Factors affecting e-commerce participation decision of agricultural smallholders: A case study of Da Lat

Abstract

Throughout the last few years, the outbreak of Covid-19 has continuously expanded on a global scale, causing millions of deaths and damaging worldwide economy. In Vietnam, typically Da Lat city of Lam Dong province, where agriculture takes a substantial proportion of regional economy, the pandemic has severely struck farmers, causing considerable damages. The application of e-commerce as a resolution, however, appears to meet with certain obstacles. This study, therefore, aims at fulfilling three main goals. First, a model is proposed from investigation of local existing problems parallel with the potentiality of e-commerce. Second, factors that hold substantial influence on farmers’ decision of whether to integrate electronic application is determined from analysis of the market research data. Third, feasible solutions are accordingly proposed to solve the existing problems and allow better ecommerce application to agricultural smallholders in Da Lat. In an attempt to accomplish such objectives, a combination of qualitative and quantitative approach is used for developing the researching model and survey, followed by processing of Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics in identifying significant factors, eventually validated by Bootstrapping, all of which is performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 26 tool. The result shows that perceived e-commerce risks are superior as compared to other factors and therefore require exceptional attention and support.