire was sent for expert review before
data collection. Two hundred questionnaires were collected during
the data collection period.
3. Data analysis and discussion
3.1. Respondent pro?le
All respondents in this study were Generation Y, aged between
18 and 35 years, who had online apparel purchase experience in the
past six months. The majority of respondents used the internet
daily (178 respondents). Some used it several times a week (15
respondents) and three respondents used the internet once a
month.
In terms of the average number of hours spent online, most
respondents spent one to 4 h online per day (95 respondents), 66
spent ?ve to 8 h online per day, and 30 respondents spent more
than 8 h online per day. Only nine respondents spent less than 1 h
per day online.
In term of frequency of online apparel purchase in the past six
months, most respondents purchased apparel online three times
(140 respondents). Thirty respondents purchased apparel online
three to ?ve times in the past six months, 19 respondents ?ve to 10
times, six respondents more than 15 times, and ?ve respondents
10e15 times.
3.2. Reliability
The reliability test used was Cronbach's alpha; for all research
variables values were higher than 0.7. Cronbach's alpha for usability
was 0.883, credibility 0.834, service quality 0.728, transaction cost
0.882, and online website satisfaction 0.872. Cronbach's alpha
showed high internal consistency, implying that the measures are
reliable.
3.3. Hypothesis testing
Multiple regressions were used to identify the relationship be-
tween the independent and dependent variable. Results are shown
in Table 1.
The result shows that R-square was 0.387, which demonstrates
that independent variables explain 38.7% of the variance in online
website satisfaction. The linear relationship between usability,
credibility, service quality, and transaction costs with online web-
site satisfaction is signi?cant with an F-value of 30.713 at the 0.01
signi?cance level. Therefore, the model ?ts this study.
H1. There is a signi?cant relationship between usability and
customer online website.
Since the signi?cance level of usability with online website
satisfaction was 0.000, which is less than 0.05, H1 is accepted. Us-
ability was the second highest coef?cient (beta ¼ 0.283), hence, us-
ability has a signi?cant positive effect on online website satisfaction.
H2. There is a signi?cant relationship between credibility and
customer online website satisfaction.
Signi?cance level of credibility with online website satisfaction
was 0.000, hence, H2 is accepted. The beta value for credibility was
0.230. Therefore, credibility has a signi?cant positive effect on on-
line website satisfaction.
H3. There is a signi?cant relationship between service quality and
customer online website satisfaction.
The signi?cance level of service quality with online website
satisfaction shown in Table 1 was 0.000, therefore, H3 is accepted.
The test also showed that service quality had the highest co-
ef?cients (beta ¼ 0.304) compared to others. In other words, ser-
vice quality has the highest impact on online website satisfaction,
which in turn in?uences online shoppers. Thus, the study con-
cludes that service quality has a signi?cant positive effect on online
website satisfaction.
H4. There is a signi?cant relationship between transaction costs
and customer online website satisfaction.
According to the results shown, transaction costs did not have a
statistically signi?cant relationship with online website satisfaction
due to the signi?cance levels (0.740) being higher than 0.050.
Hence, H4 is rejected.
4. Discussion
4.1. Usability
According to Flavian et al. (2006), website usability is the key
antecedent that directly in?uences customer online website satis-
faction. Website usability helps a company satisfy online con-
sumers' needs and creates higher loyalty levels towards the
particular website (Casalo et al., 2007). Hence, possessing well-
managed usability on an apparel website is critical for the apparel
industry to attract more customers and increase online sales.
4.2. Credibility
The ?nding of this study regarding credibility is supported by Liu
and Arnett (2000) who indicated that credibility played the most
prominent role in online shopping services, including apparel web-
sites. According to Pavlou and Gefen (2005), if a website provides a
poor security/privacy policy or unreliable information, it will make
online shoppers reluctant to engage in online transactions. In addi-
tion, research also found that perceived lack of website credibility
was one of the main reasons why consumers distrust the internet
and, thus, disrupt the growth of e-commerce (Casalo et al., 2008).
4.3. Service quality
In the study of Worsfold (1999), service quality was considered a
performance indicator, providing added value and contributing to
Y.S. Lim et al. / Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5 3
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
competitive advantage for a company or website. Thus, superior
service quality on the apparel website may help a company or
owner gain competitive advantage over other industry competi-
tors. Santos (2003) also discovered that service quality of online
stores can be in?uential in satisfying customers. This can be
explained when superior service quality is considered a determi-
nant of competitiveness in satisfying and retaining customer loy-
alty (Ojo, 2010), since poor service quality, such as broken links,
leads to customer frustration and dissatisfaction.
4.4. Transaction costs
The ?nding of this study with regard to transaction costs is
inconsistent with previous ?ndings. Transaction cost is the time
and effort consumers spend searching, monitoring, and adapting
before they buy a product and service online. According to the
?ndings of this study, most respondents are not concerned with
sacri?cing time and effort (transaction costs) in searching for
apparel websites. This ?nding is consistent with Gutow(2012), who
reported that Generation Y are used to and do not mind searching
for product or service information before they make purchase de-
cisions. Gen Y will search online to learn more about products or
services and to con?rm whether or not what they saw on TV was
true and to compare prices and attributes among different online
stores. Cheesman (2012) indicated that Gen Y loves to search
products to look for reduced prices, offers, and better deals.
Furthermore, Gutow (2012) also found that Gen Y was the ?rst
generation to feel at ease shopping online, purchasing anything
from apparel to groceries. The author further explained that this
group of consumers likes to use smartphones to download retailer-
speci?c apps, making the purchasing process simpler, more
convenient, and time saving. These are all reasons why Gen Y thinks
searching activities before purchase are not transaction costs for
them. However, Gen Y likes to spend time and effort searching
information and feel shopping online is easy. Perhaps, the trans-
action costs would affect other generations of consumers' online
website satisfaction, but not Gen Y.
5. Conclusion
This research focused on the issues faced by the online apparel
industry in Malaysia. Overall, four hypotheses in relation to us-
ability, credibility, service quality, and transaction costs were
developed. With a sample of 200 Gen Y participants, the results of
the multiple regression test indicated that all variables, except for
transaction cost, were signi?cant predictors of customer website
satisfaction.
5.1. Implications
As shown in the results, there is a signi?cant relationship be-
tween website usability and online website satisfaction. Therefore,
the online apparel industry should further improve website
usability to satisfy online shoppers. Website owners could include a
site search engine to help customers locate and retrieve informa-
tion more easily. Additionally, they should also use appropriate
text-inside links; the establishment should provide a clear and
convenient link or navigation button to eliminate customer
confusion. Furthermore, the online apparel industry should also
keep website content clear and simple (Thomason, 2004). Not only
will this provide their customers with more information about the
company's products and services, but also help bond the relation-
ship with their customers.
The online apparel industry should also take privacy and secu-
rity issues on the sites seriously. No customers will shop there if
they feel insecure as to the website's credibility. It is important that
the transaction or payment is made strictly impersonal and anon-
ymous. Moreover, the website information must be reliable and
cited with several professional. In short, strong and improved
website security could create customer trust and ability to build
long-term relationships with online customers. Hence, this would
increase online shoppers' repurchase intentions on a particular
apparel website.
Nowadays, service quality on a website has become indispens-
able in satisfying online consumers or shoppers. Apparel websites
are strongly advised to provide superior e-services to online cus-
tomers, such as prompt service responses to customers' requests. If
the company or owner is unable to provide real-time customer
services, they can put a telephone service hotline number on their
webpage where it can be identi?ed easily by online customers. This
allows customers the opportunity to ask questions regarding
products and services if they have any doubts about the products.
Most important, a website owner should maintain the quality of
services provided, because a good service should be able to
persuade customers to repeat purchases in future.
By achieving the criteria mentioned earlier, the online apparel
website provider might be more competitive in the industry or
market. This is because if they are able to meet the perceptions and
expectations of their online customers, with regard to usability,
service quality, and credibility, they can better satisfy online
apparel shoppers. Consequently, the company should be able to
grab more market share and expand its business to the whole
Malaysian market, or global market, in the future.
5.2. Suggestions for future research
Future research should focus on the possible factors affecting
transaction cost and the in?uence of transaction cost for different
generations. In addition, a comparative study could be conducted to
see the differences in online apparel purchase among different
generations in different countries.
References
Ahmad, N., Omar, A., & Ramayah, T. (2010). Consumer lifestyles and online shopping
continuance intention. Business Strategy Series, 11(4), 227e243.
Table 1
Multiple linear regressions.
Unstandardized coef?cients Standardized coef?cients t Sig.
B Std. error Beta
Usability 0.312 0.069 0.283 4.517 0.000
Credibility 0.237 0.065 0.230 3.654 0.000
Service quality 0.302 0.063 0.304 4.825 0.000
Transaction costs 0.019 0.056 0.019 0.332 0.740
Dependent variable: online website satisfaction.
R
2
¼ 0.387, F ¼ 30.713, signi?cance level ¼ 0.000.
Y.S. Lim et al. / Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5 4
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
Alam, S. S., Bakar, Z., Ismail, H., & Ahsan, M. N. (2008). Young consumers online
shopping: an empirical study. Journal of Internet Business, (5), 81e98.
Casalo, L. V., Flavian, C., & Guinalíu, M. (2008). The role of satisfaction and website
usability in developing customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth in the e-
banking services. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 26(6), 399e417.
Casalo, L. V., Flavian, C., & Guinalíu, M. (2007). The role of security, privacy, usability
and reputation in the development of online banking. Online Information Re-
view, 31(5), 583e603.
Chang, W., & Chang, H. (2011). A dynamic system of e-service failure, recovery and
trust. In PACIS 2011 proceedings, Brisbane, Australia (pp. 1e13).
Cheesman, D. (2012). Don't call generation Y ‘cheap’: they're conscious, creative, but
coddled.http://generationalguru.com/2012/10/dont-call-generation-y-cheap-
theyre-conscious-creative-but-coddled/. Accessed 28.12.12.
Cho, H., & Fiorito, S. S. (2009). Acceptance of online customization for apparel
shopping. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 37(5),
389e407.
Cho, H., & Wang, Y. (2010). Cultural comparison for the acceptance of online apparel
customization. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 27(6), 550e557.
Devaraj, S., Fan, M., & Kohli, R. (2002). Antecedents of B2C channel satisfaction and
preference: validating e-commerce metrics. Information Systems Research, 13(3),
316e333.
Dholakia, R., & Uusitalo, O. (2002). Switching to electronic stores: consumer char-
acteristics and the perception of shopping bene?t. International Journal of Retail
& Distribution Management, 30(10), 459e469.
Edvardsson, B. (1998). Service quality improvement. Managing Service Quality
Journal: Research and Concept, 8(2), 142e149.
eMarketer. (2012). Apparel drives US retail ecommerce sales growth.http://www.
emarketer.com/PressRelease.aspx?R¼1008956. Accessed 23.07.12.
Fang, Y., Chiu, C., & Wang, E. T. G. (2011). Understanding customers' satisfaction and
repurchase intentions: an integration of IS success model, trust, and justice.
Internet Research, 21(4), 479e503.
Flavian, C., Guinaliu, M., & Gurrea, R. (2006). The role played by perceived usability,
satisfaction and consumer trust on website loyalty. Information & Management,
43, 1e14.
Fogg, B. J., & Tseng, H. (1999). The elements of computer credibility. In Proceedings of
CHI'99, human factors in computing systems, Pittsburgh, PA, (pp. 80e87).
Goldsmith, R. E., & Goldsmith, E. B. (2002). Buying apparel over the internet. Journal
of Product & Brand Management, 11(2), 89e102.
Gutow, A. (2012). Winning over generation Y.http://www.truaxis.com/blog/12746/
winning-over-generation-y/. Accessed 28.12.12.
Ha, Y., & Stoel, L. (2004). Internet apparel shopping behaviors: the in?uence of
general innovativeness. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Manage-
ment, 32(8), 377e385.
Hansen, T., & Jensen, J. M. (2009). Shopping orientation and online clothing pur-
chases: the role of gender and purchase situation. European Journal of Mar-
keting, 43(9/10), 1154e1170.
Internet World Statistics (2014).http://www.internetworldstats.com/ Accessed.
04.06.14.
Jenny, C., Frances, J., & Geoff, B. (2010). The usability and functionality of the online
catalogue. Aslib Proceedings, 62(1), 70e78.
Kim, J., Jin, B., & Swinney, J. L. (2009). The role of etail quality, e-satisfaction and e-
trust in online loyalty development process. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services, 16(4), 239e247.
Lee, C. H., Cyril Eze, U., & Ndubisi, N. O. (2011). Analyzing key determinants of online
repurchase intentions. Asia Paci?c Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 23(2),
200e221.
Liu, C., & Arnett, P. (2000). Exploring the factors associated with websites success
in the context of electronic commerce. Information and Management, 38,
23e33.
Maditinos, D. I., & Theodoridis, K. (2010). Satisfaction determinants in the Greek
online shopping context. Information Technology & People, 23(4), 312e329.
Malaysia Crunch. (2011). Malaysia's e-commerce statistics (updated).http://www.
malaysiacrunch.com/2012/03/malaysias-e-commerce-statistics-updated.html.
Accessed 18.07.12.
Ojo, O. (2010). The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction
in the telecommunication industry: evidence from Nigeria. Broad Research in
Accounting, Negotiation, and Distribution, 1(1), 88e100.
Oliver, R. L. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of
satisfaction decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, 17(4), 460e469.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1988). SERVQUAL: a multiple-item
scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality. Journal of
Retailing, 64(1), 12e40.
Park, J., & Stoel, L. (2005). Effect of brand familiarity, experience and information on
online apparel purchase. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Manage-
ment, 33(2), 148e160.
Pavlou, P., & Gefen, D. (2005). Building effective online marketplaces with
institution-based trust. Information Systems Research, 15(1), 37e59.
Pizam, A., & Ellis, T. (1999). Customer satisfaction and its measurement in hospi-
tality enterprises. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management,
11(7), 326e339.
Rowley, J. (2004). Online branding. Online Information Review, 28(2), 2131e2138.
Rueter, T. (2012). E-retail spending to increase 62% by 2016.http://www.
internetretailer.com/2012/02/27/e-retail-spending-increase-45-2016.
Accessed 20.07.12.
Santos, J. (2003). E-service quality: a model of virtual service quality dimensions.
Managing Service Quality, 13(3), 233e246.
Teo, T. S. H., & Yu, Y. (2005). Online buying behavior: a transaction cost economics
perspective. Omega, 33, 451e465.
Thomason, L. (2004). Web site usability checklist.http://www.netmechanic.com/
news/vol7/design_no4.htm. Accessed 25.12.12.
Wang, Y., Wang, Y., Lin, H., & Tang, T. (2003). Determinants of user acceptance of
internet banking: an empirical study. International Journal of Service Industry
Management, 14(5), 501e519.
Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and hierarchies: Analysis and antitrust implications.
New York, NY: Free Press.
Wolff, M. (1998). How I survived the gold rush years on the internet. New York, NY:
Simon and Schuster.
Worsfold, P. (1999). HRM, performance, commitment and service quality in the
hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management,
11(7), 340e348.
Yang, H. E., Wu, C. C., & Wang, K. C. (2009). An empirical analysis of online game
service satisfaction and loyalty. Expert System with Applications, 36(2),
1816e1825.
Y.S. Lim et al. / Asia Paci?c Management Review xxx (2015) 1e5 5
Please cite this article in press as: Lim, Y. S., et al., Customers' online website satisfaction in online apparel purchase: A study of Generation Y in
Malaysia, Asia Paci?c Management Review (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2015.10.002
doc_772930478.pdf