Online customer retention: The resistance to change perspective

Abstract

Many academics and practitioners have reiterated the importance of online customer retention in order to ensure long-term profitability. For this reason, a number of studies have identified various means and ends of developing customer retention with a greater emphasis on creating customer loyalty. However, retaining customers, especially in Internet, is very difficult because of the low search cost and low switching cost. This study offers a new conceptual framework for retaining online customers based on theoretical foundations from status quo bias theory. Particularly, this study considers online customer retention from the perspective of customer resistance to change. The empirical study of an Internet bookstore, conducted through an online survey reveals that trust, relative attractiveness and switching costs together influence customer resistance to change. This study mainly contributes by identifying another approach for retaining online customers, i.e. by creating resistance to change.