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The online retail industry is enormous, covering a great assortment of products and services. Yet, little research has examined whether determinants of success in online retailing are similar or differ by industry sector. The purpose of this study is to examine industry sectors separately to distinguish drivers associated with overall satisfaction for the online consumers in those sectors.

The paper uses ridge regression to examine how e‐service quality dimensions are associated with overall customer satisfaction for several e‐retailing sectors.

While several e‐service quality dimensions exhibit a similar impact across all sectors, several other dimensions exhibited sector‐by‐sector differences. The drivers that frequently differ across sectors include price perceptions, ease of returns and refunds, and privacy experience.

As an exploratory study, research opportunities and limitations derive from the public source of data, sample sizes within some of the sectors, and the ridge regression methodology.

Related prior research examined individual e‐retailing sectors, leading to scattered sets of findings that cannot be triangulated. The research allows for comparison by the manager, and presents empirical insights for managers in several e‐retail sectors.

This paper is one of only a few studies to examine a consistent set of e‐service quality measures on a sector‐by‐sector basis. The paper is also unique in that it uses publicly available data sources to examine these relationships, providing managers with insights on how they might analyze such public data sets for their own usage.

To classify internet users into holiday shopper and non‐shopper segments, and to profile the demographic, psychographic, and computer use characteristics of each segment.

Self‐report data come from a national US sample of online internet users. Segments are customer revealed using traditional cluster analysis. Lifestyle measures are reduced to higher order measures using factor analysis. Profiles are analyzed via descriptive statistics, graphs, and radar charts.

Six important segments are identified in the data. Three of the segments characterize customers who resist online shopping, even though they engage in other online activities. Security fears and technological incompetence typically inhibit these users from engaging in electronic exchange. Some internet users simply choose not to shop online. Three of the segments describe active e‐shoppers who are driven by a unique desire to socialize, minimize inconvenience, and maximize value.

Data come from self‐report questionnaires administered and collected electronically through the internet. Focus is placed on holiday gift buying. Since, holiday shopping is very important to e‐retailers, results are managerially interesting, but might not be indicative of other shopping periods.

To be successful, e‐retailers must understand those things that motivate and inhibit customer online shopping. Marketing activities targeted at reticent e‐shoppers should focus on benefits, guarantee safeguards and facilitate technical literacy. Service, value, and online ambiance should be carefully tailored to meet the desires and expectations of each customer type.

The study is a replication and extension of earlier online studies which are summarized in the reviewed literature.

To investigate the determinants of e‐commerce adoption in the retail sector using duration analysis.

The study proposes a conceptual model based on technology adoption and population ecology models. It identifies specific determinant factors organized under three areas: perceived benefits, organizational readiness, and external influences. Duration analysis is applied to data on 392 retailers.

Organizational readiness and external influences were the main driving factors of the adoption decision. There is no strong support for the perceived benefits construct. This suggests that e‐commerce adoption was to a great extent responsive to external pressures.

Major limitations include insufficient data. Future research can collect other types of data. Other extensions include the investigation of the effect of e‐commerce adoption, the construction of a formal theoretical model, and the collection of data from other countries.

The study provides guidelines to entry anticipation. It appears that many retailers mimetically responded to the online entry of other retailers. Managers should be also aware of the suitability of e‐commerce adoption to their organization. In order to be proactive, firms can put more emphasis on internal factors and rely less on outside signals in their strategies.

The paper investigates the e‐commerce adoption decision among retailers using a unique database collected from public sources, avoiding potential subjectivity bias. It traces the timing of e‐commerce adoption incorporating both fixed and time‐varying covariates.

The purpose of this study is to investigate Western and Central European consumers and web retailers with respect to the importance and accessibility of delivery information online prior to purchase.

To investigate the importance and accessibility of delivery information online, a survey was conducted of 715 internet consumers from the UK, Hungary and the Czech Republic to explore how important they rate online delivery information. In addition to this, retailing web sites from leading retailers in the UK, Hungary and the Czech Republic were content analysed in order to establish the extent to which they provided online delivery information.

The research identifies that consumers rate delivery pricing guides, delivery guarantees and delivery schedules as the most important delivery information they expect online prior to purchase. However, content analysis of retailer web sites reveals that many retailers do not adequately provide information about how they “guarantee product delivery”.

It is recommended here that prior to purchase online retailers should make detailed delivery information more accessible to consumers (e.g. pricing guides, timing schedules, etc.) and should consider using delivery service guarantees to assure consumers of delivery service standards and retailer responsibilities.

This paper makes a decisive contribution to e‐shopping behaviour and online retailing by providing insight into why visits to retailing web sites may not be followed up by purchase. This insight results from an examination of an often neglected area of the online buying process, namely “order delivery and fulfilment”. By examining the expectations of e‐consumers across Europe it investigates the role access to delivery information can have in managing customer delivery service expectations and in building trust in online retailers.

Extant research has examined consumer acceptance of the internet in various contexts mainly as a dichotomy (adoption/non‐adoption), thus ignoring the process underlying adoption. This paper aims to provide insights into factors determining the extent to which an innovation is adopted.

The paper reviews the literature on the technology acceptance model (TAM), and justifies the use of this model to explore the factors contributing to the extent to which consumers use the internet as a distribution channel for financial services (FS). Data are collected through telephone interviews with 300 UK consumers responding to a questionnaire.

The application of the TAM model is helpful but additional links need to be included. The key drivers of extent of use are past experience with the internet as a purchasing channel (for non‐FS) and attitudinal aspects, i.e. positive emotions towards the internet as a distribution channel for FS. Insecurity about this channel does not appear to be an obstacle and perceived usefulness is not directly linked to extent of use but fully mediated via attitude towards the channel. Consumers with computer access from home, those with an active interest in FS, as well as consumers who have general online purchasing experience tend to find this channel easy to use, which, jointly with perceived usefulness, leads to a positive attitude toward this distribution channel.

The findings are limited to the FS online retail context and may not be generalisable beyond this context. Future research should be considered using a longitudinal approach.

FS retail providers should consider prior experience with the internet as a distribution channel and product category involvement as segmentation bases, and also provide more opportunities for consumers to try and observe the internet as a distribution channel.

This research explores the determinants of consumer acceptance of online retailing from a process‐based rather than a binary view of adoption of an innovation.

With the emergence of enabling internet technologies and increased competition between UK supermarkets has led the “big four” – Tesco, J Sainsbury, ASDA and Safeway/Morrisons – to develop grocery operations online. The objective of this paper is to evaluate and present best practice strategies employed by major retail organisations concerning these deployments. The paper argues that Tesco's superior performance can be identified through five critical factors. However, continued success using existing models and thinking is problematic and that future advantages will rely on taking a complex adaptive systems view of the deployment of E‐Grocery systems.

The methodology employed is a conceptual synthesis of current knowledge, based on theoretical constructs and empirical observations.

There is evidence of varying degrees of progress and lessons learnt, from adopting strategies and internet technologies, with new ways of conceptualizing and managing virtual retail operations. The research challenges existing thinking and makes sense of the plexus between this technology and the market place.

The essential contribution of the paper is the identification of five key elements for online retail success and the development of a proposed “online sustainability” model which is perceived to offer contemporary insights into competitive virtual environments.

To date, most of the commentary on the impact of the Internet on retail marketing has been anecdotal, offering exaggerated speculative forecasts of its future potential. One view contends that the Internet will become a major new retail format, replacing the traditional dominance of fixed location stores. However, little academic research exists to either disprove or support the claims of Internet penetration by retailers. Seeks to redress the balance by presenting a comprehensive and rigorous review of UK retailer Internet activities. A sampling frame of 1,099 UK retail multiples was used, and each Web site individually inspected to categorise the range of marketing functions and services offered. The findings indicated that, despite the hype, the majority of retail organisations surveyed have not yet registered a Web site address. Moreover, of those retail organisations that have developed a Web site, the vast majority are using it primarily as a communication tool to promote corporate or product information to Internet users, rather than to support direct sales. In conclusion, summarises the implications of these current levels of Internet activity for the future of retail marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the theoretical lens of liminality to a consideration of non-traditional entrepreneurial locations. The study exemplifies such locations by empirically exploring self-storage based businesses: that is, businesses that operate for a significant number of hours each week from self-storage facilities.

The study draws on interviews with entrepreneurs operating self-storage based businesses and operators of self-storage facilities. The interview data is supported by site visits, businesses’ websites, promotional and marketing materials and press coverage.

Consistent with the liminal lens, entrepreneurs view their time operating from self-storage as a transitional phase. They do not suffer the high levels of uncertainty and unsettledness usually associated with liminality. However, they experience anxiety related to perceptions of operating from a business location outside the mainstream. Whilst the entrepreneurs benefit from additional services provided by the self-storage operators, this may be at the expense of extra “liminal” work and anxiety experienced by the storage operators’ staff.

The study contributes to entrepreneurship by answering Steyaert and Katz’s (2004) call for studies in unfamiliar places and spaces. The authors identify a number of ways in which liminality can arise when considering entrepreneurial locations. Drawing on extant entrepreneurial studies, the authors theorise that idiosyncratic characteristics of such spaces attract entrepreneurs with particular personal characteristics and needs, who will in turn be influenced by those spaces. In the case of self-storage facilities, the liminal space allows trepidatious entrepreneurs to “try on” (Hawkins and Edwards, 2015, p. 39) operating a new venture.

To examine the service performance of a number of internet retailers and to identify differences (if any) in internet retailers' service performance across a series of attributes based on consumers' assessments.

To compare the perceived service performance across internet retailers with respect to several areas: core service performance, web site features, recovery service, consumer satisfaction and intentions. A structured questionnaire was used to gather the data. The internet retailers are two budget airline retailers, a book retailer, and a multi‐channel bank.

Internet retailers' service performance was generally at an acceptable level. The variation of their online service performance was dependent on industry factors and the effectiveness of online service management. Consumers' perceptions of the internet retailers' performance were significantly different on several service attributes. However, consumer online service satisfaction levels across internet retailers were similar.

Convenience sampling and the limited number of internet retailers do not permit results to be generalised to the larger population. Future investigation with a larger sample could provide a more comprehensive coverage.

Provide useful information for internet retailers who plan to improve their service performance. This study indicated that retailers' experience from managing the physical store‐based retail service might not contribute towards their online service performance.

This paper analyses service performance of different retailers in the same industry or across industries to provide valuable indication of online service performance and attributes that contribute to differential performance levels.

To find out if and how delivery charge and three other situational factors affect consumers' grocery shopping channel choice.

A survey was conducted among a convenience sample of 152 supermarket shoppers in South England. Each respondent was presented with two hypothetical grocery shopping scenarios characterised by four situational factors. Respondents were asked to indicate their preference for shopping online or in‐store in each described situation. They also provided information about their last grocery shopping trip.

The results show that all four situational factors affect consumers' shopping channel preference. It was further established that, though of influence, delivery charges are not the most important factor. Fifteen minutes difference in travel time to the grocery store had a greater impact on the relative preference to shop online or in‐store than a delivery fee of £5.

Although experimentally controlled, the findings are based on behavioural intentions and not on real market behaviour. Also, they are based on a convenience sample of intercepted shoppers only.

Attempts to promote online grocery shopping should focus on communicating the time savings gained by shopping online rather than lowering delivery charges.

Only few studies have investigated effects of situational factors, including delivery charges, on consumer channel choice for grocery shopping. Experimental studies are particularly scarce.