Factors Influencing E-Commerce Shopping Adoption: Empirical Evidence from Consumers in Bangladesh

This paper is an empirical research study examining the major drivers of Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce usage among consumers in Bangladesh, which is a developing digital economy that has great potential to grow, but with certain socio-economic and infrastructural limitations. The research is based on the existing theories of technology adoption and is contextualized in the case of developing economies, considering ten of the hypothesized determinants: the factors of the websites, the perceived risk, the service quality, the convenience, the price, the product variety, the consumer resources, the subjective norms, the product guarantees, and the demographics. A quantitative and cross-sectional design was used to gather data through a structured questionnaire to 66 internet users of Bangladeshi origin who had previous experience of online shopping. The results of the multiple regression analysis were that convenience, subjective norms, and price are the most influential positive predictors of the adoption intention. Surprisingly, the factors related to websites demonstrated a strong negative correlation, which indicates that the early adopters might accept inappropriate experiences on websites because of the strong value of the utilitarian core and social benefits. Perceived risk, service quality and product variety did not predict significantly in this sample, meaning that they could be neutralized by market adaptations such as Cash-on-Delivery systems and social commerce trust networks. The results have significant theoretical implications to contextualize the use of the technology acceptance model to explain the price-sensitive nature of emerging markets that are collectivist. In practice, the research has practical implications for e-commerce platforms to consider logistical convenience first, use social proof to their advantage, and implement friction-reducing designs, but advises policymakers to promote inclusive digital development by investing in infrastructure and implementing light-touch regulation.