Drivers of E-Commerce Continuance Intention: a Comparison cross Baby Boomers, Generations X, Y, and Z in Thailand

Abstract

Globalization of trade and investments coupled with advancements in telecommunication and technology have driven growth in international business, particularly e-commerce. Focusing on business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce, this study investigates the drivers of post-COVID-19 pandemic e-commerce continuance intention across baby boomers, Generations X, Y, and Z in Thailand. Selfadministered online survey datafrom 851 Thai respondents obtained after the first lockdown were analyzed using multiple-group structural equation modeling. Results show that perceived risks in e-commerce have the strongest negative effect on trust, followed by utilitarian motivations while hedonic motivations only have marginal effect. From the total sample, utilitarian motivations are the most influential driver for continuance intention while trust has the least impact. Within each generation, although hedonic motivations represent the most important driver among baby boomers, utilitarian motivations are the only significant factor in Generation X, and are the most significant across Generations X, Y, and Z with trust being unimportant to Generations X and Y. Proposed relationships are marginally different between Generations X and Z, but not in other pairwise comparisons.