E-commerce web site evaluation : developing a framework and method for the systematic evaluation of e-commerce web sites and using correspondence analysis to represent the results graphically per industry

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The corporate web site is essential to companies who use the Internet for e-commercepurposes. For these companies, the web site is the platform used to communicate withcustomers and facilitate business transactions. Internet companies will not be able to dobusiness successfully with an ineffective web site, because this implies that the only contactpoint that the company has with customers is not functioning properly. It is, however,extremely difficult to identify what an effective e-commerce web site constitutes of. Agreat need therefore exists for a comprehensive and accurate method to evaluate theperformance of the web sites of Internet companies, not only individually but also incomparison with the web sites of other companies in the same industry. Managers ofInternet companies would certainly like to know how their web sites perform, what theycan do to increase their performance, and which web sites in their industry can be used asa benchmark in certain areas. This thesis aims to address these needs by fulfilling threeobjectives:► To develop a framework and criteria for the comprehensive evaluation of e-commerceweb sites.► To use this framework and sound statistical reasoning to develop a method that can beused to evaluate e-commerce web sites quantitively, and represent the resultsgraphically per industry.► To implement this method by developing computer software that enables users toevaluate web sites and plot the results.To accomplish these objectives, the following methodology was followed:► Review the research done in the field of web site evaluation for both general ande-commerce web sites.► Review the research on different techniques in the field of Multidimensional Scaling, andidentify an appropriate technique for developing two-dimensional plots of web siteevaluation data.► Expand the web site evaluation research and develop a framework and objective criteriafor the evaluation of e-commerce web sites, based on solid business principles.► Develop a method to gather web site evaluation data that is grouped within industries,and to represent the results graphically using an appropriate Multidimensional Scalingtechnique.► Implement the method by developing computer software to automate the process.This document describes the course of the methodology in detail. It reports on thee-commerce web site evaluation framework that was developed; Correspondence Analysisas the Multidimensional Scaling technique used to analyse the evaluation data; thedevelopment of the e-commerce web site evaluation method; and the software that wasdeveloped in Microsoft Visual Basic to implement the evaluation method.All three objectives were fulfilled in this thesis, in spite of some concerns that are alsodiscussed. The evaluation framework and accompanying software can be used to evaluateall aspects of e-commerce web sites, and the output can be used to draw meaningfulconclusions about how these sites can be improved.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University