A Study on Consumer Perception Towards Purchasing Mangoes Through Online Platforms in Telangana State

Abstract

India is the world's largest producer of mangoes, and Telangana is an important contributor through Banginapalli, Himayat (Himam Pasand), Totapuri and other regional varieties. The rapid growth of e-commerce, quick-commerce and direct-from-orchard digital selling has opened a new channel for mango purchase, yet consumer perception of this channel — shaped by perceived usefulness, ease of use, trust, price value, convenience, social influence and, critically, the perceived risk of receiving unripe, overripe or mismatched produce — remains under-researched for perishable fruit in a regional Indian context. This paper develops a conceptual model grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) and Perceived Risk Theory, adapted from prior work on online fruit and grocery purchase (Wei et al., 2018; Chen et al., 2021; Habib & Hamadneh, 2021; Gupta & Kumar, 2023), and proposes a structured questionnaire and sampling design to test the model among online mango buyers across urban, semi-urban and rural Telangana. To demonstrate the intended analytical pipeline, the paper reports results from an illustrative simulated dataset (n = 250) analysed using descriptive statistics, Cronbach's alpha reliability testing, Pearson correlation, multiple linear regression, one-way ANOVA and chi-square tests. In this illustration, perceived usefulness (β = 0.36), trust (β = 0.28), perceived ease of use (β = 0.24) and convenience (β = 0.19) emerge as positive predictors and perceived quality risk (β = -0.23) as a negative predictor of online purchase intention (R² = 0.40), with location (urban/semi-urban/rural) showing a significant association with purchase intention. The paper concludes with managerial implications for agri-tech platforms, mango growers and marketing cooperatives in Telangana, and explicitly flags that the reported figures are illustrative pending replacement with primary field data (see Appendix II) before journal submission.