Factors that Influence the Utilization of Digital Transactions among the Micro-Business Enterprises in General Santos City

: This study investigated the factors that influence the utilization of digital transactions among micro-business enterprises in General Santos City. The application of e-commerce services has rapidly increased in response to the pandemic. Moving toward business recovery, different types of literature have stressed how important the shift to digital technology is for businesses to thrive in the new normal. This study sought to investigate the factors that influence users' preferences for switching from traditional cash-based transactions to electronic commerce systems. The Push-Pull-Mooring Framework was employed as the research model. A descriptive and correlational analysis was conducted using data from 65 retail and 35 wholesale micro-business enterprises in General Santos City. The results indicated that the respondents’ intention to utilize digital transactions is significantly influenced by one push factor which is the transaction inconvenience, also by pull factors which include economic benefit, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and critical mass, and by mooring factors including trust, perceived security and privacy, and switching costs. To achieve and sustain recovery, assistance, and support for relatively young and small companies might be prioritized in terms of utilizing e-commerce services as well as setting strong policies towards giving aid, especially to micro-business enterprises in developing digital infrastructures and complementing with these strategies is strengthening data privacy and security for these e-commerce services. This study concluded that the advantages that can be obtained from the utilization of e-commerce services, as well as external factors, impose significance on businesses.


Introduction
During the pandemic, transportation restrictions and social isolation hampered face-to-face interactions.Consequently, many consumers have opted for digital purchases.This buying behavior paved the way for the rise of digital commerce.Purchase transactions for goods and services have migrated online.Under this scheme, digital payments are made now (Agur et al., 2020).The Philippines has an open policy environment that is conducive to the conduct of digital trade (Quimba et al., 2021).
Several factors influence the micro-business enterprise's use of digital technologies (e.g., digital payments).These include the decreased

Suggested Citation
Sebua, E.J.I. & Salise, K.P. (2024).Factors that Influence the Utilization of Digital Transactions among the Micro-Business Enterprises in General Santos City.European Journal of Theoretical and Applied Sciences, 2(1), 107-121.DOI: 10.59324/ejtas.2024.2(1).07frequency of visits to physical stores, online payment systems offered by firms with similar products, the increased number of customers' inquiries regarding the availability of digital payments, younger owners, younger firms, higher education attainment of the owners, reliable internet connectivity, and existing availability of funding from the government (Trinugroho et al., 2021).

Materials and Methods
The study utilized a quantitative descriptive correlative type of research.The application of this method is suitable because it involves observing and describing the subject's behavior.This is the method utilized since the researcher wished to conduct a survey based on the utilization of digital transactions among the micro-business enterprises in General Santos City.The locale of the study was in General Santos City, Philippines.The respondents of the study were the owners of micro-business enterprises in the Wholesale and Retail Trade industry.They were selected from the list of registered Micro-business enterprises in General Santos City as of January 2023.Stratified sampling is employed wherein a survey is administered to 100 respondents, comprising 65 retail firms and 35 wholesale firms.The survey was conducted among the key personnel of the establishments including the owner, manager, and authorized representatives who were deemed to have the know-how in the utilization of digital transactions.The instrument used in the data gathering was a modified adapted questionnaire from Purwandari B., et. al.The first section of the instrument included questions about the respondent's business profile, type of business organization, number of years in operations, type of e-commerce utilized, and business owner's age.The second section consisted of questions that aimed to determine the degree of influence of the Push, Pull, and Mooring factors on the utilization of digital transactions among the micro-business enterprises in General Santos City.The third section included questions on how frequently these businesses use e-commerce applications in their daily business transactions, including customer and vendor transactions, and customer service.Data analyses in this study consisted of two primary phases.For the first part, descriptive statistics were adopted.The following part of this study provided discussions about the mean, frequency, and percentages of the demographic profile of the micro-business enterprises, their responses about the degree of influence of PPM factors, and the level of utilization of digital business transactions.The second phase included correlation analysis.This was primarily concerned with finding out whether a relationship exists between the variables and determining the degree of such a relationship.The results in Table 1 above show that the majority are Sole Proprietorship.The sole proprietorship was the most common type of business organization among the several microbusiness entities in the research area.It is expected that for small-scale businesses, entrepreneurs would choose the most straightforward and least complex business organization because of limited capital, lesser number of employees, and minimal reportorial requirements from the government (J.M. Anoos, et al., 2020) The majority of the respondents have been operating for a while since 44% have been in operations for 3 -5 years now, 27% are operational for 6 -10 years and 20% are in operations for a decade or more now.These results suggest that micro-business enterprises still need government assistance to sustain and continue their businesses because they have not yet reached the market penetration stage and are in the start-up phase as suggested by the data considering that 80% of entities are less than 10 years in operations (J.M. Anoos, et al., 2020).In terms of the type of e-commerce service used as shown in  (Zoleta, 2021).Only a small percentage of the respondents use Bank transfers or Online cards solely or in combination with their daily transactions which imposes that technology usage in the country has a more way to go.This study employed the push-pull-mooring framework which was originally suggested as a specific theory of human migration (Lee et al., 2001), but in this context, it is used to determine why micro-businesses tend to migrate from a conventional way of business transactions to adapting e-commerce transactions in daily operations.

Table 4. Degree of Influence of Utilization of Digital Transactions in Terms of Push Factors
Health Consciousness Indicators Mean Remarks I switched from COD (cash on delivery) to e-commerce (digital transaction) services to maintain my personnel and customers healthy.

3.32
Moderately Agree I switched from COD to e-commerce services to prevent outbreaks and diseases.3.27 Moderately Agree I switched from COD to e-commerce services health is a very important awareness for me.

3.25
Moderately Agree I switched from COD to e-commerce services to make my personnel and customers healthy.

Aggregate Mean 3.27 Moderately Agree Perceived Health Risks Indicators
Mean Remarks I am calm that I, my personnel, or my customers, will not catch viruses and diseases if I use the e-commerce transactions rather than COD service.

3.34
Moderately Agree I feel that my health is safe when I make transactions using e-commerce services.3.37 Moderately Agree I am confident that the spread of viruses and diseases will be prevented if I will use e-commerce services.

3.35
Moderately Agree I believe that business transactions using COD services do not implement health protocols.

Aggregate Mean 3.16 Moderately Agree Transaction Inconvenience Indicators
Mean Remarks I feel inconvenienced using the COD service because I have to prepare the right amount of money to pay.

2.82
Moderately Agree I feel inconvenienced using the COD service because couriers often do not provide changes.

2.90
Moderately Agree I feel inconvenienced using the COD service because often the changes I receive don't match the amount I should have received.

2.75
Moderately Agree I feel inconvenienced using the COD service because I have to wait at home/business premises to transact with the courier

Aggregate Mean 2.86 Moderately Agree
Push factors are those factors that are deemed to be a disadvantage of a previous system which encourages users to leave such system and transfer to another system.It can also be seen as a flaw in the service that needs to be discontinued (Hsieh, P. J., 2021).It can be inferred from Table 4 that all push factors obtained a Mean rating of 2.5 to 3.4 which signifies that the respondents moderately agree that such factors are influential to their usage of digital transactions.

Table 5. Degree of Influence of Utilization of Digital Transactions in Terms of Pull Factors
Economic Benefit Indicators Mean Remarks I believe that the attractive offers of bonus points and cashback influenced me to switch to e-commerce services.

3.45
Moderately Agree I believe that the existence of the promo influenced me to switch from COD to e-commerce services.

Moderately Agree
I enjoy the benefits of discounts, bonus points, and cashback offered by ecommerce services.

Agree
I think the administration fee for the e-commerce service is cheaper than the COD service.

Aggregate Mean 3.34 Moderately Agree Performance Expectancy Indicators
Mean Remarks E-commerce services increase my productivity. 3.17 Moderately Agree E-commerce services help me complete transactions faster.
3.52 Agree E-commerce service helps save me time better.

3.45
Moderately Agree E-commerce service is reliable.
3.00 Moderately Agree Aggregate Mean

Moderately Agree Effort Expectancy Indicators
Mean Remarks It was easy for me to learn how to use e-commerce services.

3.03
Moderately Agree It doesn't take a long time to learn how to use e-commerce services.

3.03
Moderately Agree It is easy for me to become skillful at using e-commerce services.
2.97 Moderately Agree It makes me glad using e-commerce services because of its ease of use.

Aggregate Mean 3.07 Moderately Agree Critical Mass Indicators
Mean Remarks Many of the people I know use e-commerce services more often.

3.24
Moderately Agree Many of the people I know will continue to use e-commerce services.

3.23
Moderately Agree Many people closest to me feel that the use of e-commerce services is reliable, so I will use them as well.

Moderately Agree
Many people I know believe the number of users of this e-commerce service will increase.

Aggregate Mean 3.22 Moderately Agree
Pull factors are factors that a new system or service possesses, and it is appealing to users, therefore, attracting them to use such a system.Table 5 presents that the respondents moderately agreed with the majority of the factors except for Economic Benefit Statement three (3) and Performance Expectancy Statement two (2) as these two statements obtained a mean rating of 3.55 and 3.52 which is a higher degree of affirmation compared to being moderately agreed.This suggests that the qualities that an e-commerce service has to grant rewards to users, as well as its convenience, is presenting a significant quality to the users (Loh, X. M., et al., 2021).2.73 Moderately Agree I believe that e-commerce services will always consider the best interests of customers.

2.93
Moderately Agree I believe the e-commerce services will fulfill its promise and commitment.

2.75
Moderately Agree I am sure that even if not monitored, the e-commerce services can do their job properly.

Aggregate Mean 2.72 Moderately Agree Perceived Security and Privacy Indicators
Mean Remarks I am confident about the security of transactions using e-commerce services.
2.80 Moderately Agree I think the e-commerce services have implemented good security measures to protect my transactions.

2.89
Moderately Agree I think using e-commerce services will not compromise my privacy.

2.88
Moderately Agree I think the e-commerce services will not use my personal information for any other purpose without my permission.

Aggregate Mean 2.88 Moderately Agree Switching Cost Indicators
Mean Remarks I think switching from COD to e-commerce requires a lot of time to learn the services and functions offered by e-commerce services.

2.88
Moderately Agree I think switching from COD to e-commerce requires a lot of mental costs to learn about the services and functions offered by e-commerce services.

Moderately Agree
I think switching from COD to e-commerce requires a certain cost or expense.2.78 Moderately Agree I think it will be difficult to switch from COD service to e-commerce because I should create an e-commerce service account.

Aggregate Mean 2.74 Moderately Agree
Mooring factors describe those factors, both internal and external, that may encourage or discourage users in their decision to stay with the current system or to migrate to another (Handarkho, Y. D., & Harjoseputro, Y., 2020).
It can be inferred from Table 6 that the majority of the mooring factors obtained a Mean rating of 2.5 to 3.4 which signifies that the respondents moderately agree that such factors are influential to their usage of digital transactions except only for Trust factor Statement four (4).It can also be seen closely that none of these factors obtained a rating of 3.0 or more which indicates that the users are still skeptical as to the usage of ecommerce services as there may be still doubts as to the reliability of these services.9 that the respondents moderately agreed that they utilize e-commerce concerning their service transactions with customers.

Correlation Analysis of Push, Pull, and Mooring (PPM) Factors and Type of Business Organization
The adoption of e-commerce is also influenced by the type of company enterprise.For instance, Teo & Tan (1998) investigated the relationship between the use of the Internet and different business models (government, local, or international organizations; product characteristics, number of product categories, etc.).Various researchers claim that various elements, including enterprise size and types of business organizations, have an impact on the adoption of e-commerce.(Filiatrault & Huy 2006).The following findings are showing the significance of the PPM factors to categories of business transactions: The data presented the correlation of the factors concerning the Sole Proprietorship respondents.Based on the results presented in Table 10, all Push factors are not significant for sole proprietorship businesses in their adaption of ecommerce services which explains that the respondents are not seeing the negative side of cash-based transactions as a factor in the usage of e-commerce services.This indicates that users are not influenced by the health risk especially the pandemic, to discontinue utilizing COD services in favor of e-payment services (B.Purwandari, 2022).
Economic Benefit is a significant factor for both Customer Transactions and Vendor Transactions, which just shows that the rewards and benefits of an e-commerce service are a motivating factor for businesses to adopt such services.
Performance expectancy is significant for all categories of digital transaction usage of businesses which explains that the Sole Proprietorship respondents will likely adopt e-commerce services due to their convenience which will translate into fast and easy completion of their daily transactions.
Effort Expectancy is also significant in terms of Customer and Vendor transactions since there is an ease in learning the use of digital transactions, especially for e-wallet mode.With the emergence of social media platforms, access to information is not that difficult.
Critical Mass is significant as well in terms of Customer and Vendor transactions in that the influence of other persons imposes a major reason for the usage of e-commerce services.Purwandari, 2022).Partnerships are adaptive to e-commerce services in their customer transactions due to their qualities which can provide benefits and rewards to users.Economic benefit is also a significant factor in Customer transactions and Performance Expectancy is significant in Vendor transactions.

Correlation Analysis of Push, Pull, and Mooring (PPM) Factors and Number of Years in Business Operations
The length of business operations also has an impact on if e-commerce is utilized.Businesses that are just getting started seem to suffer significant difficulties that lead owners to believe their companies aren't doing well in their first year of operation (M.Bowen, et al., 2009).This may be the case in this study.The results shown in the tables in the following content present the significance of the PPM factors with respect to the age of the business.Table 13 presents the correlation between the factors and the number of years in business operations, in this case, businesses with less than 3 years of operations.Only the Switching cost factor is significant for Customer Services.It indicates that it is significant for the micro business to consider that they are young firms operating for less than 3 years and the cost of service will be highly considered by young firms (Loh, X. M., et al., 2021).Table 14 presents the correlation of the factors and the number of years in business operations (3 -5 years).Perceived Security and Privacy is the only significant factor in terms of Vendor Transactions since these young firms are still reluctant in adapting due to perceived dangers in the security features of such e-commerce services (Loh, X. M., et al., 2021).Presented in Table 15 depicts that as the firm aged, they opted to adopt a system other than the traditional approach giving more emphasis on the performance of such a system (Longenecker et al., 2006).Table 16 presents the correlation of factors with entities that have been in operation for more than 10 years.Significant factors include Economic Benefit, Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Trust, and Perceived Security and Privacy, all in terms of Customer Transactions and Services.Several factors seem to be significant for these types of enterprises since they already established market share and adapting another system will be a make-or-break decision for them, therefore, practical factors will be considered by them, especially the pull factors and the trust and perceived security factors of such system (Longenecker et al., 2006).

Correlation Analysis of Push, Pull, and Mooring (PPM) Factors and Type of Ecommerce service used
For companies to continue commercial operations in the face of the pandemic, the move to digital business has emerged as a crucial pivot strategy.The massive increase in the use of mobile payments can be connected to this transition toward digitization.More customers are choosing cashless payment methods (Pantola, 2008).In this study, e-commerce services include electronic wallets (e-wallets), Bank transfers, and Credit Cards.Table 17 depicts that most of PPM factors have no significant relationship with the usage of ewallet except for economic benefit that is perceived to influence the decision to use the modality in vendor and customer transaction but not on customer service.The following data presented in Table 19 describes the correlation of the factors and the type of e-commerce service used (E-wallet, Bank transfers, and Online Cards).This means that all modalities enumerated in the questionnaire in this part are being used by the respondents.For this portion, Transaction Inconvenience is a main factor for the usage of digital transactions in all aspects of customer and vendor relationships while Performance and Effort Expectancy are relevant in terms of Customer Transactions for this portion.

Correlation Analysis of Push, Pull, and Mooring (PPM) Factors and Business Owner's Age
The business owner's age also has relevance in the utilization of e-commerce services.It was suggested that age as well as gender can have and can also moderate the effect of facilitating the conditions on users' behavior associated with the adaption of e-commerce services (Ghalandari, K., 2012).Data in Table 23 presents the correlation between the factors and the business owner's age (Above 50 years old).Owners of businesses in this category are more likely to be conventional in their business style but based on the Table presented above

Conclusion
This study concluded that there is a significant relationship exists between the utilization of digital transactions and the push, pull, and mooring factors.This means that these factors significantly influence the owners of microbusinesses in General Santos City in their decision to use digital in their business affairs.Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected.
Trust and Perceived Security and Privacy factors are significant in all categories since the users view this factor as one of the major factors for the usage or non-usage of e-commerce services depending on the reliability of these services (B.Purwandari, 2022).
, It can be inferred that they can adopt e-commerce services as well where Transaction Inconvenience is a factor to Customer Transactions, Economic Benefit, and Performance Expectancy are both factors for Vendor Transactions and Customer Services, while Effort Expectancy is relevant in terms of Vendor Transactions and both Trust and Perceived Security and Privacy in terms of Customer Services.

Table 8 . Level of Utilization of Digital Transactions in Terms of Vendor Transactions
(Xena, P., & Rahadi, R. A. 2019) or information from the seller to the recipient via an electronic payment channel is another definition of ecommerce(Xena, P., & Rahadi, R. A. 2019).The level of Utilization of Digital Transactions in terms of Vendor Transactions is further categorized based on Purchase Order, Billing, and Payment.Based on Table8, the respondents showed that they moderately agreed that they utilize e-commerce concerning their transactions with their respective vendors.It is shown in the table above that it only obtained a rating of 2.873 overall which means that the respondents are not adapting e-commerce much when having transactions with their suppliers, merchants, etc.

Table 9 . Level of Utilization of Digital Transactions in Terms of Customer Service
E-commerce customer service is a strategy and initiative established by enterprises focused on supporting customers who make purchases from online modalities or e-commerce channels(Zendesk.com,2023).The level of Utilization of Digital Transactions in terms of Customer Service is further categorized based on Customer Inquiry, and Customer Feedback.It is shown in Table

Table 18
presents data correlating the factors and the type of e-commerce service used (Ewallet and Bank transfers).It is perceived that the Effort Expectancy has a significant influence on customer and vendor transactions.

Table 21 . Correlation Matrix between PPM Factors and Level of Utilization with respect to Business Owner's Age (31 -40 years old)
The above data in Table21presents the correlation between the factors and the business owner's age (31 -40 years old).Results include a significant Economic Benefit factor in terms of Customer and Vendor Transactions and a Transaction Inconvenience factor for Vendor Transactions.

Table 22 . Correlation Matrix between PPM Factors and Level of Utilization with respect to Business Owner's Age (41 -50 years old)
For Table22s, the following data presented above are the correlation of the factors and the business owner's age (41 -50 years old).Only Performance Expectancy and Perceived Security and Privacy emerged as the significant factors in terms of Customer Service and Vendor Transactions respectively.