Electronic Payment System and Customer Patronage of shopping Malls in South -South Nigeria

This study was established to determine the extent to which electronic payment system has improved customers’ patronage of shopping malls in South-South zone of Nigeria. A descriptive survey research method of co-relational research design was employed in this study. The population of the study consisting of 77 registered shopping malls in the South-South Zone of Nigeria from which target population 6890 managers and sale persons were drawn. The Taro Yamane’s formula was used to determine a sample size of 378 managers and sales personnel for the study. A purposive sampling technique was adopted using considerable percentage of representation approach to ensure effective selection of the sample elements of the population. A structured instrument for data collection containing fifteen (15) items questions was used for the study. The face and content validation of the instrument was obtained through the judgment of experts. A test-retest method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument and a reliability index of .83 was obtained. The data collected were presented and analyzed using simple percentage and frequency analysis, mean and standard deviation, while the formulated hypotheses were tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation of SPSS software program version 23.0 at .05 level of significance. The findings indicated that card payment system, electronic funds transfer and e-wallet payment system has a significant relationship with improvement in customer patronage of shopping malls in the zone. Based on these findings, it was concluded that electronic payment system has significantly improves customer patronage, of shopping malls in the South-South zone of Nigeria. Thus, it was recommended that shopping mall operators in the South-South zone who are yet to introduce sustainable electronic payment system should do so immediately to promote customers patronage and improve increase in repeat purchase.