Citation:

Geetha Rani Prakasam, Amanda Towi. "Harnessing the Facebook for Online Marketing in Papua New Guinea: How does it Transpire?" International Research Journal of Economics and Management Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 96-110, 2025.

Abstract:

Digital Marketplaces, in the case of Papua New Guinea, is in its infancy stage. The mobile penetration rate of one-bang (basic phone) subscribers is 30 per cent of the total population, with a very skewed distribution favoring the capital city. In addition, the enabling technology for online marketing has only started or is in the process of surfacing. Against this background the queries here are (i) 'Is E-commerce occurring in Papua New Guinea (PNG) if at all other than Port Moresby? (ii) As an Alternative, is S-commerce the potential? (iii) If yes, is the same S-commerce operating elsewhere viable for PNG? (iv) What is working in PNG? To comprehend this, we investigate the sample of online vendors through Facebook through the Snowballing data collection method. Having investigated these questions, the study further investigates how the Facebook is utilized as partly an onsite marketing site in PNG. And finally, we attempt to respond to why E-commerce or S-commerce was impossible in PNG? This discussion gives insight into the difficulties of digital marketing in PNG. Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to explore a series of sequential questions, viz., (i) Is E-commerce happening in Papua New Guinea (PNG) if at all other than Port Moresby? (ii) As an Alternative, is S-commerce a possibility? (iii) If so, is the same S-commerce operating elsewhere that works out for PNG? (iv) What is it that is working in PNG? Design/Methodology/Approach: With one of the less developed digital technologies and consequently the online advertising in Papua New Guinea recording one of the lowest internet and subscriber rates, Facebook is utilized as somewhat of an onsite advertising site in PNG. The paper applies the research design of capturing these quasi-online vendors using their Facebook profiles. These online vendors through Facebook have been gathered using a snowballing sampling approach. We contacted online sellers using a Snowballing Method. Online sellers on Facebook are identified from the time between April-May, 2022. This way, we could identify 242 Facebook online sellers at the time of the survey.

References:

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[15] Using the statistics on Unique Subscriber Penetration, subscriber penetration rates are defined as total number of people in a country that own a mobile phone expressed as a percentage of the total population.
[16] The ecosystem as illustrated in flow chart 1 on the introduction section in PNG is either absent or under developed in almost all the seven key areas.
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[19] Around 70% of PNG’s population borrow money from their relatives and wantoks and moneylenders. Moreover, only 5% of PNG’s inhabitants resort to formal institutions.

Keywords:

Digital Markets, internet, E-commerce, S-commerce, Facebook.