GROUP NO:

HOW TO IMPROVE E-LOYALTY

PROJECT PROPOSAL

Title
How to improve E-loyalty

Introduction
The e- loyalty or online loyalty is defined as the a deeply held intension to
repurchase a preferred product or services consistently from an e-vendor in the
future, despite of the presence of factors or circumstance that may include
switching behavior. Oliver (1999).According to the Sreenivasan et al, (2002), Eloyalty is defined as the customer's favorable attitude towards the e-retailer that
results in repeated buying behavior. There are different models available on eloyalty like Sreenivasan's model, Ribbink model, Anderson model, Rodgers
model etc which lists out different factors to be taken care of to ensure the
improvement of e-loyalty.
We find Sreenivasan model to be most appropriately matched with our
understanding and hence, are going to carry out our project basing on
Sreenivasans model. The factors mentioned in this model will help us to
understand on how by improving the factors, e-loyalty can be improved.

Research objectives:
Seven factors have been mentioned in Sreenivasan model. We will try to
understand the improvement of e-loyalty through these factors. The seven
factors are:
a) Customisation: Customisation is the way of altering the product,
services and transactional modes towards the individual's
requirementsCustomisation increases the probability that customers will
find something that they wish to buy (Sreenivasan et al, 2002).
b) Contact interactivity: Contact interactivity pertains to the dynamic
interactions between the customers and the website while they are online.
Contact interactivity is expected to have a positive impact on customer
loyalty.
c) Community: A virtual community can be described as an online social
entity comprised of existing and potential customers that is organized and
maintained by an e-retailer to facilitate the exchange of opinions and
information regarding offered products and services.

d) Choice:. The e-retailer that offers greater choice can emerge as the
dominant, top-of-mind destination for one-stop shopping, thereby
engendering e-loyalty (Sreenivasan et al 2002).
e) Character: Character can be defined as an overall image or personality
that the e-retailer projects to consumers through the use of inputs such as
text, style, graphics, colours, logos, and slogans or themes on the website.
Character is expected to have a positive impact on customer loyalty
through better recognition and recall.
f) Care: care is operationally defined as the extent to which a customer is
kept informed about the availability of preferred products and the status
of orders, and the level of efforts expended to minimize disruptions in
providing desired services (Sreenivasan et al, 2002). The level of care in a
company to minimise the disruptions in customer service will help to gain
the customer loyalty.
g) Cultivation: Cultivation is the extent to which an e-retailer provides
relevant information and incentives to its customers in order to extend the
breadth and depth of their purchases over time ( Berger,1998). Hence,
cultivation is expected to have a positive impact on customer loyalty.

Hypothesis:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.

H1:
H2:
H3:
H4:
H5:
H6:
H7:

Customisation has a positive impact on e-loyalty.

Contact interactivity has a positive impact on e-loyalty.
Community has a positive impact on e-loyalty.
Choice has a positive impact on e-loyalty.
Character has a positive impact on e-loyalty.
Care has a positive impact on e-loyalty.
Cultivation has a positive impact on e-loyalty.

DATA AND DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUE:

Structured questionnaire will be constructed and used as a data collection tool for
obtaining the data. Also data will be collected from secondary research and in-depth
interview of the customers. For measurement and scaling purposes a 7 point Likert
type scale will be used in the structured questionnaire and the rating will vary from
1- Strongly Disagree to 7 - Strongly Agree.

SAMPLE AND SAMPLING METHOD:

All the people who are purchasing online are our population but it is not possible to
study the entire population. The sampling technique used can be considered as a

random sampling technique as the form will be floated and anyone can fill the form
that is everyone will have an equal probability. Random sampling is the least biased
of all sampling techniques, there is no subjectivity and each member of the total
population has an equal chance of being selected. Number of independent variables
is six and one dependent variable.
So the minimum sample size = Independent Variables * 10 = 7*10 = 70.

FIELDWORK:
Questions will be prepared based on the secondary research and the interviews of
the various customers. Various questions regarding their purchasing behavior on eplatforms will be asked. Finally a survey will be conducted and the customers will be
asked to take the survey thereby data will be collected.