Utami, H.N., Alamanos, E. & Kuznesof, S. (2019). Going digital: SMEs based food e-commerce engaging customer through customer needs-driven. Proceedings of The 19th International Conference on Electronic Business (pp. 526- 529). ICEB, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, December 8-12. Utami, Alamanos & Kuznesof The 19th International Conference on Electronic Business, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, December 8-12, 2019 526 Going Digital: SMEs Based Food E-commerce Engaging Customer through Customer Needs-Driven (Work in Progress) Hesty Nurul Utami*, Newcastle University Business School, United Kingdom, h.n.utami2@newcastle.ac.uk Eleftherios Alamanos, Newcastle University Business School, United Kingdom, eleftherios.alamanos@newcastle.ac.uk Sharron Kuznesof, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, United Kingdom, sharron.kuznesof@newcastle.ac.uk ABSTRACT This study explores food e-commerce engages customer to their needs, wants and lifestyle towards food purchase in the transition of retail revolution era. The focus is given to the customer engagement for co-creation process from the seller’s perspective. The study was carried in Indonesia by applying an inductive research approach using in-depth interviews with multiple food e-commerce company’s management (n=8). A six-stage of thematic analysis was applied using NVivo 12 software. The study showed that customer curiosity, customer buying behaviour change, customer food lifestyle changes and more demanding consumers underlying customer-needs driven. The SMEs proactively respond to consumer needs by communicating the expected benefits of food purchase via online channels. It activates the role of customer as value co-creator through familiarising food shopping based-online channel and experiencing the food online channel usage. The process of B2C value co-creation of food e-commerce is described as a process of gaining customer attention, role understanding, interaction, learning, intervention and making consumers discover. The transition stage of retail revolution of SME-based food e- commerce in developing countries demonstrates a conceptual process of value co-creation while exploring the customer needs- driven to this specific context. Both scholars and practitioners could learn from consumer behaviour changes displayed on online food purchase by managing each role and resources accordingly. Keywords: value co-creation, customer engagement, customer needs-driven, SMEs, food e-commerce _____________________ *Corresponding author INTRODUCTION The worldwide penetration of internet utilisation has impressively increased the number of technology-savvy consumers including modify consumer shopping behaviour. The emergence of e-commerce is evidence of a shopping revolution in a problem-solving process that changes the way buyer-seller interaction and transaction (Saba, Rolandi, & Pilloni, 2017). Electronic commerce has also influenced food retail evolution by continuously change the brick and mortar stores to virtual stores as alternative food networks (Bryła, 2018; Lee, Jeong, Cho, Jeong, & Moon, 2015). The conventional food distribution and retails with long fragmented business process have driven a prospect for food e-commerce (Leroux, Wortman, & Mathias, 2001). The penetration of e-commerce to compete in the retail markets offer the advantages on cost of travel and shopping time with supply chains efficiency (Liang Lu & Reardon, 2018). However, different features show on the adoption of e-commerce applies for agri-food industry between developing or emerging economics countries and developed countries concerning the company size. Small scales enterprises (SMEs) are dominated the online commerce in developing countries (Zhang, 2017), whereas global corporation dominating the e- commerce in developed countries (Henderson, Dooley, Akridge, & Carerre, 2005). Consumer and producer characteristics in developing countries request for synchronising profit, well-being and sustainability in an inclusive community (Nahi, 2016). Fostering the SMEs based agri-food e-commerce, collaborative interaction becomes essential by engaging customers for mutual benefits in the long run (Saba et al., 2017). Engaging customers by encouraging customers to contribute more resources in the purchasing process to provide with a better fit for their needs may deliver a broader services system (Jaakkola & Alexander, 2014). Customer needs-driven is a concept of managing and improving cooperative relationships with customers (Arnett & Badrinarayanan, 2005). The idea indicates as customer relationship management by engaging customers through with various ways customer behaviour including utilising customer experience and customer online dynamic behaviour (Pagani & Malacarne, 2016). The role of customer engagement by adopting customer behaviour beyond transactions may affect the company’s ability to serve customers with multiple benefits to fit their needs (Jaakkola & Alexander, 2014). Accommodating customer needs in an inclusive or collectivist market along with social lifestyle changes and ICT adoption serve as other challenges. This study explores food e-commerce engages customer to their needs, wants and lifestyle towards food purchase in the transition of retail revolution era. The focus is given to the customer engagement for co-creation process from the seller’s perspective. Less attentions are given to marketing