2nd SEMESTER 2022 FINAL ASSESSMENT: ADDITIONAL MATERIAL: RT201B Key words: Influencing Customers intention, online purchasing, the shopping experience, product perception Influence of social networking sites on consumers online purchasing behaviour intention during the COVID-19 pandemic in SA 1.Influencing customers intention to do online purchases Consumers patterns during a pandemic, natural or human, can affect the way consumers shop (Baker, et al., 1992). The global pandemic the world is currently experiencing provokes stress and fear on consumers (Houston, et al., 2015). The emotions consumers are experiencing are quite strong, which impacts the perception and behaviour of the purchase of durable products (Larson & Shin, 2018). There are several determinants for online shopping for durable goods. Customer-oriented factors and technology-oriented factors influences the customer perception. Customer-oriented factors include trust, perceived risks, shopping experience and product perception. Technology-oriented factors include web quality and service perception. These factors will be explained in detail below. 2. Customer oriented factors (a) Trust Consumer trust is critical for the growth of e-commerce. It is the responsibility of the organisation to understand the factors influencing customers purchasing decisions when shopping online. Trust has been an important element influencing consumer behaviour (Schurr & Ozanne, 1985) Jarvenpaa and Staples (2000) argues that the lack of trust prevents consumers from engaging in online transactions. George (2002) found that trust is the main factor for consumers that could prevent them to engage in online transactions. Furthermore, it is important for organisations to build trust with its consumers, especially during economic uncertainty. Consumers have certain expectations from retailers when engaging in online transactions. Trust in online retailers is defined as subjective probability, which is defined as the online retailer meets the consumers expectations that they will perform a given transaction in accordance with their confident expectations (Priporas, et al., 2017). George (2002) found that consumers want some form of control in their online purchase process which creates confidence in the retailer. Furthermore, Lee, et al. (2005) built three dimensions of trust which improves consumers perception of trust in the internet. These dimensions includes the ability of the online merchant to deliver a product or service that performs as promised, the willingness of the online merchant to rectify should the purchase not meet the customers satisfaction, and the presence of a privacy policy or statement on the web site. Therefore, control creates a positive attitudes to online purchases. On the other hand, George (2002) stated that consumers do not have trust in the online retailers with their personal information, credit card and debit card information (Zimaitis, et al., 2020). The risk of privacy loss online is negatively related to purchase intention. Mason, et al. (2014) found that cyber-fear impacts the attitudes towards online purcased. It is therefore imperative to understand from their study that consumers purchasing decision is driven by cyber-fear (Zimaitis, et al., 2020). Kim and Benbasat (2003) identified four categories influencing consumers trust: personal information, product quality and price, customer service, and store presence. These categories has been identified as critical to influencing the attitudes of consumers. Rao (2006) proposed that consumers perception of trust could be before, during, or after the online transaction. Furthermore, Rao (2006) went on to suggest that the different determinants of trusts for various consumers are at different stages of the transaction. Apart from personal experiences, Bunduchis (2005) study results reported that trust can be built by the positive and negative remarks about the retailers, their offers and delivery services. Positive reviews from other customers is positively associated with greater trust for the retailer. It is therefore imperative that the whole process of online transactions security, vendors reputation and capability, privacy and customers feedback should be considered by consumers perceiving online trust which affects customers attitude. (b) Shopping experience Shopping experience influences customer perception when purchasing online. McCole, et al. (2010) found that the internet experience and the use of online purchases are related to low levels of perceived risks towards online shopping. This is concurs with Miyazaki and Fernandez (2001) who studied the online shopping experience from a consumers perspective and found that there are factors that influences bad online shopping experiences. The factors that constitute to bad shopping experiences includes late delivery, defective product and partial order. Additionally, shoppers also had bad experiences when customer services representative, which requires customers to contact the online stores telephonically and emails, failed to communicate properly. Bad shoppping experience influences customer online purchases. Past experiences influences consumers decisions when purchasing online goods. Customers online activity is affected by their online experience, positive or negative based on their memory, will impact their actual buying behaviour (Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2001). Furthermore, impulsive buying behaviour occurs when customers are goal-oriented where they enjoy freedom and control. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, customers were urged to stay at home to avoid getting sick and purchase goods online (Li, et al., 2020). On the other hand, positive affect make task-oriented online shopping customers have less time to search related information online before their actual buying behaviour. (c) Product Perception Online shopping behaviour impacts the product feature. Tractinsky and Lowengart (2007) suggested that the product feature is based on the quality, performance, product availability, price, social and product presence, and possibility of customised product and brand. Jusoh and Ling (2012) found that consumers have a low perception and trust of online purchases, making them unwilling to purchase online. Furthermore, they found that three out of five online consumers do not trust online companies. Apart from trust, customer service also affects the purchase decision through vendor knowledge responsiveness and reliability (Gefen, 2002). Internet purchases of tangible goods presents itself with its unique challenges in comparison to physical retail store purchases. When consumers purchase goods online, they do not have an opportunity to physically inspect the goods prior to purchasing the products (Jusoh & Ling, 2012). Instead, there is a huge reliance on the representation of goods being purchased when delivered which may be questioned by the purchaser (Ashames, et al., 2019). Jusoh and Ling (2012) found that future purchases is highly dependent on the delivery time and return convenience. Should this not be a seamless process, the customers will not repurchase. Reference list Ashames, A. et al., 2019. Public perception toward e-commerce of medicines and comparative pharmaceutical quality assessment study of two different products of furosemide tablets from community and illicit online pharmacies. Journal of Pharmacy & Bioallied Sciences, 11(3), p. 284. Baker, R. & Yacef, K., 2009. 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If you had to search for peer-reviewed articles for expanding on the literature review, above, mention and discuss at least two platforms you would make use of in this research and discuss why these platforms would be considered more appropriate for use