Assessing attitudes toward e-marketing practices in Tanzania and their effects on customer purchase decisions

The main objective of this study was to assess attitudes toward e-Marketing practices in Tanzania and their effects on customer purchase decisions. Specifically the study aimed at determining attitudes of Tanzanians toward e-Marketing practices, to determine the effects of e-Marketing practices on customers’ purchase decisions, and to determine customers’ security perceptions towards e-Marketing practices. Incidental sampling technique was used to select respondents in which 128 respondents were interviewed. Data analysis was performed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) in which Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Chi-Square and other descriptive statistics were used. The findings revealed that most Tanzanians were likely to have adequate skills in internet usage, have reasonable internet access and have a positive attitude toward e-Marketing practices in the country. Furthermore, e-Marketers efforts had been worthy as it had resulted into customers’ purchase from e-Marketers at a reasonable percentage. Also, the study found that security is the most critical factor that worries customers when purchasing from online shops. It is recommended that e-Marketing firms must remove any systems’ weakness, assign significant resources to provide state-of-the-art security measures to their systems and communicate these improvements to customers. Furthermore, promotions campaigns should be increased and target all customers as well as simplifying online purchasing process. Policy implications and how the study can be extended are included in this study.