From social interactions to transactions: investigating South African Facebook users’ intention to shop on Facebook

Abstract

South African small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) feel the pressure of harsh economic conditions and increasing competition. Meanwhile, the country’s social media use is growing exponentially. This offers SMMEs the opportunity to transact through Facebook commerce (f-commerce), a low-cost, widely accessible, and potentially profitable sales platform. Utilizing the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a framework, this study investigates South Africans' perceptions of the ease of use and usefulness of f-commerce and how these perceptions translate into attitudes, intentions, and actual f-commerce use. Data was collected from adult Facebook users via an online self-administered survey using convenience and snowball sampling. Structural equation modeling confirms the suitability of the TAM and its proposed relationships, except for the relationship between usefulness and intention. This study contributes to the limited empirical research on f-commerce adoption in a developing country and provides insights for SMMEs to utilize f-commerce as a sales platform.

Keywords

• f-commerce
• perceived ease of use
• perceived usefulness
• technology acceptance model