Effect of virtual store website features on store brand equity (Case Study: Digikala)

In an online environment, the use of intangible assets such as brand equity, is one of the ways to create and maintain superiority. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the factors affecting the brand equity of Digikala as one of the online suppliers of goods. The research method is descriptive-survey and the statistical population of the study was people who bought at least one time from this store. The cluster sampling method used in this study. For this reason, Tehran was divided into five clusters of North, South, East, West, and Center, and a questionnaire was distributed in two clusters among the members of the statistical community. Partial Least Squares (SmartPlus) software was used to test the hypotheses. For this purpose, 388 valid questionnaires were analyzed. The findings of this research showed that loyalty, trust association and value association have a positive effect on brand equity. The positive impact of customer support services on awareness, loyalty, trust association, and value association were also confirmed, but the impact of awareness on trust association and value association was not confirmed. From the results, it becomes clear that virtual businesses in our country, in order to increase their brand equity, should be sources that create brand equity (brand awareness of customers, customer loyalty, customer value association, and associativity, Trust in terms of customers) should pay more attention. So to improving these dimensions, they should enhance their support services, their performance, and their functionality.