Influence of Customer Satisfaction and Usability on Internet Shopping in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is experiencing transition from traditional shopping to Internet shopping.

For any business, which wants to jump into the Internet shopping in Bangladesh has to face unique expectations of Bangladeshis and infusing usability aspects in web designing using the best technologies, practices, and following modern trends.These are sure ways to hit success.

Craze for Internet shopping in Bangladesh is spreading like wild fire due to improved scenario of information and communication technologies (ICT) and its network with the help of government as well as many entrepreneurs. Mobile and its technology growth are adding more fuel in the flame to put all fantasies of Internet in palms of the Bangladeshis at cheaper and affordable rates.

Moreover, Bangladesh government is seeing and selling dreams of digital Bangladesh by anchoring its majority of services on the Internet or intranet giving mobile accessibility as bonus. Some banks and private entrepreneurs like Payza Bangladesh are offering secure and super-fast payment gateway services along with multiple other Internet payment options. In sum, overall scenario seems glorious and hopeful to last for longer.

Meanwhile some researchers and agencies have taken initiatives to study the various factors influencing the growth of Internet shopping in Bangladesh. Among them customer satisfaction and usability have prime importance so I would like to spend some time of discussion on these two factors in this post.

Usability and Customer Satisfaction

Technically customer satisfaction is related directly with the ROI of the business because existing customer retention is cheaper against acquiring new one and customer retention comes only through customer satisfaction. Business can satisfy its customers only through addressing their expectations, through perceived value of the company, and branding of the company.

At other hand customer expectations are directly linked with the quality of products/services and support provided by the company. In present study, it has found that customer satisfaction in Bangladesh depends upon some independent variables like:

• Variety of Product: For traditional shopping, moving everywhere finding variety of products is tough for Bangladeshis due to various factors like product availability, spending on fuel, and time consumed on traveling. Thus, internet shopping in Bangladesh is gaining ground to access numbers of variations in the products and qualities of the products.

• Product Information: Bangladeshis like to know products thoroughly as they don’t have physical access of product. Therefore, providing them detailed information regarding product quality, after sale services, and prices matters more than anything else does. They also prefer to discuss on the social media or like to see reviews of product elsewhere on authority sites.

•  Cheap Price: Comparative shopping is natural tendency in Bangladeshis too. Therefore, offering some cheaper rates can lead business to win battle at first place, but for long run cheap prices must be associated with good quality or services for sake of customer loyalty.

• Security: This issue is more skeptical for the Bangladeshis due to social and political backwardness of the society. However, recent initiatives of government, banks, and some scrappy entrepreneurs like Payza Bangladesh to offer secure payment gateways and payment options suitable to the country, its people, and nature of the businesses prevailing.

•  Comfort: Internet shopping itself offers home/office/on-the-go comforts of shopping, but user experiences, shipping/delivery, and payment options provide utmost comfort or satisfactions to the customers. Fortunately, many have learnt these lessons in recent past and are implementing the latest web and mobile development technologies to offer greater degree of comfort to their Internet shoppers.

• Time: In recent fast-paced life style, none has enough time to go out for physical store shopping. This is very true for Bangladeshis too, for new generation in particular. Thus, Internet shopping is gaining ground rapidly in Bangladesh.

• Energy Consumption: Internet shopping save time as well as personal energies of shoppers that is spent moving outside and at far distances.

• Travel Necessity: In fact, Internet shopping in Bangladesh is more prolific in urban areas compared to rural areas. The reason behind is traffic jams in the cities and e-commerce elements that factor inherently. Thus, home delivery is gaining ground in Bangladesh for this very reason to save time, fuel, and health by just avoiding jam and its polluted environment.

Technically usability of Internet shopping is directly related to the online shopping outlets or e-commerce web portals. Therefore, the quality of e-commerce websites or mobile apps is affecting the usability. Fortunately, today Bangladesh is one of the leading outsourcing software development services provider countries. Thus, by taking advantages of the talented pools, businesses are offering excellent quality, user experiences, and usability features and functionality on their online identities as well as on mobile apps for their businesses.