Abstract:

A number of companies have started to head for e-commerce after removing some intermediaries due to the latest advances in information technologies and widespread use of Internet, which ultimately causes some new e-intermediaries to emerge. Online takeaway food ordering systems in food and drink industry are of great samples for those e-intermediaries. The aim of this study is to investigate the reasons why the takeaway service users order via online food ordering systems instead of ordering on the phone or through websites of restaurants. In our research design, in-depth interview was used as a primary qualitative data collection method. The purposive sampling was used in this study. Ten participants were interviewed. The participants involve students and employed people that had used the ordering system of yemeksepeti.com. Semi-structured interview questionairre was used in order to collect exploratory and explanatory data. As a findings of the interviews, the reasons why the participants prefer online food ordering systems were classified as follows: technology factors, shopping factors, product factors and personal factors. As the consequences of the study, according to the statements of the participants the reasons of using online food ordering system are related with the concepts of trust to the intermediary and trust to the seller; and these systems may have a more important role in small cities than big cities and for small local restaurants than national or international restaurant chains.

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