Perceived Ease of Use and Brand Popularity: How Surcharge Modifies Its Relationship Within SMEs Choice toward Mobile Food Service Platform during Pandemic

In 2020, due to the global pandemic, the digital transformation roadmap is forced to take a big leap to adapt to a new way of life. Despite the significant increase of digital technologies, many SMEs still struggle in technology adoption, especially smaller SMEs, which have less than 10 employees, including in Indonesia. Before the pandemic occurred, many food entrepreneurs in Indonesia were not interested in joining mobile food services. This is because many food entrepreneurs believe in the competitive advantage that their restaurants have, especially in terms of taste. They believe consumers are willing to make sacrifices to consume their food. However, since the pandemic occurred and mobility restrictions were imposed, many food entrepreneurs have started to find it difficult to sell their food and inevitably must join mobile food services to survive. This makes this research interesting, considering that most food entrepreneurs in Indonesia, especially in Surabaya, are old players with old fashion ways of business. Previous research shows that perceived ease of use and brand popularity are factors that dominantly influence user decisions in using a platform. This study aims to determine the effect of perceived ease of use and brand popularity on SMEs choice toward mobile food service platforms during a pandemic, and the moderating effect of surcharge on the relationship. The results of the study show that both perceived ease of use and brand popularity has a significant effect on SMEs choice toward mobile food service platform. Interesting result was found on the moderating effect. Surcharge was found to significantly weaken the relationship between perceived ease of use and SMEs choice toward mobile food service platforms, but not significantly in the relationship between brand popularity and SMEs choice toward mobile food service platforms. Further research can be done in a different area to gain deeper and boarder perspective.