Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters/MBA)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37942
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Item Trust in E-commerce and its impact on the purchase intention of consumers in south africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Esther, Mufhadi Thilimbilu; Pillay, KiruThe COVID-19 pandemic brought many challenges to companies. With the restrictions that were imposed, companies were forced to look at their digital transformation strategy to first overcome the challenges they were facing and second to determine what digital technologies could be leveraged to fast-track services and service delivery to their consumers. This research study seeks to understand the role of online trust in stimulating the purchase intention of e-commerce consumers in the South African market. The study applied an experimental research design to address the research questions. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire collected through an online survey. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (chi- squared test). Furthermore, to investigate the relationship between privacy concerns and online trust in e-commerce consumers in South Africa, regression analysis was applied, and a p-value of 0.05 was used. The SPSS Version 28 was used to analyse the data. Results show that online shopping occurs predominantly amongst youth between 18 and 39 years old with an honours degree education. Most of the participants purchase online for convenience (27.9%), and 2.6% of participants mentioned fear of cybercrime as the reason for not using online shopping. Perceived risk influences consumers’ decision-making processes for buying products on e-commerce platforms. Most of the participants learned about online shopping from social media platforms (32.5%) and 11.3% from word of mouth. Most of the participants trust the e-commerce (75%). The majority of participants mentioned that website safety and ease of navigation (95%) encourage them to purchase online. Also, 90% of participants believe that familiarity with the website before making an actual purchase reduces the risk of shopping online. This study recommended providing more online shopping platforms to youth and educated consumers since this group is more aware of the risk factors associated with online shopping.Item The impact of the Protection of Personal Information Act on online consumers’ privacy concerns(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Mosakoa, Panki PatrickGlobally, consumer privacy remains a major concern when shopping online and merchants are collecting and using personal information. However, many nations have been responding with personal data protection laws to protect individuals’ human rights to privacy. In South Africa, the government introduced the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) in 2013 and fully enacted in July 2020. This study aimed to investigate the impact of POPIA on online shoppers' privacy concerns by examining consumer privacy concerns before and after POPIA was introduced and also determine the extent to which knowledge of POPIA has influenced online privacy concerns. A quantitative methodology using descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing was adopted to guide the analysis of data collected from a random sample drawn from students of one South African university using a pre-designed questionnaire. The results support the hypothesis that online shoppers' privacy concerns have not changed before and after the POPIA enactment. The descriptive statistics revealed that online shoppers lack knowledge of POPIA and still have concerns about the safety of their personal information, credit card and identity information theft, and impostor online organisations. With increased data breaches and deliberate information disclosure, these concerns prevent consumers from shopping online because of personal information safety fears. It is recommended that policymakers introduce more awareness campaigns and case laws of the legislation to the public. Organisations can invest more in employee training and development initiatives on POPIA regulations, POPIA compliance on internal systems, and online platforms to sensitise staff and minimise possible litigation