Customers’ usage of mobile apps – Food Delivery.

Word Count – 2171 Words

MRK1212 – Research Methods for Business Students

Bachelor of Commerce (Commerce)

1st Year

Ranson Mercieca 237102L

Contents
Background Literature...............................................................................................................3

Food Delivery Apps...............................................................................................................3

Unified Theory of Use and Acceptance of Technology (UTAUT).......................................4

Research question/objectives.....................................................................................................5

Research Methodology...............................................................................................................5

Philosophy..............................................................................................................................5

Research design......................................................................................................................5

Validity and reliability...............................................................................................................6

Reliability...............................................................................................................................6

Validity...................................................................................................................................7

Research Instrument Design......................................................................................................8

Survey....................................................................................................................................8

Interview................................................................................................................................8

Research Analysis......................................................................................................................9

Ethical Issues..............................................................................................................................9

Timeframe................................................................................................................................10

References................................................................................................................................11
Background Literature
Food Delivery Apps
Food Delivery apps or FDAs can be defined as an application that provides a method of
communication between the catering businesses and customers via an online to offline
integration delivery service. There are two main patterns of FDAs, either the restaurants
create their own FDAs like Pizza Hut, Amigos and Domino’s or they employ intermediary
platforms like Bolt Food, Time to Eat and Wolt. This process is done by customers ordering
food from the apps and the restaurants or the intermediaries delivering the food to the
customers desired location. (Yuyang Zhao, 2020) (Chaiyawit Muangmee, 2021)

Lately, FDAs have been receiving increased use due to the changing consumer habits,
demographics, and benefits associated. Younger consumers are less likely to stand in queues
in restaurants and these apps offer an alternative which lets them eat at home and not drive to
a restaurant, controlled completely from a mobile phone (Chaiyawit Muangmee, 2021).

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively influenced the catering industry due to regulations
prohibiting direct contact and employing social distancing to reduce transmission. However,
contactless delivery offered by FDAs have quickly become an attractive alternative since
trips outside are limited, therefore reducing transmission of the virus. The main reasons
underlying this surge in the billion-dollar industry are the sudden increase in consumers’
demand for FDAs, the availability to collaborate with the catering businesses and the
unavailability of alternative jobs for delivery riders. (Chaiyawit Muangmee, 2021)

Unified Theory of Use and Acceptance of Technology (UTAUT)

UTAUT and UTAUT2 are two popular models developed by (Viswanath Venkatesh, 2003)
that predicts users’ behaviours when using new technological systems. There are seven
variables in the UTAUT2 model, namely:

I. Performance Expectancy – This would be what the individual believes they can derive
from using the new technology. FDAs make things quicker and contactless, making
users potentially use FDAs for a longer period. (Maizatul Akmar Mohd Rasli, 2020)
II. Effort Expectancy – The individual’s perception of how easy the app is to use within
the Technology acceptance model. A simple to use application attracts more users and
retains them for longer. (Maizatul Akmar Mohd Rasli, 2020)
III. Social influence – How the suggestions of people around a consumer are important to
them when deciding on a technology to use. (Viswanath Venkatesh, 2003)
IV. Facilitating conditions – How much help, training and support is provided to use the
application. (Maizatul Akmar Mohd Rasli, 2020)
V. Hedonic Motivation – “The fun or pleasure derived from using a technology.”
(Venkatesh, 2012)
VI. Habit – “Tendencies that are performed automatically through learning”. (Maizatul
Akmar Mohd Rasli, 2020)
VII. Price Value – The benefits provided by an application compared with the financial
costs to acquire said benefits. (Venkatesh, 2012)
Research question/objectives
Following this background literature, the question proposed is “What moves Maltese
consumers to use a specific brand of Food delivery apps?”. The analysis would be to find out
the key factors underlying why a consumer would choose a specific intermediary of FDA,
unearthing the factors enticing a customer to try a specific FDA over another.

This question is relevant since many people are currently using FDAs because of the COVID-
19 pandemic, therefore having a large sample pool to obtain data from.

To answer this research question, there are two research objectives that need to be addressed.
The first one would be to find out the factors that entice a customer to try a specific
application over another. The primary expectation would be that the factors would align with
the UTAUT and UTAUT2 model, however there could be other factors that the model would
not account for, like aesthetics or loyalty schemes, which leads to the second research
objective.

This would be on the possibility of FDAs having a loyalty scheme, to retain customers and to
see whether consumer FDA usage will persist even after the pandemic or not. Up till now,
food delivery apps in Malta employ discounts on delivery fees and sometimes the food itself
but there is no form of FDA loyalty scheme to retain customers, therefore having a gap in the
market.

Research Methodology
Philosophy
The main philosophy would be positivism, implying that we wish to find the objective truth
regarding these factors. This aligns with our deductive approach since we are trying to
confirm the previous theory whilst simultaneously developing theory regarding loyalty
schemes in FDAs.

Research design
The research question will be answered via a mixed method approach. The focus will be on
quantitative research since it is objective and allows us to gather a larger sample whilst still
being speedy. This will be done by creating a survey (Specifics found in Research
instrument) which will be distributed by email. 384 responses would be needed at least for
this since Malta has an adult population of about 366,866 (Worldpopulationreview, 2021). To
create more structured data, stratification by age would be ideal. These age brackets would be
18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and 65 and over, with 64 responses needed from each
bracket at least.

The qualitative research would be needed to make sure the quantitative data is reliable and to
gain deeper insights into the factors underlying choice of a particular FDA and loyalty
scheme. This would be done via a face to face or online call semi-structured interview with
marketing executives working in companies pertaining to this food delivery market. Three
interviews should suffice, to cross check each other and obtain the salient points. The
sampling method would be purposive, since ideally marketing executives from Time to Eat,
Bolt and Wolt would be interviewed since they are the largest on the island, possibly leading
to the highest quality of information.

This exercise will mainly be descriptive since we are aiming to describe why does a
consumer choose a specific brand of FDA and to make predictions regarding the future of
FDAs in Malta. However, the section regarding customer loyalty will be exploratory since we
are discovering and exploring the idea of customer loyalty in FDAs, to develop hypotheses
for future studies and research.

This study will follow a cross sectional approach, since a snapshot of the current period is
better associated with quantitative research and that multiple customers are present due to the
pandemic, being ideal for our sample target.

The role of theory in this study is to explain the phenomena of what attracts a customer when
it comes to FDAs in general and to analyse relationships when it comes to spending. Also, it
is the starting point since we are following a deductive approach, potentially leading to new
theory about loyalty schemes and customer retention.

Validity and reliability

Reliability
Reliability is the level of consistency found in a study or an object (Mcleod, 2013). In
research terms, this would be that results would be the same in multiple occasions and that
the data present is true and consistent.

The problem with reliability is that there may be bias, and errors present from the observers
and the participants. A question could be misleading or written incorrectly, giving rise to
inaccurate and inconsistent information.
To test against these problems, the study will incorporate three techniques to solve this.
Firstly, the survey and the interviews will be piloted by a third party prior to the official
release of these data collection tools. This is to gain a perspective from another party and to
help create more accurate and clearly articulated questions.

Secondly, after the data has been collected from our sample populations, we employ what is
known as inter-method reliability. This means that we grab the information from the survey
and the interviews and see whether they agree or not.

Thirdly, the survey will include factors which are similar in nature like quality of delivery
and speediness of delivery, to check each other and create a level of consistency throughout.

Validity
Validity is how much something is capable of measuring what it claims to measure (McLeod,
2013). Lack of validity can lead to participants being confused by questions and having
questions that do not measure the constructs what we want to measure.

To counteract this problem, we will maximize the four types of validity, these being internal,
content, predictive and construct validity. Internal validity will be covered by using
measurements like the Likert scale, to get a better measure of participants’ levels of
importance with regards to these factors and opinions on loyalty schemes, rather than a yes or
no response. Content validity will be covered by providing a comprehensive list of questions
to adequately cover the research objectives.

Predictive validity will be covered by making questions with accurate predictive values
related to the criterion. Construct validity will be addressed by making sure the questions
measure levels of importance with regards to the factors and enthusiasm regarding customer
loyalty. Also, the pilot test will help in checking validity as well since we are obtaining
another perspective to stay as objective as possible whilst obtaining all the information
needed. (McLeod, 2013).
Research Instrument Design
Survey
The survey will be around six to seven minutes long to make it convenient for the
respondents and more appealing. This electronic survey will be performed on Google forms,
since it is familiar to respondents and easy to use. It will contain a title page that includes the
title “Customer perspective: Food delivery Apps”, a consent form for ethical issues (More on
that in ethics section) and the prompt to start the survey.

It will contain three main sections, the first of which is demographics, labelled
“Introduction”. This will contain questions pertaining to age, which is categorised in 18-24,
25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and 65 and over, gender which is either male, female or other,
income level, nationality, and occupation. The aim here is to obtain information to categorise
the respondents.

The second section would be titled “Customer choice of FDAs”. The main question is “Do
you have a preferred FDA to use?” which is responded by a yes or no. This would be
followed up with “If yes, please highlight why by rating the following factors on a scale of 1-
5 on how important they are to you” with a matrix containing the following factors: range of
cuisines, range of restaurants, speediness and quality of delivery, delivery cost, colour
scheme, design of the application, easiness to use and app fluency. The UTAUT2 model is
applied here since most of these factors already are found in the model.

The third section will be titled “Customer loyalty within FDAs”. The main question here is
“Would you be open to a customer loyalty scheme?” followed up by “If yes, what type of
customer loyalty scheme would you desire the most?” including options like a point system,
like supermarkets or a punch card system. These would be explained to the participant in the
survey itself to make it easier. The scope here is to gauge whether customers would want a
customer loyalty system in their preferred FDA.

Interview
The semi structured interview with the companies would be approximately 40-45 minutes
long, containing mostly probing questions. The interview would highlight these questions,
“What does the company do to increase customer base and customer usage?” and “What are
your opinions on implementing loyalty schemes in your application?”.
Research Analysis
For the survey, SPSS would be used to analyse the results. The responses from sections two
and three would be presented in bar charts, according to age groups and the level of
importance given to each factor (1 – Not important, 5 – Very important) and would be
measured according to the number of responses. This would be possible since the data is
descriptive.

To prevent problems in coding and data, all submissions which do not answer the factors will
be omitted and that responses would be weighted accordingly. A legend will also be included
to make navigating the bar chart easier for viewers. The scope of analysis would be to
decipher the mode responses from our survey. Then we would test if the results were
significantly different than the null hypothesis via statistics to see if any significant difference
is seen.

The interviews would be audio recorded and analysed via NVivo. The interviews would then
be transcribed via transcribing the sections which are important to the study. Then, we would
code the data, meaning that it is data driven into themes for easier navigation and easy cross
checking. There would be a section like Customer loyalty and then three sub sections titled
“Time to Eat”, “Bolt” and “Wolt”. Then the data would be refined to create a more
comprehensive theme analysis.

Ethical Issues
With regards to ethics, there are multiple principles to consider. Firstly, all participants will
be over eighteen years of age since they would be mostly financially independent.

Also, a consent form will be present in the survey and the interview, detailing the study and
what it entails, together with the details found below. This will address issues of
confidentiality, data being used for other purposes, deception, voluntary participation and
right to withdraw, meaning that harm is avoided, and respect is given to the participants,
maintaining integrity and objectivity.
(Taken from previous task presented in MRK1212)

Timeframe
References
Chaiyawit Muangmee, S. K. N. M. N. K. B. K., 2021. Factors Determining the Behavioral
Intention of Using Food Delivery Apps during COVID-19 Pandemics. Enhancing Consumer
Experience through Mobile Commerce : Challenges and Opportunities, 14 April, 16(5), pp.
1297 - 1310.

Maizatul Akmar Mohd Rasli, N. H. Z. N. S. A. S. F. A. G. N. A. R. R. S. N. R. I., 2020.

Determinants of Behavioural Intention on Online Food Delivery (OFD) apps : Extending
UTAUT2 with Information Quality. Global Business and Management Research: An
International Journal, 12(4), pp. 679 - 689.

Mcleod, S., 2013. What is Reliability. [Online]

Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/reliability.html
[Accessed 29 May 2021].

McLeod, S., 2013. What is Validity?. [Online]

Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/validity.html
[Accessed 29 May 2021].

Venkatesh, V. T. J. Y. &. X. X., 2012. Consumer acceptance and use of information

technology, extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. MIS quarterly,
pp. 157 - 178.

Viswanath Venkatesh, M. G. M. G. B. D. a. F. D. D., 2003. User Acceptance of Information

Technology: Toward a Unified View. Management Information Systems Research,
September, 27(3), pp. 425-478.

Worldpopulationreview, 2021. Malta. [Online]

Available at: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/malta-population
[Accessed 29 May 2021].

Yuyang Zhao, F. B., 2020. What factors determining customer continuingly using food
delivery apps during 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic period?. International Journal of
Hospitality Management, October, 91(102683), p. 1.