Online Service Environment and Customer Engagement among Shoppers of Local Online Shops in a Typical Emerging Economy (Published)
This study centers on the nexus between online service environment and customer engagement among shoppers in local online shops in a typical emerging economy. Despite the abundance of extant literature on online service environment and; customer engagement behaviour, empirical studies that investigates the nexus between online service environment and customer engagement in local online shops is scarcely-reported and under-researched especially in a typical emerging economy like Nigeria. In order to fill this research gap, this study examines the effect of online service environment on customer engagement. Quantitative research design was employed and the study population comprised active online shoppers on JUMIA platform. A total of 520 shoppers were statistically drawn from the population of 12.8 million online shoppers. The research instrument was structured questionnaire and hypotheses formulated were tested using multiple regressions. It was found that layout and functionality, security, aesthetic appeal and order delivery system have positive and significant effect on customer engagement in local online shops in Nigeria. It was concluded that this study provides empirical support that online service environment has positive and significant effect on customer engagement among shoppers in local online shops in Nigeria. It was recommended that online shops/service providers should evaluate and ensure their order delivery system is designed toward customer orientation and satisfaction by ensuring charges on order delivery are low, free for some products, and discounted for customers who eventually paid for the orders; online shops should evaluate and ensure the online service environment has a very good layout, and the layout is functioning by ensuring that navigational aids on their website are clear, readily available, easy to read, logical links, and user-friendly amongst others.
Keywords: Emerging Economy, Nigeria, customer engagement, online service environment