Providing information and enabling transactions: which website function is more important for success?

In this study, we propose and test a chain of effects from website content, through informational and transactional success to overall website success and company performance. This framework enables us to determine the relative importance of the informational and transaction-related website functions for website success, and to show how website functions, through a number of intermediate performance measures, contribute to the financial performance of a company.

The results are based on an empirical study of 380 companies across a wide range of industries. We find that both the informational and the transaction-related website functions have a significant positive impact on website success, but that the impact of the informational function is considerably larger. Our results show that firms can improve website performance through providing relevant website functions throughout the entire customer purchase process. An important result of our study concerns the mediating role of customer performance: customer performance in terms of e.g., customer satisfaction and retention, is a necessary condition for website success to result in financial performance. The chain of effects shows that firms profit from websites that are designed to meet customer needs and wants.