The business world’s preoccupation with quality management has expe-rienced different phases over time. The first steps, at the beginning of the
last century, went towards inspection in manufacturing processes (James, 1996). Another stage was centred in the control of quality, later the emphasis fell into quality assurance and finally to total quality manage-ment (TQM). Many years were spent before the first contributions towards services management arrived (Parasuraman et al., 1988). More recently, with e-commerce’s growth, several attempts have been made to evaluate quality in this new domain. We appear to be in the initial phases of the ‘curve life’ for e-commerce: innovation (Vázquez and Trespalacios, 2006). In this phase, sales grow quickly, although they are not always reflected in benefits due to a great variety of problems.
In addition, it is necessary to consider that in this phase, the profile and ability of purchasing over the Internet is typical of a developing market. The profile of the buyer coincides largely with the habitual user of the network, which differs remarkably from the normal distri-bution of the population.
As classic authors in quality management for the manufacture of physical goods advised, it is worthwhile considering Deming’s cycle (i.e. Plan-Do-Check-Act). The contributions analysed at the beginning of this chapter – on the quality measures applied to e-commerce – provide us with a review of salient knowledge in this area. We have demonstrated the value of one of these instruments, eQual, as applied to the domain of online bookshops in the UK.
As we see in the Amazon case, its success lies in its innovating char-acter and its orientation towards the client. In fact, where Amazon dif-fers more from its competitors is in the ‘trust’ dimension: one of the keys to the success of e-commerce. Another issue is the value of the quality of the information. This aspect is essential to compete online.
It is a condition sine qua non. It is not possible to operate in the market without offering detailed, well-organized and well-managed tion. There is no doubt that evaluating the quality of Web site informa-tion is a complex process, since it requires the analysis of numerous aspects; it is necessary to evaluate not only the contents, but also the format, order, amount of information, level of detail, and so on. Overall, as a company begins to grapple with Web content issues, it has to create clear rules for how to balance which information is needed by buyers and which information may be peripheral. Whatever a company can do to improve ‘trust’ will increase overall perceptions;
a company that transmits a greater sensation of veracity and security in a transaction is one that will obtain greater benefits. On the other hand, this research demonstrates that, by comparison, less attention might be paid to merely technical or design issues.
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