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Perceptions of online shopping and determinants of consumers’ online purchase of food groceries in Polokwane local municipality, South Africa

Online purchase of food groceries is a development in the food retail market that is being driven by recent advances in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Consumers are, therefore, complying with these emerging trends by testing some of the online shopping platforms to form a behavioural compliance as required by some cashless economic policies being implemented in some African countries. Although considered to be convenient, online shopping is bewildered with a lot of risks. The aim of this study was to analyse the perceptions of consumers on online shopping risks and determine the factors influencing them to purchase food groceries online. The data were collected from 173 respondents selected by simple random sampling. The data were collected using structured questionnaire that was administered by trained enumerators. Descriptive statistics and logit regression were used for data analysis. The analyses were carried out by STATA software. The results showed that 11% of the respondents were using online platforms to purchase food groceries, 57.2% were aware of the existence of online platforms to purchase food groceries, 84.4% perceived online purchase of food groceries as convenient, and 62.4% perceived it as risky. The results of the Logit regression model showed that delivery fee, level of education, employment status, use of phone tablets for internet browsing, use of laptops to browse the internet, perceived online convenience and perceived online risk had statistically significant relationships (p<0.05) with consumers’ decision to purchase food groceries online. It was recommended that in order to encourage active online sales, there is the need to educate consumers on the benefits of purchasing food groceries online, using broadcasting platforms such as radio, television and social media. There is also a need for the South African government to strengthen policies to reduce associated risks of online transactions. Key words: Consumers, food groceries, delivery fee, online purchase, South Africa