INFORMAL MARKET AND THE ADOPTION OF E-COMMERCE IN THE PROCUREMENT OF CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study aimed at examining the level of adoption of e-commerce in the procurement of construction materials by the informal construction market in Lagos State, Nigeria. This was with a view to creating the market hub for construction material through the internet. The data for the study were obtained using multiple-choice questionnaire administered on the operators of informal construction market which include 60 merchant builders and 40 local contractors across ten (10) markets in the Lagos States which were randomly selected. One hundred (100) copies of the questionnaire were administered, of which 63 were recovered representing 63% rate of response. The questionnaire elicited information on the level of e-commerce awareness in the market and level of usage of relevant e-commerce technologies. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods like percentage and relative importance index (RII). The study showed that there was an abysmal low-level awareness of 44.44% and moderate awareness of 26.98%. Point of Sale (POS) machine ranked 1^st with RII of 0.84, E-banking ranked 2^nd with RII of 0.81, interswitch web pay and Mobile banking ranked 3^rd with RII of 0.78 while other tools in e-commerce technologies have not been widely used as shown on tables 4.2and 4.3. The study concluded that there was low-level awareness of e-commerce technologies which is responsible for lack of adoption in the market. The paper, therefore, recommends that more awareness should be created for e-commerce technologies to be embraced and adopted and cyber-security should be improved to enhancing adoption.