Website quality and internal business factors: An empirical investigation in the Italian wine industry

The purpose of this paper is dual. The first is to assess the quality of websites of Italian wineries, using the Web Assessment Index (WAI), and compare e-commerce and e-marketing websites. The second is to verify the existence of a relationship between the website quality and business revenue, on one hand, and the characteristics of managers, on the other. A two-step survey was carried out to respond to the aims of the study. First, a sample of wineries was contacted to capture information on both the wineries and managerial characteristics. On the basis of the observed data, a second step of the analysis was performed taking into consideration 84 wineries having a website. The website quality has been evaluated by WAI, and afterwards, it has been related to the internal business factors previously identified. Findings show that the website quality is higher in e-commerce websites than in e-marketing websites, and that business revenue and the education level of managers have a positive influence on the websites’ quality. The results of the study need to be interpreted within the context for which this research was designed and cannot be applied generally to all businesses. Findings have some theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical point of view, this study validates the WAI model in the wine sector. From a managerial perspective, results are useful both for wineries creating an online presence for the first time, and for those already existing which, and for system designers of websites. Very few empirical studies have been conducted on the relationship between website quality, business performance and managerial characteristics.