Managing online product assortment and order fulfillment for superior e-tailing service experience: An empirical investigation

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to bridge together seemingly disparate yet interconnected paradigmatic antecedents of e-tailing and servicescape, i.e., product assortment, order fulfillment, shopping assistance and its consequences for shopping efficiency.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed conceptual model is well grounded in the extensive literature from e-tailing as well as retailing domain and to assess the plausibility of the model. Total 246 female online apparel shoppers were surveyed from an Indian university and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling through SmartPLS.

Findings

The outcomes of the study indicate that the e-customer may derive a substantial share of shopping assistance and service interface through product assortment offered by e-tailing sites. Customer-perceived performance of this e-shopping process – a crucial element of e-tail servicescape – directly affects the shopping assistance, along with order fulfillment capability of retail scope.

Research limitations/implications

The study used a sample of graduate students at a north-west university in India, which limits the generalizability of the research to other consumer groups. The paper links a significant body of literature within a conceptually developed framework and identifies key research areas in the e-tailing realm.

Practical implications

By better understanding the role of product assortment as a value-added feature in online value co-creation process, the e-tail managers can leverage the proposed integrated capability to improve e-tailing performance and customer outcomes in the form of business.

Social implications

With rapid advancements in internet-led communication, we are witnessing the dawn of a new era of e-tail innovations around us which is expected to change the way people experience shopping.

Originality/value

This research is an attempt to enrich the level of understanding about online shopping environment in light of relationships among virtual and physical facets of e-tail, i.e., product assortment, order fulfillment, shopping assistance and shopping efficiency. The authors investigate customer-perceived product assortment performance in e-tailing and its significances on shopping outcomes.

Citation

Kautish, P. and Sharma, R. (2019), "Managing online product assortment and order fulfillment for superior e-tailing service experience: An empirical investigation", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 1161-1192. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-05-2018-0167