E-commerce Adoption in Distribution: An Empirical Study on Household Businesses in Food and Beverage Industry

Purpose: This study aims to identify factors affecting the adoption of e-commerce by household businesses in Vietnam's food and beverage industry. Research design, data and methodology: The integrated TAM and TOE frameworks and ten hypotheses were developed to test the relationship between relevant factors. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect valid data from 992 respondents who run F&B household businesses in Vietnam. Results: The empirical research results confirm all proposed hypotheses that e-commerce adoption is affected by the perceived usefulness, the perceived ease of use, vendor support partners, social expectancy, competitive pressure, subjective norm, and household resources. Meanwhile, technical readiness, environment readiness, and organization readiness are intermediate variables that influence the implementation of e-commerce in food and beverage distribution. Conclusions: The findings suggest effective orientations to foster the food and beverage e-trading practice for household businesses in developing countries. Accordingly, to encourage private household businesses to adopt e-commerce, it is necessary to focus on improving business resources, technology readiness, environment readiness, and organization readiness through raising awareness of usefulness, benefits, perceived ease of use, and increased support of vendor partners. Future research can focus on improving the efficiency of e-commerce applications in F&B distribution for both household businesses and larger-scale enterprises.