Social and Cultural Obstacles to the (B2C) E-Commerce Experience

Abstract

Not only is creating value and generating a total customer experience important for e-commerce in order to attract customers — with increasing competition in the marketplace, it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain customers. This paper addresses a perspective on how e-commerce environments can provide value to the customers to build long-term relationships and reduce customer defections. The paper presents findings of a ‘naturalistic’ user-observation study that investigated barriers that can prevent customers from achieving a satisfactory experience with an e-commerce environment. The data from this study suggests that there are patterns or themes of social, cultural and organizational obstacles that influence customer’s perception of value and experience with an e-commerce environment.