E-Literacy in Pacific Asia

Hesitant about Internet security has been a major obstacle to consumers’ acceptance of electronic commerce. The objective of this paper is to assess how consumers in Pacific Asia perceive Internet security and how much they know about the topic. A total of 182 university students from Australia and Hong Kong SAR participated in this study. The results show that respondents in these two Pacific Asia regions had similar level of e-literacy. Both groups were unsure about Internet security and their selfassessed knowledge of Internet security was relatively low. A closer analysis of the data suggests that respondents have a tendency to over-estimate their understanding of the Internet security

Market makers\u27 recognition of key success factors in electronic marketplaces

This study examines the recognition and use of critical success factors by market makers in electronic marketplaces. A content analysis of e-marketplace websites enabled an examination of how these factors have been incorporated into marketplace sites. Evidence of market makers’ awareness of the success factors was found in all the sites although there remain questions and issues to be addressed. Awareness of the need for critical mass and privacy were very evident, but the key factors of security, technological infrastructure and neutrality were identified as areas of concern. Evidence of an awareness of the importance of trust by market makers was found, but more effective signalling of trust to buyers and sellers within the marketplaces is required

Consumer Shopping Motivations with Facebook Retailers: Utilitarian versus Hedonic

Retailers increasingly are connecting with consumers using social media. This two-way, networked communication method facilitates word-of-mouth that may ultimately impact retailer loyalty. The purpose of this study was to examine motivations of consumers' purchase intention from apparel Facebook retailers, and the relationship between purchase intention and loyalty. Consumer motivations were examined in terms of the utilitarian values of cost, convenience, and information and the hedonic values of experiential shopping, bargain perception, sociability, and curiosity. The relationship of purchase intention and loyalty also was investigated. The instrument was developed from existing scales drawn from literature. A consumer panel (N = 250) of Facebook users that connect to apparel retailers was used to collect data through an online Qualtrics survey. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics of frequency and crosstab distributions, factor analysis, and regression analysis. Factor analysis resulted in four dimensions including convenience, information, experience, and bargains. All motivators were found to be significantly related to both purchase intention and loyalty for this consumer group. The variable with the strongest relationship to both purchase intention and loyalty was experience. Additionally, a strong relationship was found between purchase intention and loyalty. Lastly, practical business implications are reviewed, in addition to limitations of the study

Identification and realisation of the benefits of participating in an electronic marketplace : An interpretive evaluation approach

Electronic marketplaces have proliferated as use of the Internet has become widespread in business. A rapid growth in the number of marketplaces, followed by a period of stringent consolidation, as market makers develop a greater understanding of effective business models, has resulted in a climate of uncertainty and confusion. As with many aspects of e-commerce the drive towards participation is fuelled less by strategy planning than by a fear of lagging behind competitors or losing first mover advantage. In this climate of uncertainty organisations often bypass effective evaluation of the benefits that can be realised from participation in e-marketplaces, thereby exacerbating the process facing them and hampering effective decision-making. Evaluation is perceived as a fraught subject within the Information System field, and particularly within the business community which adheres to tried and trusted, albeit often inappropriate, methods such as financial or technical evaluation. The difficulties involved in effective evaluation of systems are well documented; these will increase as systems become more pervasive throughout organisations and those of their trading partners. Calls for a more holistic approach to evaluation are increasing, based on a developing appreciation of interpretive methods of research within the Information Systems discipline. However, the understanding that the social, political and cultural factors affecting and organisation have an impact on the uses and advantages of systems is by no means universal, and empirical evidence of this view is only slowly emerging. This research examines the benefits that can be realised from participation in an electronic marketplace by taking an interpretive approach to the evaluation. It examines the nature of electronic marketplaces to provide clarity to a confused and dynamic environment. The study then focuses on the development of evaluation studies within the IS discipline to identify how an effective evaluation method for assessing the benefits of e-marketplace participation can be achieved. An empirical examination of an organisation’s participation in an electronic marketplace is used to identify the benefits that are realisable and the issues that impact on them. The case study is conducted through an interpretive lens, using a content, context, process (CCP) approach based on existing IS literature. This enables a crucial understanding of the internal and external environments influencing the organisation and its realisation of potential benefits. To allow for the range of interpretations and reflections required to fully address the complexity of the issues involved in such a case study, a variety of research influences such as dialect hermeneutics, critical realism and case study theory are drawn into the research model. The case study organisation’s motivation for participating in an e-marketplace was primarily cost savings. Over the two years of the study, several more potential benefits were identified, such as supply chain efficiencies, greater market awareness and a widening of the supplier base. However, the organisation’s commitments to its local and regional communities, its need to retain status and some consideration of existing relationships needed to be balanced against the gains that might be realised. In some cases the organisation chose to forgo a potential benefit in favour of socially or politically motivated actions. Cultural factors also influenced their actions, particularly as they moved towards extending participation in the marketplace to gain from a global sourcing strategy. The contribution of this research lies in two areas. Firstly, it was existing evaluation literature to development a framework for the evaluation of benefits in the complex area of electronic marketplaces, thereby extending and informing the call for more inclusive and interpretive evaluation studies. Secondly, the research contributes empirical evidence to support the recognition of benefits to be gained from electronic marketplaces and shows how the realisation of the economic benefits is impacted by the social, political and cultural factors that influence an organisation

Multimodal social media product reviews and ratings in e-commerce: an empirical approach

Since the booming of the internet and the “.com” (e-commerce) in the 1990’s, everything has changed. This improvement created different areas for researchers to investigate and examine, especially in the fields of human computer interaction and social media. This technological revolution has dramatically changed the way we interact with computers, buy, communicate and share information. This thesis investigates multimodal presentations of social media review and rating messages within an e-commerce interface. Multimodality refers to the communication pattern that goes beyond text to include images, audio and media. Multimodality provides a new way of communication, as images, for example, can deliver an additional information which might be difficult or impossible to communicate using text only. Social media can be defined as a two-way interaction using the internet as the communication medium.The overall hypothesis is that the use of multimodal metaphors (sound and avatars) to present social media product r views will improve the usability of the ecommerce interface and increase the user understanding, reduce the time needed to make a decision when compared to non-multimodal presentations. E-commerce usability refers to the presentation, accessibility and clarity of information. An experimental e-commerce platform was developed to investigate the particular interactive circumstances that multimodal metaphors may benefit the social media communication of reviews of products to users. The first experiment using three conditions (text with emoji’s, earcons and facially expressive avatars) measured the user comprehension, understanding information, user satisfaction with the way in which information was communicated and social media preference in e-commerce. The second experiment investigated the time taken by users to understand information, understanding information correctly, user satisfaction and user enjoyment using three conditions (emoji’s, facially expressive avatar and animation clips) in ecommerce platform. The results of the first set experiments of the showed that the text with emoji’s and the use of facially expressive avatar conditions had improved the users’ performance through understanding information effectively and making decisions quicker compared to the earcons condition. In the second experiment, the results showed that the users performed better (understanding information, understating information faster) using the emoji’s and the facially expressive avatar presentations compared to the use of the animation clip condition. A set of empirically derived guidelines to implement these metaphors to communicate social media product reviews in e-commerce interface have been presented