Structural relationship between food quality, usefulness, ease of use, convenience, brand trust and willingness to pay: the case of Starbucks

Purpose This study aims to explore the structural relationship among food quality, usefulness, ease of use, convenience, brand trust and willingness to pay. The technology acceptance model was used as the theoretical foundation of this work. Design/methodology/approach Amazon Mechanical Turk was used to recruit survey participants, and 436 valid observations were ultimately used for the analysis. In the data analysis, the structural relationships between variables were explored through structural equation modeling. Findings The results of hypothesis testing show that ease of use positively affects the usefulness of the Starbucks mobile application. Usefulness also exerts positive impacts on both brand trust and convenience. Moreover, brand trust is positively associated with food quality. Finally, willingness to pay is positively influenced by both convenience and brand trust. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by not only validating the technology acceptance model using the Starbucks mobile application but also proposing food quality-related attributes in the domain of the café business.