Adoption of electronic commerce by agribusiness small medium enterprises in the upper east region of Ghana

Abstract

Technological evolution has triggered more advanced market-based approaches to the transfer of goods, services, and information. In Ghana, Agribusiness small-medium enterprises' electronic commerce adoption is concentrated in Accra and Kumasi. This study spotting the research gap in Agribusiness small-medium enterprises' electronic commerce adoption selected the Upper East Region for the study. The study is centered on examining e-commerce adoption by agribusiness small-medium enterprises’ and the preferred electronic commerce applications adopted by Agribusiness small-medium enterprises' in the Upper East region of Ghana. A simple random sampling technique was adopted for the study. The results of the study show that 91% of agribusiness had adopted electronic commerce for their operations with the major observation that being electronic commerce environment is good for business. The major barrier to adoption was the high cost of adoption of electronic commerce applications. Owner experience, observability, benefits from electronic commerce, trialability and years in business were all found to be factors influencing agribusiness small-medium enterprises’ adoption of electronic commerce. Furthermore, the results also indicated that Agribusiness small-medium enterprises in the Upper East region use electronic commerce applications mostly for customer relation management and interorganisation system. In conclusion to the study, electronic commerce adoption was observed to be rising among agribusiness small-medium enterprises in the Upper East region but the greatest hurdle to their adoption was the high cost of adoption of these applications. The study, therefore, recommends that financial institutions, electronic commerce application manufacturers, and the government should collaborate to subsidy the cost of these electronic applications to agribusiness small-medium enterprises. Key words: Adoption, e-commerce applications, agribusiness SMEs, preference.

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