The Socio-cultural Factors Influencing Online Female Consumers in Saudi Arabia

Designers can make a difference in the way people live their lives. Their core is to provide design solutions to meet the needs, expectations, and variations of their target users. Although Saudi Arabia is becoming an emerging market for both global and local retailers, many consumers remain reluctant to adopt e-commerce business to consumer transactions such as online shopping. Moreover, the literature shows that despite the general low penetration of e-commerce applications in Saudi Arabia, there is a perceptible significant difference between the numbers of males and females with positive responses towards adopting these applications. This paper identifies the socio-cultural and technical factors that influence both the Saudi female´s adoption and the design of e-commerce applications using the foundations of organisational semiotics. A socio-technical tool-kit of methods and techniques that bridge the gap between the notions of `culture´ and `technology´ by providing a deeper analysis of the social norms that govern people´s behaviour.