The purpose of this paper is to design, develop and evaluate a reliable and valid scale for the measurement of online retail service quality, specifically in the French context.
Study 1 derived scale items from the literature by content analysis. Study 2 extracted items from two quantitative data sets, gathered by questionnaire from 172 and 125 online shoppers, by exploratory factor and reliability analyses. Study 3 applied psychometric testing and confirmatory factor analysis to data from a survey of 178 e‐shoppers.
The outcome is “E‐tail SQ”, a 15‐item scale to measure five key user values (labelled ease of use, information content, fulfilment reliability, security/privacy and post‐purchase customer service). These scale items derived from French data are found to be similar to those identified in previous international studies, except that French e‐shoppers place more emphasis than their English‐speaking counterparts on internet security and privacy of personal information.
The sample profiles place limits on the applicability of the scale across markets and service categories. Further research must be conducted to improve its external validity.
“E‐tail SQ” can help online retailers in the French marketplace to measure service quality delivered, and thereby to improve it, and may be transferable to other national markets.
This new scale for the measurement of service quality in a specific cultural environment offers online retailers a framework within which to manage their web‐based relationships with a growing number of online shoppers.
