Factors affecting acceptance of online shopping channels in underdeveloped markets: The case of Afghanistan

In today's competitive world, organizations face various challenges due to the rapid changes in technology and the internet. However, challenges also bring opportunities, and organizations that can seize these opportunities can use this as an advantage for competition. The online shopping period, which is included in lives with digitalization, is one of them. Consumers can easily access the information they want through the internet and compare the products and online shopping sites they want quickly. One of the features of the internet is the elimination of problems that may arise in terms of time and place for sellers and buyers in the past. Now, sellers and buyers can easily shop online regardless of where they are in the world. Therefore, researching the factors that affect online shopping is important from a marketing perspective. The purpose of this study in this context is to examine the factors that affect the acceptance of online shopping platforms in Afghanistan, as Afghanistan is a newly developing market, which has the potential to develop a great potential for online shopping. It is aimed to determine how the positive and negative preferences of individuals who shop online and those who do not shop online in Afghanistan affect the acceptance of purchasing platforms. This study is limited only to investigations and findings related to the city of Şibirgan. In this context, convenience sampling method was preferred as the sampling method of the study. Except for a few professionals, most of the individuals in the sample were students. Therefore, analyzes were made on 317 people. As a result of the surveys, it was found that perceived ease of use positively affected the acceptance of online shopping, while perceived risk negatively affected the acceptance of online shopping. In addition, it was determined that income level played a regulatory role in the relationship between perceived ease of use and acceptance of online shopping, while perceived risk did not play a regulatory role in the relationship between acceptance of online shopping. The results are explained in detail in the discussion section.