HOW CAN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ATTRACT USERS FROM DEVELOPED COUNTRIES? A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THAILAND AND JAPAN

Abstract

A comparative study of Thailand and Japan investigated how electronic commerce (EC) in developing countries can be used to attract customers from developed countries. Thai and Japanese participants were shown language-appropriate versions of a hotel booking website in Thailand. Perceptions of and trust in the website were assessed, as was the willingness to book a room in the hotel using the website. The Thai participants tended to evaluate the quality of the website more highly and to trust it more than did the Japanese participants. Furthermore, the Thai participants tended to think that the hotel was more responsible for their hotel reservations than was the EC service, and that the content of the website was developed by the hotel rather than by the EC service. Thai participants were more likely to express willingness to reserve a room if they thought that the hotel had developed the website content, whereas the Japanese participants’ willingness to book a room were greater when they thought that the EC service had developed the content. Based on these results, customization strategies for EC in developing countries to attract customers from developed countries are discussed.

To cite this document: Tetsuro Kobayashi, Hitoshi Okada, Nagul Cooharojananone, Vanessa Bracamonte, and Takahisa Suzuki, "How can electronic commerce in developing countries attract users from developed countries? A comparative study of Thailand and Japan", International Journal of Electronic Commerce Studies, Vol.4, No.2, pp. 159-184, 2013.

Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7903/ijecs.1105