Customer Intention to Order Food Online: The Case of EMU Cyprus

The world has gone through numerous changes as far back in history as one can imagine. Today, the world is continuing to do so, through computerization. Ever since the development if the internet, many links between technology and business among others began to form. The same applies to the food ordering systems. People used to traditionally go to a restaurant and order from a menu. Nowadays, a new trend has shown up, ordering food online. The internet has made this available and facilitated it. In this study, the effects of certain factors of perception on the intention to order food online have been investigated. These factors are perceived trust, perceived quality, perceived security, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use. In that regard, the study has aimed to establish if: (i) perceived trust has an effect on customer intention to order food online; (ii) perceived quality has an effect on customer intention to order food online; (iii) perceived security has an effect on customer intention to order food online; (iv) perceived usefulness has an effect on customer intention to order food online; (v) perceived usefulness has an effect on customer intention to order food online. An extensive and broad literature review was engaged in order to form a concept from the variables of perceived trust, perceived quality, perceived security, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and their effects on consumer behavior, notably consumer intention to purchase food online. Following that, five hypotheses were pointed out to determine any possible effects of these variables on the intention to purchase food online. Later on during the study, only four hypotheses were kept due to errors in data analysis. The remaining four hypotheses were investigated using T-tests, ANOVA tests in addition to a regression analysis of the data which was collected from a survey of 225 respondents in Famagusta, North Cyprus. The findings showed that every factor had a significant and positive effect on consumer intention to order food online, but not all in the same degree. To conclude this study, a theoretical and managerial implication of the findings, the limitations that the study faced, and suggestions for future research are discussed.