The impact of brand loyalty on website usage

Abstract

A number of previous studies have investigated determinants of brand website usage. Variables such as internet experience, goal-directedness and type of motivation (entertainment/information) have been found to influence consumer behaviour on a given web page. This study focuses on websites for well-known brands. For such websites, it is hypothesised that brand loyalty is a major determinant for website usage. Affectively loyal consumers sense a relationship to their favoured brands and should be motivated to visit websites for such brands more frequently than non-loyals. Effects of brand loyalty on duration of visits could, however, be negative, because loyals are well updated on the contents of the sites and find less news when visiting.

These issues were addressed in a study of 534 visitors to a national Pepsi website. The results show that brand loyalty is a much stronger determinant of website usage than conventional determinants, such as internet experience and type of motivation for the visit (information/entertainment). As expected, it was found that brand loyalty is significantly positively related to frequency of website usage, but negatively related to visit duration. Moreover, the results show interesting effects of brand loyalty and motivation for visits on the frequency of visits. The results have important implications for development of brand equity.