Citation:

Farah Qudsia, Dr. Kangan Sayal. "Digital Adoption and Online Purchase Intention among Rural Consumers:An Extended TAM Study from Bihar, India" International Research Journal of Economics and Management Studies, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 79-84, 2026. Crossref. http://doi.org/10.56472/25835238/IRJEMS-V5I5P109

Abstract:

The current study aims to explore the factors that affect the online shopping behavior of rural consumers in the Darbhanga district of Bihar, India, through an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) framework. A 44-item, 5-point Likert scale survey instrument was used to collect data from 600 respondents. Three external variables were added to the core TAM constructs: Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Attitude, and Purchase Intention, as they were included in the research for this study: Trust, Social Influence (SI), and Digital Literacy (DL). An ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to test 11 hypotheses with Sobel mediation analysis. P-values were < 0.001 for all hypotheses. The focal finding (H7) is that ease of use is a stepping stone to usefulness perceptions in a low-digital-infrastructure rural context (PU = 0.207 PEOU). The strongest external predictors of PEOU were trust (β = 0.284), and the strongest effect on Attitude was from PU (β = 0.405). The relationships of Trust and Social Influence with PU were partly mediated by PEOU, and Digital Literacy mediated the relationships with PU. The findings provide actionable insights for e-commerce platforms, policymakers, and digital literacy programs aiming to close the rural digital divide in India.

References:

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Keywords:

Technology Acceptance Model, Online Shopping, Rural Consumers, Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness, Trust, Digital Literacy.