Factors Influencing the Consumers Adoption of E-commerce in the Agricultural Market

Abstract

In China, the agriculture economy accounts for 7.2% of the national economy, and the farmer population is about 260 million, agricultural modernization has made significant progress, but its agricultural market has encountered some problems. This research aims to determine the key factors that influence the adoption of e-commerce on agricultural trades in He Nan, China. According to Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), the researcher found that many factors significantly affect the consumer's intention to use e-commerce as the dependent variable. Therefore, these factors will be adopted as independent variables in this research: perceived usefulness, ease of use, compatibility, trialability, perceived risks, and reliability. The research was conducted using a convenient sampling under non-probability sampling to save time and cost. A total of 384 completed online questionnaires were collected among consumers in He Nan. Simple regression analysis showed that all factors, namely the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, compatibility trialability, perceived risks and reliability, could significantly influence the adoption of agriculture e-commerce in He Nan, China. Thus, policymakers would need to facilitate these factors to speed up the adoption of e-commerce in the agriculture sector.