Consumer Satisfaction in Kurdish Online Shopping: Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a Case Study

A thorough understanding of the factors influencing online customer satisfaction is essential for the growth and success of e-commerce. Customer satisfaction results from experiences across various purchasing stages, including recognizing a need, gathering information, evaluating alternatives, making a purchase decision, and reflecting on post-purchase behavior (Yaqub, 2024, Aivas, 2014; Mowen & Minor, 1997). Key questions arise: Do factors such as advertising, product quality, brand reputation, and shopping experiences influence online customer satisfaction? Online shopping has emerged as a convenient alternative to traditional retail, which is often associated with anxiety, crowded spaces, traffic congestion, time limitations, and parking difficulties (Ramayah & Suki, 2008). The internet provides consumers with greater efficiency, offering quick access to product information, saving time, effort, and money, and enhancing overall shopping experiences (Aivas, 2021; McGaughey & Mason, 1998). Products sold online can be divided into two categories. The first category includes products that consumers do not need to physically inspect before purchasing, such as computers, CDs, or digitally represented goods. These products can be adequately evaluated through text, images, and other digital media, making them well suited for online shopping, where the internet facilitates significant transaction and communication functions. The second category encompasses experience-based products, such as clothing and groceries, which consumers typically prefer to see or touch before buying. For these products, digital representations may not provide sufficient information for consumers to make confident purchase decisions online (Hussein et al., 2025; Haque & Khatibi, 2007). The objective of this study is to empirically examine the relationship between online shopping factors and customer satisfaction. The specific objectives of the study are:

1. To identify the factors affected online customer satisfaction.
2. To examine the relationship between online customer satisfaction and its related IV such as advertisements, product quality, brand, shopping experiences etc.

RESEARCH THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK

Today most consumers are looking for ways to streamline their shopping. Therefore, consumers tend to want to get items quickly without bargaining on price or quality, hence, e-shopping has become an important consideration. Consumers can order an amazing variety of products via the internet (Yomnak, 2007). Customers like online shopping, because online shopping saves time. Online shopping is indoor shopping, no need to go outside. By rapid access customers get information quickly. Online shopping eliminates of physical appearance (Aivas, et al., 2025). On over all, online shopping is the easiest way to purchase products. It is no longer enough if our customers are satisfied with our products or services. The markets are consolidating and more and more people are using the internet to compare prices and products. As a result, customer relationships are becoming of increasing importance in the entire process. As people's consumption habits are becoming more and more demanding, they are expecting more and higher quality services from companies. In the course of the increasing market competition, it is required to put more effort into obtaining new customers and keeping the existing ones. However, many companies are still unaware of how much they lose if they do not manage clients properly. We can say that we live in a time when the clients are a valuable asset, and we must treat them with utmost care. Of course, this effort is reflected in the processes (Morauszki et all. 2015). As a company’s existence depends on its customers, it is in the suppliers’ interest to keep customers or in other words the partners, and to enlarge the circle of them. In light of this fact, stagnation means a kind of negative change, so if the supplier companies are able to keep customers, or they are able to get new customers, it will result in some expansion by all means. After the advent of mass production, the handling of customer opinions was one of the tasks of the merchants.

However, direct interaction with customers had stopped and the customers were not able to work with the sellers and there was no feedback about the customers’ opinion. The system was not completely perfect, the level where customer feedback could have been analyzed was missing (Fatah, et al., 2025 and Aswad, 2012). Satisfaction does not only depend on the quality, characteristics and performance of the service, but among other things on consumer expectations, as well (Sprengel, et all. 1996). In today's world, we find that the volume of the supply is in excess of the measure of the effective demand, so the companies which attempt to meet similar customer demands are facing a stiffer competition from their rivals. The companies want to ensure meeting the special customer requirements as much as possible to improve their competitiveness against their competitors in the market. Most of the experience shows that there are companies that do not know enough about their clients. The problem is that the companies do not often have enough information about clients. But familiarity with the needs of our customers which is given by the ISO standard as well is a key factor in the retention of the purchasing power (our customers) and if it is possible you have to keep a record of them as organizational units or products. If we give it another thought taking an example that in the same production line more than 10 kinds of products can be made, and these products are transported to several customers, the company should maintain contacts with 20-30 customers and of course with every customer at the same high level. After a while you must realize it is impossible. We are not supposed to forget that the result of our company depends on the satisfaction of our customers. The dissatisfied customer can leave us.

Satisfying the needs of our customers is not necessarily accompanied by customer satisfaction: e.g., if because of a lack of the product required by the customer, they are offered an alternative product. If it is accepted by the customer, it does not mean in all cases that the customer is satisfied. If as suppliers we are not able to meet the customer needs, the number of orders may decrease. If it becomes permanent, the costs must be drastically reduced, which among other things may lead to downsizing.

Figure 2.1: Factors necessary for a company’s profitability

If we have reached the level of being able to fulfill our customers' requirements, we must strive to meet the special needs and requirements. That means we must look for what is the extra service that turns the satisfied customer into a “thrilled” customer. Studies from abroad show that the likelihood of a repeated purchase made by the satisfied customer is the rate of buyer loyalty. The success of the supplier companies is ensured by the clients who would like to make use of the products and services in the long term. The customer satisfaction strengthens loyalty attached to the supplier, which can increase the company's long-term sales security (Yaqub, 2019, Aivas, 2017 and Zsoldos, 2002). According to Levy and Sharma (1995), the company's profitability needs factors, which are shown in Figure 2.1. In addition, it can be generally said that most companies make a mistake when they fail to make a final interview with the departing customers to find out what was the reason for their departure. It is worth investing money; work into the constant improvement of the quality of the product and service, and in order to increase customer satisfaction (see Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2: Customer satisfaction measurement process

Figure 2.3: Quality sample based on two-dimensional conception of quality

For that reason, online shopping is defined as a form of electronic commerce that allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser. When an online store is set up to enable businesses to buy from another business, the process is called business-to-business online shopping. Online shopping is the process of researching and purchasing products or services over the Internet. The earliest online stores went into business in 1992, and online retailing took over a significant segment of the retail market during the first decade of the twenty-first century, as ownership of personal computers increased and established retailers began to offer their products over the Internet. In this sense, electronic commerce is used for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. Buying products from an online shop, e-shop, e-store, internet shop, web shop, webstore, online store, or virtual store is similar to purchasing from a mail order catalog. Online stores describe products for sale with text, photos, and multimedia files. Typically, the customer selects items to be listed on an order form known as a “shopping cart,” and pays with a credit card or some form of electronic payment (Yaqub, 2025). The products are then shipped to the customer’s address, or in the case of digital media products such as music, software, e-books or movies, may be downloaded onto the customer’s computer. Online shopping has some advantages over shopping in retail stores, including the ability to easily compare prices from a range of merchants, access to a wide selection of merchandise, and the convenience of not having to drive to a physical store. Online merchants have refined shipping methods and developed incentives such as generous return policies to overcome obstacles like delays in receiving purchases and the inability to try on or sample merchandise before buying. However, online shopping cannot replace the experience of shopping in a retail store or the entertainment value of going to a mall or market (Qaradakhi and Aivas., 2020). On the other hand, before the World Wide Web Michael Aldrich who developed a system called Redifon’s Office Revolution in March 1980, connecting sales companies, suppliers, and customers together created the history of online shopping. Companies were able to order supplies from suppliers and sell products to customers electronically, utilizing videotex technology. It is considered a major predecessor and influence on the development of online shopping, as we know it today. In 1994, several years after the launching of the World Wide Web, online transaction systems, including banking and shopping, started emerging. The first shopping transactions were completed through NetMark and Internet Shopping Network in 1994, beginning the online shopping boom. Amazon.com and eBay launched their websites in 1995, offering online shopping options for customers (Aivas and Abdulla., 2021). Many of the first online shopping websites utilized Inter shop Online, an online shopping software system, developed in 1995 by Inter shop Communications AG. The Inter shop Online software allowed businesses to more easily add online shopping capabilities, or e-commerce, on their website, with secure transactions for their customers.

The majority of the earliest online shoppers were young educated males who were familiar with computer technology, but by 2001 women made up 52.8 percent of the online population (Bigne, 2005). Online shopping had caught the attention of the general public by 1999, and both Internet start-ups and well-known retailers launched Web sites offering their products. During the Christmas shopping season of 1999, when many consumers attempted to do their shopping online for the first time, retailers found themselves unprepared to process and ship their orders efficiently. Online retailers improved their customer service and shipping companies such as FedEx and UPS expanded their operations to accommodate the increasing traffic. By December 2008, many online retailers were able to boost their sales by offering guaranteed overnight delivery to last-minute shoppers on Christmas Eve (Ahmed, et al., 2023). Excitement over the potential of online retailing led to unrealistic business expectations during the “dot.com bubble” of 1999-2001. Start-ups attempted to sell products like groceries and dog food over the Internet without accounting for the prohibitive cost of maintaining warehouses and delivery systems. Companies with established retail stores and vendors of specialty items, however, were able to expand their customer base using the infrastructure they already had in place. However, online shopping requires access to a computer, and some form of payment such as a bank account and a debit card, credit card, or PayPal account. According to research found in the Journal of Electronic Commerce, the higher the level of education, income, and occupation of the head of the household, the more favorable the perception of non-store shopping. Increased exposure to technology increases the probability of developing favorable attitudes towards new shopping channels (Zia,, et al., 2025 and Bigne, 2005). Online shoppers are most likely to belong to the middle and upper classes, but as the growth of technology has made computers less expensive and available to more people, and increased the ease of connecting to the Internet, the customer base has expanded. The popularity of online shopping is a global phenomenon. Surveys of Internet users have revealed that 99 percent of South Korean internet users have shopped online, closely followed by 97 percent of internet users in Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. Ninety-four percent of Internet users in the United States reported that they had purchased something online. Using a credit card to purchase items on the Internet is especially appealing to consumers in emerging markets who cannot easily find or buy items they want in local retail stores. As a result, it can be said that the advantages of online shopping covers several things, including: Online stores are available 24 hours a day, and many consumers have Internet access both at work and at home. Searching or browsing an online catalog can be faster than browsing the aisles of a physical store. Collectors and hobbyists can find supplies and rare items online that are rarely available in retail stores, and can use auction sites to sell, trade and research collectibles, antiques and one-of-a-kind pieces. Some online stores provide or link to supplemental product information, such as instructions, safety procedures, demonstrations, manufacturer specifications, advice, or how-to guides. On the other hand, there are several disadvantages of online shopping, such as: Negative environmental impact of packaging and gas, having your purchase packed in several layers of plastic and cardboard packaging and delivered right to your front door is good for you, but not so great for the environment. Shipping problems and delays, even the biggest and best shipping companies and online retailers have their bad days. Risk of fraud, if you are shopping online, there's a larger risk of fraud: credit card scams, phishing, hacking, identity theft, counterfeit products, bogus websites, and other scams are common. Spending too much time online, especially if your job requires that you look at a computer all day, you might be burnt out on all that screen time. Less contact with the community, if you do all your business online, you'll never have to leave your home.

RESEARCH DATA COLLECTION  

Since this Research focuses on the customers, descriptive analysis was selected. Their thoughts and suggestions on the research's foundations. Descriptive analysis is a tool that aids researchers in obtaining answers to primary research questions through the use of structured data collection techniques to include the necessary and planned responses to the primary questions (Bispo and Gherardi, 2019). As it relates to insight problems and comprehension by human experiences, the quantitative data approach was used. Quantitative analysis allows us to see the big picture and helps us solve the organization's conditional issues. This research design allows for a thorough examination of the customer-work relationship. The descriptive analysis gives us the opportunity to share our own desires and opinions on the situation. The most significant element of this research review is that it assists us in framing and reacting to the project's ethical issues. On a wide scale, this method of research assists in recognizing the participants' point of view. People's expectations cannot be calculated, so this form of qualitative data necessitates the use of an exploratory sample as a research tool.

The studied organization has a population of around 30. A sample is defined as the specific amount of people that you study or observe from your total population (McCombes, 2019). For this study 30 respondents were used. Hence the sample size is 30. There is various sampling techniques used over time. Sampling is divided into 2 forms probability and non-probability sampling. Probability sampling is further divided into 4 forms. The first form is known as Simple random sampling, the second is known as Systematic sampling, the third is known as stratified sampling and the last is known as cluster sampling (McCombes, 2019). The sampling technique used for this research was Simple random sampling. The following is a list of the participants' demographic data:

Figure 3.1: According to this figure we know that most of the participants were female and only %30 of the participants is male. The participant's nationality was the second demographic information point, which included (Kurdish and Arabic). The majority of the participants were Kurdish, while the rest were Arabic, as seen in the graph.

Figure 3.2: As shown in the graph, the bulk of the participants were Kurdish, with the rest being Arabic.

A questionnaire was created to gather information from students about the different facets of compensation and recognition that the researcher needed.

1.1.3. What is Questionnaire?

A questionnaire is a research tool that consists of a set of questions (or other kinds of prompts) designed to collect data from respondents. The Statistical Society of London devised the questionnaire in 1838 (Gault, 1907). Although most questionnaires are developed with statistical analysis in mind, this is not always the case. When resources are limited, a questionnaire is used because it is relatively inexpensive to design and administer, and time is a valuable resource that a questionnaire consumes to its full extent, participants' privacy is protected because participants will respond honestly only if their identity is hidden and confidentiality is maintained, and findings are corroborated by other findings. Questionnaires have advantages over conventional of surveys in that they are inexpensive, require less effort from the questioner than verbal or telephone surveys, and often have standardized responses that make data collection easy. However, users may be frustrated by such standardized responses because the possible responses may not accurately reflect their desired responses. Questionnaires are also severely restricted by the requirement that respondents be able to read and respond to the questions. As a result, conducting a survey by questionnaire may not be feasible for certain demographic groups (Adam Fox).

2.1.3 Research Instrument and Data Analysis Techniques

A research instrument is a method that is used to gather data for a study. A questionnaire was used as a research tool in this analysis. A questionnaire is one of the most popular tools for gathering information (Yang et all, 2019). A questionnaire is a collection of questions that respondents must answer in order for the researchers to correctly acknowledge the analysis. The confidentiality of the respondents is one of the most common advantages of the questionnaire. This encourages respondents to express themselves more freely. It's also inexpensive, produces quicker results, and is simple to analyze. The questionnaire has a few flaws, such as respondents' misinterpretation of the questions. Open-ended questions will take longer to explore and process, which can be a disadvantage. The information collected during the interview is referred to as qualitative data. Content review is used to analyze this information. This is observable and recordable non-numerical data. Because of the open-ended questions, qualitative data assists in presenting rich data and also provides an in-depth interpretation of the study. Despite the fact that both types of data have very different methods, they are equally important for the analysis to be done. MS Excel was used to analyze the data.

RESEARCH DATA ANALYSIS

1.4 Customer Satisfaction Toward Kurdish online shopping

The charts below show the answers from the respondents that participated in the questionnaire:

As we see in the pie chart above, half of the respondents are in bachelor degree and about %13 of them is in master degree or above it, and the other respondents are in associate degree, high school and secondary schools.

The researchers choose students more than the teachers or the others to collect their data, so as to know how teenagers use the online shopping websites. The column chart tells us that %50 of the respondents is student, and the others are in the way we divided.

Those who their income is less than 200$ are the students that participated in the questionnaire, the freelancers and the teacher’s income is 450$ above.

As we see in the pie chart about %27 of the respondents does online shopping 2 times a week, the researchers indicate most of them buy fast-food 2 times a week. Besides that, %33 of the respondents uses shopping websites every 2 or 3 months.

About %30 of the answers for the 7th question are to “low price” which means that most of the people choose to shop online because the prices are lower than prices from the shops. And some of them say that shopping online is useful for time saving, and %40 of the respondents says that, they can buy rare products and variety.

The bar chat indicates that most of the respondents are satisfied with the lower price of products which contain about %27. And %23 of them are satisfied with the differences between their expectation and the real product or service. About %40 of them are satisfied with the speed of delivery and the way of solving their complaint. Only a few of them are pleased with the loyalty for the online shop.

If we look at the pie chart, we can be sure that the service quality of the sellers is very important for online shopping, up here more than %87 of the respondents is agreed with the statement.

Its important to know that why %16 of the respondents disagree with that the speed of delivery is important for customer satisfaction, they say the quality of the product is much important than the delivery speed. Beside that about %77 of them are agree with the statement.

For all of us, the price for any product is important to be low so we can buy it. In this study the researcher indicates that most of the respondents are satisfied with lowest prices of the products which contain about %70. But in other hand we have 10 percent respondents that didn’t care about the price but only the quality.

As we see 27 peoples who participated in the questionnaire were strongly agree with the statement and its about %90, so we should to be careful in choosing products from online shopping markets.

The bar chart makes us sure that most of the people will not repurchase any product again if there was a different between the expectations.