T-Commerce : an Investigation of Non-Adoption in South Africa

This paper describes an exploratory study into the reasons why T-Commerce has not taken off in South Africa. Although more South African households own TVs than computers, there has been little or no adoption of T-Commerce contrary to its success in Europe and the USA. The study adopted a qualitative approach to investigate this through interviews with nine users and five providers. Relevant determinants of the non-adoption of T-Commerce where found to be negative perceptions about performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influences and limited facilitation conditions in order to conduct T-Commerce. These determinants where found to be moderated in various degrees by access levels to DSTV, income and age. However, the two main reasons for non-adoption of T-Commerce were a lack of awareness on the side of the consumers and the high costs from the vendor perspective.