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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The authors propose focusing on e‐commerce service failure and recovery through the presentation of failure and recovery strategies employed by e‐commerce service firms.

The authors employ the critical incident technique using 377 customer responses to present ten e‐tail failures and 11 e‐tail recovery strategies used by e‐commerce service firms. The authors also present data on post‐recovery satisfaction levels and propensity to switch behavior.

Findings indicate that: e‐tail customers experience different types of service failure relative to traditional retail settings; e‐tail firms employ a different series of recovery strategies relative to traditional retail settings; and post‐recovery switching by e‐tail customers can be high even with satisfying experiences.

This paper strengthens the existing failure and recovery literature by presenting data on the largest growing sector of the service industry. These findings will have value to traditional firms looking to expand to e‐commerce channels in addition to e‐commerce firms currently experiencing customer dissatisfaction.

There is an increased interest in e-tailing research in the literature, along with the development of new technologies and e-tailing platforms based on consumer and industry perspective. The purpose of this paper is to examine the periodic changes within the content of e-tailing literature.

The data set of this study includes academic papers cited in the Web of Science, which was published between 2000 and 2017. In this context, a co-word analysis was conducted using SciMat software based on the keywords, including “online retailing,” “e-tailing,” “e-store,” “online store,” “e-tail” and “online retail,” found in the titles of published academic articles.

In this study, three different periods of the e-tailing study field were examined, major and emerging themes for each period were determined with a comparative bibliometric analysis. In this regard, consumer acceptance, choice and satisfaction were found as the major themes in the conceptualization of e-tailing research.

Understanding the transition from traditional marketing channels to online channels is an essential factor for retailers as well as consumers’ use and the acceptance of new technologies. This study contributes to the effective execution of the e-tailing systems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of e-tail brand experience on e-brand trust and e-brand loyalty. The study also tests whether gender moderates this influence.

In all, 429 responses were collected using both offline and online survey methods. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling techniques were performed to test the measurement and structural models using SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 20.0 statistical software.

Empirical results confirm the impact of e-tail brand experience on e-brand trust and e-brand loyalty. Gender was found to moderate the relationships. It was further found that e-tail brand experience developed almost same levels of e-brand trust in both males and females. However, males became more loyal to e-tail brands when they received positive e-tail brand experiences.

E-tail brand managers should focus on the design and delivery of unique e-tail brand experiences to develop e-brand trust and e-brand loyalty in customers. The direct influence of e-tail brand experience on e-brand loyalty was found to be weaker in females, which suggests that managers could take steps to specifically deliver experiences that please female customers which might result in increased e-brand loyalty of this segment.

Examining the phenomenon of brand experience in context of online retail while considering gender as moderator highlights the originality and contribution of the present study to existing retail and brand experience literature.

The focus and intended contribution of this research are to understand better how retailers should strategically present external reference price information varying in the context from which it originates (online vs bricks and mortar).

A two reference price environment (online e‐tail, bricks‐and‐mortar retail) × two external reference price ($252.99, low; $379.99, high) between subjects experimental design with a single control condition was employed.

Results from an experimental study provide empirical support, suggesting that consumers expect to pay less in online e‐tail settings than bricks‐and‐mortar retail settings. Additionally, results suggest that bricks‐and‐mortar retail external reference prices influence consumer e‐tail price expectations, price fairness, and satisfaction perceptions more than online e‐tail external reference prices when reference prices are high. When external reference prices are low, both online e‐tail and bricks‐and‐mortar retail external reference prices are equally effective.

Price setters should use bricks‐and‐mortar external reference prices when the external reference price is high, as consumers are impacted positively by these reference prices.

The research results suggest a time to use bricks‐and‐mortar external reference prices and suggest that online external reference prices have similar impact regardless of the size of the external reference price.

This research is the first of its kind to evaluate the impact of the context of the reference price on consumer evaluations.

The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively investigate various factors associated with e-tail store brand affect.

Data were collected by conducting semi-structured depth interviews following a storytelling approach. The data were coded using the grounded theory method.

Data analysis shows that anticipated service recovery, deal attractiveness and luxury e-tail brand image predict e-tail store brand affect. These predictors play their roles under the moderating influences of specific moderators. The desirable marketing outcomes of e-tail store brand affect are e-tail branded app usage, spreading positive word of mouth and secure attachment style toward e-tailer.

The value of this study lies in developing a grounded theory based causal process model that can provide managerial insights on how to enhance e-tail brand affect.

This study conducts a systematic literature review of e-tail product returns research. E-tail product returns are essentially acquisition of products that have been sold through purely online or brick-and-click channels and then returned by consumer to business.

Using a systematic literature review protocol, we identified 75 peer-reviewed articles on e-tail product returns, conducted bibliometric analysis and content analysis of the articles and summarised our findings.

The findings reveal that the subject of e-tail returns is a new research area; academics have started to investigate several aspects of e-tail returns through different research methodologies and theoretical foundations. Further research is required in leading e-commerce countries and on key areas such as omni-channel returns management, customer satisfaction and service, the impact of resources such as people skills, the benefits of technology and IT systems in managing e-tail returns.

The study offers a summative account of current e-tail knowledge areas, which can serve as a reference guide for e-tailers to develop strategies for more efficient and competitive product returns.

This study contributes theoretically by developing clusters of key themes or knowledge areas about e-tail returns. It also provides a conceptual framework for e-tail returns management, which can be used as a springboard for further empirical research.

The COVID-19 situation affected the whole landscape of retailing in India and around the world. However, some businesses have used the pandemic-related difficulties into opportunities. E-tailing is one of the ways that helped people in India to continue shopping their essential products and choosing their luxury products without making any physical visits during the lockdown. This research understands the current situation through an observation study and suggests the e-tailing model suitable during the COVID-19 and beyond.

We used secondary data to make the observational study. We also conducted two case studies and interviews with grocery shops and an automotive company.

This research suggests a simple collaborative e-tailing model combining all supply chain players to reduce people’s movement, timely delivery and enhanced service to meet customers demand during the lockdown period.

This paper has considered two real cases for discussion and also obtained information from public domain. The proposed model has been discussed with the case companies, and it hoped to support business planning for online services.

The growth in social content such as video facilitates consumer exposure to social information at e-tail settings. Research has recommended enhancing the e-store socialness. Focusing on focal consumer outcomes (flow and purchase intentions), the current research delineates a boundary condition, proposing that e-tail socialness improves outcomes when the consumer interdependent self, rather than the independent self, is activated.

The experimental approach is employed to test the research thesis. Two experiments (N1 = 303 Females 42.4%; N2 = 387 Females 51.4%) that used different manipulation for socialness and sample frames (USA and Canadian) are performed. Analysis of variance was applied.

The results generally support the research thesis, suggesting that e-tail socialness enhances consumer flow and purchase intentions when the interdependent self is activated. The effect, however, is marginal for segments with high brand preference.

As more information increase overload and reduce decision quality, e-tail practitioners should focus on providing social information predominately for consumers whose interdependent self is activated. This recommendation is particularly relevant for segments with low brand preference.

So far, studies recommend enhancing the e-store socialness, or increasing the social volume, to achieve better outcomes. Such research stream is giving rise to the “social is better in e-tail” conventional wisdom. The current work contributes by delineating a boundary condition based on consumer self-construal. This work suggests that the use of online socialness is fruitful predominantly for interdependent consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate e‐tail store attributes that develop customers' positive perceptions of e‐tail store image, and determines whether or not they develop a sense of loyalty to an e‐tailer.

Acknowledging the importance of customer retention, this paper is designed to examine e‐customer loyalty intentions toward the e‐tailer. To understand the concept of loyalty toward an e‐tailer, this study focuses on the importance of the final stage of the customer decision‐making process: post‐purchase evaluation. This paper develops a model that describes the extent to which e‐tail store image (derived from a set of e‐tail store attributes) indicates patronage intentions and finally predicts customer loyalty. We use the structural equation modeling to test the model and hypotheses.

Results in this paper indicate that e‐tail store image is derived from e‐merchandise, e‐service, and e‐shopping atmosphere attributes, all of which support the way consumers shop. A favorable e‐tail store image positively influences e‐patronage intentions, which thus leads to e‐loyalty.

The research in this paper provides a conceptual model that will help e‐retailers better articulate how and why consumers may be e‐loyal shoppers. Second, the research identifies attributes, unique to online shopping that serve as the basis for conceptualizing e‐tail image as a second order factor.