Explaining Customer Loyalty in Digital Food Delivery Platforms: A Convenience-Led Perspective from Malaysian University Students

Digital food delivery platforms compete in markets where users can compare alternatives and switch applications with limited effort. For platform providers, the central challenge is not simply adoption but the conversion of repeated transactions into durable loyalty. This study examines how trustworthiness, service quality and convenience are statistically associated with customer loyalty among Malaysian university students, a digitally intensive and time-constrained user segment. Using an integrated trust, service quality and convenience framework, the article develops a cautious convenience-led interpretation of loyalty in platform-mediated food delivery. Data were collected through an online survey, and 167 valid responses were analysed using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation and multiple regression. All three predictors were positively and significantly associated with customer loyalty. Convenience was the strongest statistical predictor (beta = 0.491, p < 0.001), followed by service quality (beta = 0.231, p = 0.001) and trustworthiness (beta = 0.152, p = 0.021). The model explained 54.8% of the variance in customer loyalty. The findings suggest that loyalty among student users is convenience-led but not convenience-only: convenience reduces routine friction, service quality stabilises the user experience, and trustworthiness provides the confidence threshold for digital transactions. The article offers an empirically informed refinement of customer loyalty in low-switching-cost food delivery platforms and practical implications for interface design, operational reliability and student-segment retention.

customer loyalty; convenience; digital food delivery; e-service quality; platform loyalty; trustworthiness; university students; Malaysia

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