Decoding online shopping adoption in Saudi Arabia: The role of trust and user experience

Abstract

The current paper discusses the factors, which affect consumer acceptance of online shopping platforms in Saudi Arabia. It examined this by the Unified Theory of Acceptability and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) model and the other factors of trust and user experience. The present paper has assessed how trust and experience have an effect on the behavioral intention of online shopping websites within the context of Saudi Arabia. It is based on the UTAUT2 model. The study was quantitative in nature and a survey technique was used to gather information about Saudi customers. The research was conducted based on a model known as structural equation modeling (SEM) that was employed to test the correlation between the elements proposed and the acceptance of online shopping platform. Findings of the research indicate that expectancy of performance, social influence and trust are highly potent factors that determine the desire to utilize online shopping platforms. All this makes the level of customer acceptability very high with regard to overall satisfaction and intentions to buy online. There was no significant effect of effort expectancy and enabling environments as well as hedonic incentives on behavioral intention, however. These results reveal that trust and pleasant user experience are major factors that define the uptake of Internet commerce in Saudi Arabia among consumers. We discover that the long-held opinion that other factors such as performance expectancy and social influence continue to play a role in acceptance of online purchasing technology is true. However, the aspects of trust remain decisive, depending on the traits of cognition and user experience. The study had practitioner implications among researchers of consumer behavior on digital marketplace. This implication is clear to people who belong to the e-commerce industry or to people who are developing a feature to win the favor of users. In such situations, the measures of trust-building need to be implemented, and the user experience needs to be optimized.