Consumer Trust in Mobile Food Delivery Apps: Exploring the Antecedents and Consequences

Introduction

Mobile applications (mobile apps) have become widely popular among customers due to today’s accelerated lifestyle, high convenience and easy usage, resulting in colossal income generation in the hospitality industry (Xuhui Wang & Zhang, 2018). Excessive use of technology has inspired customers to use mobile apps, which has become a novel alternative for easily carrying daily tasks and is easier to adapt to their lifestyle (Cortiñas, Chocarro, & Elorz, 2019).

Innovative solutions offered by last-mile logistic services such as home deliveries to logistic service providers have become highly popular among online shoppers, placing e-commerce packages in self-collection points (Xueqin Wang, Yuen, Wong, & Teo, 2019). Additionally, home delivery services have become vital, thanks to mobile phone applications, as people prefer to enjoy products at the right place, at the right time, in the right condition, and the right quantity and quality (Mehmood & Najmi, 2017).

A new entrant in the mobile technology space is the Online to offline (O2O) business strategy, which lays a virtual retail store that links both, the online and offline modes, where a specific product or service is promoted solely online but sold via physical mode itself (Reis, Amorim, & Melão, 2019; Wei Phang, Tan, Sutanto, Magagna, & Lu, 2014; Xiao & Dong, 2015). One such emerging type of O2O business strategy is represented by Food delivery apps (FDAs) that employs navigational services, mobile Internet and other smartphone features for a timely, easy and quick doorstep food delivery to customers.

Food delivery applications have gained popularity in both developed and developing economies due to their exponential growth in market share compared to traditional restaurants. The annual revenue generation of the FDA market is projected to reach US$ 300 billion in 2027, and the Chinese market has projected the highest volume of revenue, at US$56.936 million in 2021, while India came a distant third with a market share of US 11666 million (Curry, 2021). This is primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has propelled the industry a few years into the future (nearly doubling up the business), as millions of people in lockdown ordered food online for the first time (Sumagaysay, 2020).

Consumer trust plays a significant part in the O2O business as there is no meaningful contact between consumers and service providers. Dasgupta (1988) has regarded trust as a crucial factor that directly affects consumers' purchasing behaviour. Even after being assured of the requisite safety measures by the online food companies, consumers are still sceptical while ordering food online via mobile FDAs (Statista Market Forecast, 2020). Extant literature examines ‘consumers’ trust’ in different sectors or areas such as the tourism sector (Gregori, Daniele, & Altinay, 2014), finance or banking sector (for mobile payments) (Zhou, 2011, 2012), social commerce (Leong, Hew, Ooi, & Chong, 2020), shopping sector (e-commerce) (C. M. Cheung & Lee, 2011). However, compared to this growing body of literature, little is known about ‘consumers’ trust’ in the food industry. Even though mobile food delivery application has gained considerable interest, the issues related to trust determinants have not been thoroughly studied. Hence, the critical questions addressed by this study are:

• (i)

  To identify the antecedents of consumers’ trust in online mobile food delivery applications.

• (ii)

  To measure the significance of each variable on consumers' trust.

• (iii)

  To study the impact of trust on consumer intention to purchase online.