Marketing perspective of website quality and utility on customer loyalty: A mediating role of trust and engagement in e-commerce (SDG 12)

Adil Zia ()
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Adil Zia: College of Business

SN Business & Economics, 2025, vol. 5, issue 12, 1-24

Abstract: Abstract This research investigated how the quality and utility of websites influenced customer loyalty and also tried to identify the mediating effects of customer trust and engagement through the e-commerce environment. It also determined the moderating effect of demographics including gender and education. The study employed a quantitative research approach to investigate a sample of 291 retail consumers who participate in online purchase for agricultural goods. The researchers employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data. The results confirm the importance of website utility for customer engagement, website performance for consumer trust, and customer engagement for loyalty. Furthermore, our study revealed a significant mediation of customer engagement between website usefulness and loyalty. The present study did not yield statistically significant evidence of demographic factors serving as moderators. These results are both theoretical, in the sense that they illuminate the mediating and moderating processes in customer loyalty models, and practical, in the sense that they provide advice to e-commerce companies, particularly to businesses in the agricultural fruits and vegetables industry, on how to improve customer loyalty and simultaneously drive sustainability objectives (SDG 12). This study fills the research gap in the literature related to the online purchase of fruits and vegetables.

Keywords: Website quality; Website utility; Fruits and vegetables; Agriculture; Customer trust; Customer engagement; Loyalty; SDG 12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s43546-025-00978-6

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