Clicks to Connection: How Digital Marketing Drives Customer Loyalty in E-Commerce

Lazada Group, Southeast Asia’s leading e-commerce platform, operates across six countries and has served as Alibaba Group’s regional flagship since 2016. This study investigates the factors influencing customer satisfaction and loyalty toward Lazada in Malaysia, focusing on perceived usefulness, ease of use, trust, convenience, and security risks. A quantitative approach was used, collecting data from 185 Lazada users in Malaysia through a structured Google Forms survey. Regression analysis was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings reveal that perceived trust, convenience, and customer satisfaction have significant positive effects on customer loyalty, supporting H6, H8, H9, and H11. Customer satisfaction emerged as the strongest predictor (β = 0.264) and key mediator, with the model explaining 81.9% (R² = 0.819) of the variance in customer loyalty. For customer satisfaction, perceived convenience was the strongest predictor (β = 0.440), followed by ease of use (β = 0.216) and trust (β = 0.203), supporting H2, H3, and H4. Perceived usefulness and security risks showed weak or negative effects, leading to the rejection of H1, H5, H7, and H10. These findings offer actionable insights to enhance digital marketing strategies and improve customer satisfaction and loyalty in Malaysia’s competitive e-commerce landscape.