5.5.1 Perceived ease of use (PEOU)
Table 5.4 presents the results of the issues of the 15 statements put to the respondents to assess their perception of perceived ease of use as a barrier to e-commerce adoption and is based on Technology Adoption Model. According to the mean statistics, the results show that the most significant barrier among PEOU is that older people ‘find the information on the website difficult to understand’ since there is, on average, 2.2653 out of a possible 5 with this statement. This is followed by the difficulty in reading and navigating the e-commerce website. The third significant aspect of ease of use as a barrier is that older people find it difficult to search for goods when shopping online. Regarding the insignificant barriers relating to ease of use are the transfer of money between different accounts followed by buying books online and then buying clothes, shoes, jewelry online. The fact that the movement of money between different accounts, buying of books and clothes online are rated as less of barriers under ease of use is not surprising given that these are the sort of activities that most older people would be expected to do more frequently. For example, as pensioners they are likely to have the need to move money from current accounts to savings accounts each time they receive their pensions. This is supported by by Mattila et al. (2003) who found that the most popular mode of payment among older people was bill payment service with 37%. Also, older people are more likely to have interest in reading books to occupy their time. Finally, given the mobility issue that comes with age discussed in Chapter 3, it is also likely that older people would benefit from shopping for clothes and jewelry online.
This can be also explained by the Motivation Theory. Older people’s behaviour may be influenced by the extrinsic factor (usefulness) in their acceptance of the activity of transferring money between bank accounts. This was consistent with previous studies which indicated online shopping to be the most common e-commerce activity performed (Eastman & Iyer, 2004; Hill et al., 2008; Marston et al., 2016). Hence the more often they undertake the same activities, the less they perceive it to be a barrier.
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Table 5.4 Perceived ease of useN Mean Std Dev Min Max
E.1. I find the information on websites easy
to understand
147 2.2653 .93871 1.00 5.00
E.2. I find it easy to read and navigate e-
commerce web sites/ pages.
147 2.5306 .91641 1.00 5.00
E.3. I find it easy to search for goods when I
shop online
145 2.5724 .91093 1.00 5.00
E.4. I find it easy to do comparisons
shopping online
146 2.6849 .93774 1.00 5.00
E.5. I find it easy to buy a car on the
internet.
30 2.7333 1.33735 1.00 5.00
E.6. I find it easy to sell books online? 22 2.7727 .92231 1.00 5.00
E.7. I find it easy to sell household goods
or appliances online
29 3.1379 .99010 1.00 5.00
E.8. I find it easy to sell clothes/ shoes
online?
27 3.1481 .71810 1.00 5.00
E.9. I find it easy to buy household goods or
appliances on the internet.
91 3.1538 .95363 1.00 5.00
E.10. I find it easy to pay bills on the
internet.
111 3.1712 1.08606 1.00 5.00
E.11. I find it easy to buy general groceries
on the internet
44 3.2955 1.00185 1.00 5.00
E.12. I find it easy to buy insurances/
services on the internet.
55 3.3273 1.05505 1.00 5.00
E.13. I find it easy to buy clothes/shoes
/jewelry online?
86 3.3488 .87807 1.00 5.00
E.14. I find it easy to buy books online? 80 3.4875 .79546 1.00 5.00
E.15. I find it easy to transfer money
between accounts from different banks
74 3.6892 1.01934 1.00 5.00
5.5.2 Perceived Usefulness
The results of the perceived usefulness as a barrier to e-commerce adoption are presented in Table 5.5 and are based on Technology Adoption Model. These results show that the most significant barrier among usefulness is that the older people do not necessarily think that there are more advantages/ benefits of e-commerce than disadvantages as indicated with a mean agreement rating of 2.4514 with that statement. It could be explained by the theory of reasoned action that older people’s perception that most people who are important to them or who are around them for example, friends, think they should or should not buy or sell on the internet. This is influenced by their perception of the beliefs of those people who are around them.
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Table 5.5 Perceived UsefulnessN Mean Std Dev Min Max
U.1. There are more advantages/ benefits of
e-commerce than disadvantages
144 2.4514 .89153 1.00 .89153
U.2. I feel e-commerce helps me make better
purchase decisions.
143 2.6434 .93752 1.00 .93752
U.3. I find products and services cheaper
online than from shops.
146 2.6438 .95945 1.00 .95945
U.4. I can shop for products online that are
not available or difficult to find in the shops
145 2.7379 1.04762 1.00 1.04762
U.5. I feel that online transactions are quicker
and saves time
146 2.8219 1.04178 1.00 1.04178
U.6. I find it convenient to shop online 139 2.8921 .97572 1.00 .97572
U.7. I like being able to compare products 146 3.0000 .96847 1.00 .96847
U.8. I feel it is important to make shopping a
social event
146 3.0000 .96132 1.00 .96132
Older people also did not necessarily think that e-commerce helps them to make better purchase decisions and that product and services are cheaper online than from traditional shops. This is consistent with Olphert et al. (2005)’s study which found that older people did not think internet would be beneficial to them and they made a conscious decision not to engage so that they preserve their traditional habits. This may be also an indication perhaps that older people are not very good at searching for products on the internet using different search engines or words to find cheaper deals. The fourth significant barrier under ‘usefulness’ is that older people also do not think that shopping online avoids the problems of going to traditional shops, since to them its not a hassle but they actually enjoy the social aspect of it. Regarding the less significant barriers under ‘usefulness’ are the fact that older people like being able to compare products and feeling that shopping is a social event (Chakraborty et al., 2016). The third insignificant barrier is that older people find it convenient to shop online. This shows that older people value going to shop in person and touching or trying the products before they buy them (Berry, 2011; Knowles & Hanson, 2018).
5.5.3 Security and Privacy
The four statements put to the respondents to measure privacy and security issues as a barrier to e-commerce adoption and the results are presented in Table 5.6. The results indicate older people are very concerned about security and privacy issues. In particular the
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results suggest that they fundamentally disagree with the statements that (1) I am not concerned with personal information being shared (1.00), (2) I am not concerned about unauthorized use of my credit card cards (1.00) and (3) I am not concerned about transactions and shipping errors (1.00). These results suggest that these issues are the most significant barriers among security and privacy issues. The findings are consistent with Gatto and Tak (2008) and Morris et al. (2007) studies. The studies found that many older people avoid online activities that could put their personal details at risk for identity fraud. The findings of this study were also supported by previous studies who found security and private issues to be significant barriers to adoption of technology and e-commerce by older people (Chakraborty et al., 2016; Teo, 2006) and Olphert et al. (2005)’s study found out that security issues were seen to be the most significant barrier of internet use among the older generation with 56% and privacy issues were ranked fourth with 35 %. The aspect of security which is seen to be insignificant barrier is the concern about transaction and shipping errors.
Table 5.6 Security and Privacy (SP)
N Mean Std
Dev
Min Max
SP.1. I am not concerned about my
personal information being shared.
146 1.5411 .63384 1.00 3.00
SP.2. I am not concerned about
unauthorised use of my credit card
146 1.1233 .38757 1.00 3.00
SP.3. I am not concerned about
transaction and shipping errors.
146 1.4041 .59398 1.00 4.00
SP.4. I am not concerned the products
do not perform as intended
146 1.6438 .69222 1.00 3.00
5.5.4 Lack of Trust
From Table 5.7 it can be seen that the most significant barrier to e-commerce adoption under ‘trust’ is the quality of the products that are sold online. It can also be seen that the respondents ranked the ‘trust in the information presented on e-commerce websites’ as a second significant barrier and the ‘trust on online delivery service system’ as a third barrier. The least significant barrier is the ‘trust when buying from a website they have used in the
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past’. It appears there was a big variation in disagreement on the trust on the quality of the products sold online’ with a standard variation of 0.65216.
Trust is a major factor in facilitating customer intention to buy. Overall, the results which suggest that lack of trust is a significant barrier to e-commerce adoption by older people is consistent with previous studies who also found trust to be more of a barrier to e-commerce. The findings of this study is aslo supported by Gefen (2000)’s study who found that trust was an important factor on the intentions to inquire about books and their intention to buy them. Other studies such as McCloskey and Lepper (2010) found trust to be a significant barrier to e-commerce participation for mature adults aged between 50 to 69 years old. They also found that trust had a positive impact on ease of information accesss and usefulness. This is also supported by Chakraborty et al. (2016)’s study which found that trust is a significant barrier towards e-commerce when their study examined people’s intentions to engage in e-commerce in the context of a significant data breach in an online shop.
Table 5.7 Trust
N Mean Std
Dev
Min Max
T.1. I trust the quality of the
products sold online.
146 2.5753 .65216 1.00 4.00
T.2. I trust the information
presented on e-commerce websites.
144 2.6111 .71067 1.00 5.00
T.3. I trust online delivery service
system
146 2.7808 .74735 1.00 5.00
T.4. I trust buying from a website I
have used in the past.
145 3.3724 .99265 1.00 5.00
Slyke et al. (2004)’ s study found that trust in e-commerce websites is significantly related to intentions of customers to make purchase from the website even when other more traditional perceptions are considered such as compatibility, complexity and relative advantage. Gefen et al. (2000)’s study also found out that one of the factors which influences the consumers’ s intensions to enact with the last website vendor from whom they purchased before rest on trust. McCloskey (2006)’s study found out trust to have a positive directly affected on frequency of use meaning that if the website is not trustworthy this will affect how often the customer shop there. Gatto and Tak (2008)’s study found out that some respondents did not trust the information they retrieved from the internet.