A Case Study Of Online Shopping Behavior Marketing Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Abstract

Malaysia can be considered a late starter in online shopping compared with western country. Instead of some external factors like the technology facilities, government initiatives and the legitimacy of cyber law between and within countries, the positive attitude towards online shopping is also vital in determining whether the people are ready to shop and settle their monetary transactions or not. This exploratory research aims to determine the attitude towards online shopping behavior and the factors that influence their attitude towards online shopping behavior and the study had identified four factors that can influence consumer attitude towards online shopping behavior which were age, gender, vendors' characteristics and website quality. The samples consisted of 100 respondents living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia using purposive sampling where it only involved those with online purchasing experience. The results showed that age, gender and website quality did not have significant relationship with attitude towards online shopping behavior but the vendors' characteristics are directly influenced consumer's attitude towards online shopping behavior. This exploratory study suggests that others segments, such as older cohort group, who may have different lifespan, should be investigated. Also, additional studies comparing the ethnicity, and by stratum (urban and rural) might produce interesting findings.

Keywords: Online Shopping Behavior

1. INTRODUCTION

Electronic commerce has become one of the important characteristics in the internet era. According to ULCA Center for Communication Policy (2001), online shopping has become the third most popular internet activity, following e-mail using and web browsing. It is even more popular than seeking out information and news which are the most two commonly activities that people do when online. Another research report by Thailand Development Research Institute has revealed that e-commerce in the United Stated captures 70 % of the world market value, followed by Europe with 14 %, Canada 8 % while Asia Pacific region captures only 5 % of the market value (E-revolution, 2000). It is a potentially growing business and it is believed that the traditional boundaries will soon be replaced with this new technology in pursuing goods and services.

For online shopping, the 2004 Internet User Behavior Analysis Report by Market Intelligence Center (MIC) of the Institute for Information Industry (III) indicated that about 77.6% of internet users have shopped online during the past year, and the average amount of internet shopping has more than quadrupled compared with the amount three years ago. This trend shows that the internet has certainly become a vital channel for shopping. Another report by International Data Corporation (IDC) estimated that internet users in Asia, excluding Japan, will increase from 94 million in 2001 to 291 million by 2006. Nua.com reported that the number of people online in the Asia Pacific region has reached 187.24 million as of September 2002. Buying trends and internet adoption indicates that the overall electronic commerce value in Malaysia rose from US$18 million in 1998 to US$87.3 million in 1999. The International Data Corporation (IDC) believes this will increase to US$5.37 billion by the end of 2004. The growth of information technology (IT) and government initiatives are expected to accelerate further and motivate individuals to increase their knowledge of electronic commerce in the near future.

The same report shows that the value of online shopping in Malaysia is increasing from 684 million baht in 1998 to 78,510 million baht in 2003. However, online shopping in Malaysia is still in its infancy compare to western country. Malaysia can be considered a late starter given the recent spate of internet interest. Although it has been a few years since the commercialization of the internet, Malaysians still mainly regard it as a novel means of communication and entertainment, but not yet as a medium for commerce. Committing a transaction online in Malaysia is not as popular as in western countries. Although almost every internet user surveyed said in general, they like the idea of shopping on the internet, in fact, only a small number of Malaysians actually buy online (Taylor Nelson Sofres Malaysia Sdn Bhd, 2001). About 96% of urban adults in Peninsular Malaysia never bought anything via the internet and a mere 4% had done so. Malaysians do not appear to be comfortable using the internet for applications such as shopping and banking. It has yet to become a way of life in Malaysia. Recent findings indicate that the penetration of Malaysian shopping online (those who bought or ordered goods and services online) in 2000 was only 1% of the total adult population in Malaysia (Taylor Nelson Sofres Malaysia Sdn Bhd, 2001). This corresponded to 4% of internet users in the country. The 4th Malaysia Internet User Report stated, "Malaysians are very curious about this new market but are delaying transactions due to a lack of product awareness, value awareness and concerns regarding credit card security" (www.Consult, 1999).

Significance and Purpose of the Study

In 21st century, Malaysia needs to react faster in order to be an active participant in the emerging electronic world. However, little information is known about Malaysian internet users' attitudes and factors with respect to online shopping behavior. Therefore, it is important to understanding the attitudes of our consumers towards internet shopping and what are the factors that influence them to make an online shopping decision. From the consumers' perspective, this research can bring benefit to them by letting them know what is online shopping, that there are many advantages of online shopping such as convenience, have a broader selection, more cheaper price, and can access to the product information before buying. This research hopefully could make the consumers aware that the e-commerce is become an important trends in this modern information technology society, so that they know there are others shopping choices instead of in-store shopping. Looking into the marketers' perspective, this research is important to provide information to the online vendor about the factors that influence or encourage the online shopping behavior among consumers. They can know their weaknesses and try to improve or change their business strategy, so that they can attract more online buyers visit their website and buy their products or services. They can know what the online buyers needs and concern before making decision to buy products or services online. Finally, the results of this research could hopefully improve the general knowledge about online shopping and could become a reference to the future researchers. The following research questions will be addressed in this study:

What are the attitudes of towards online shopping among Malaysian citizens?

What are the factors influence their online shopping behavior?

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 ATTITUDE TOWARDS ONLINE SHOPPING

Consumer's attitude has a big influence on making the decision to buy from the internet. In Malaysia, the majority of buyers like to do brick-and mortar shopping. To visit a shopping mall has become a kind of Malaysian "weekend activity"; it is a method for some Malaysians to release pressure or spend time with family and friends. They may not necessarily go there to buy anything; it could be for various services that are available in shopping complexes like salons, movies, and bowling alleys. Consistent with the literature and models of attitude change and behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), it is believed that consumer's attitudes will affect intention to shop online and eventually whether a transaction is made. First, it refers to the consumers' acceptance of the internet as a shopping channel (Jahng, Jain, and Ramamurthy, 2001). Secondly, it refers to consumer's attitudes toward a specific internet store (i.e., to what extent consumers think that shopping at this store is appealing). Besides, perceived control/users, empowerment, enjoyment/playfulness, and perceived real added-value from membership have also been shown to be important dimensions of consumers' attitudes towards online shopping (Koufaris et al. 2002; Cho et al. 2001). Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky and Vitale (2000) investigate how consumers' perceived store size and reputation influence their trust in the store, risk perception, attitudes and willingness to buy at the specific store. They discover that there is a positive relationship between consumer trust in internet stores and the store's perceived reputation and size. Higher consumer trust also reduces perceived risk associated with internet shopping and generates more favorable attitude towards shopping at a particular store, which in turn increases willingness to purchase from the store.

2.2 Factors influencing online shopping behavior

Bellman, Lohse, Johnson (1999) investigated several predictors for whether an individual will buy online. They concluded that demographic variables such as income, education and age have a modest impact on the decision of whether to buy online. They found that the most important determinant of buying on the web was previous behavior such as earlier online purchases. "Once people are online, whether they buy there and how much they spend has more to do with whether they like to buy online and whether the time they have for buying is limited" (Bellman et al., 1999, p. 37). This is consistent with Forrester Research that concluded "demographic factors such as age, race and gender do not matter anywhere near as much as the consumers' "attitudes toward technology" (Modahl, 2000). Demographics include such variables as age, gender, level of education, income, and time online. Bellman et al (1999, p. 33) report that internet surveys agree that the online population is relatively younger, more educated, wealthier. Bhatnagar (2000) provide evidence that demographics are not relevant factors in determining which store to patronize or how much to spend, though men and women do tend to buy different types of products or services via the internet

Korgaonkar and Wolin (1999) found that motivational factors as well as age and gender impacted the likelihood of online purchasing. In their study, older males were the group that had the highest online purchase behavior. This is consistent with the results of Donthu and Garcia's (1999) research, who found that older internet users were more likely to buy online when compared to younger users, even though the younger users had more positive attitudes towards internet shopping. Dholakia and Uusitalo (2002) found that younger consumers reported more hedonic and utilitarian benefits of online shopping than older consumers. In contrast, Joines (2003) found that younger respondents were more likely to shop online. Although there was no significant difference between online shoppers and non-shoppers in terms of gender (Donthu and Garcia, 1999), men were found to make more purchases (Li, Kuo and Russell, 1999; Stafford, Turan, Raisinghani, 2004) and spend more money online (Susskind, 2004) than women. Men's perceptions of online shopping were approximately the same as (Alreck and Settle, 2002) or even more favorable than (Slyke, Comunale and Belanger, 2002) those of female consumers. Women were reported to have a higher level of web apprehensiveness (i.e., individual's resistance to or fear of the www as a channel for context-free online information seeking and communication) (Susskind, 2004). Being more skeptical about e-business than their male counterparts, women were emotionally less satisfied with online shopping and made fewer online purchases than men (Rodgers and Harris, 2003). Women demonstrate a stronger need for tactile input in product evaluation than men (Citrin, Stem, Spangenberg and Clark, 2003). The inability to touch or try on products, a shortcoming of online purchasing, might also result in fewer female online shoppers. In line with this, Li, et al. (1999) also found that men used more frequent online shopping than women and well-educated consumers were the frequent web buyer. They also found that consumers with high incomes used more frequently internet for shopping. Other studies have also indicated that men, more highly educated and higher income groups are more likely to buy online than women, the less well education, and lower groups (Forsythe and Shi, 2003, Li et al, 1999, Swinyard and Smith, 2003).

Instead of gender and age factor, vendor characteristics are also vital in determining the online shopping behavior among the consumers. Vendor characteristics refer to features of the internet stores, the products they sell, and the service they provide to support the transactions. There is also a great concern, among the internet users, regarding the security of financial information transmitted over the internet (Gupta, 1995) i.e. vendor reliability of promise not misuses users' personal and credit card information. Doney and Cannon (1997) label trust as an order qualifier for purchase decisions. Trust is a belief or expectation that the word or promise by the merchant can be relied upon and the seller will not take advantage of the consumer's vulnerability (Geyskens, I., Steenkamp, J-B, E. M., & Kumar, N., 1998). If the buyers and sellers have not developed the trust of the technology of buying and selling online, the one who pays, cannot be sure that his credit card number could not be collected somewhere in the web (occur during the data transfer of a credit card number), and be used for some other malicious purposes (OECC, 1997). The trust in a vendor is likely to affect the consumers' perception of vendor's reliability. Luedi (1997) argues that vendors should fulfill transactions by reliably and securely supporting the full spectrum of electronic commerce from promotional pricing to secure payment handling.

Looking into the website quality matter, Song and Zahedi (2001) classified website quality elements into five categories according to their purpose: for promotion, service, informational influence, self-efficacy, and resources facilitation. They found that each of the five significantly and positively reinforces the consumer's perceptions in these factors, which in turn positively influence consumer online shopping attitudes and behavior. Others researchers like Zhang, von Dran, Small, and Barcellos (1999, 2000), and Zhang and von Dran (2000) make an attempt to evaluate website quality from user satisfaction and dissatisfaction perspectives. Their studies showed that website design features can be regarded as hygiene and motivating factors that contribute to user dissatisfaction and satisfaction with a website.

METHODOLOGY

This study was conducted in Taman Kepong, Kepong, Kuala Lumpur because this area consisted of residents with different ages and had some primary and secondary school background which mean that the residents are difference in their ages and educational background levels. Besides that, this location was chosen because it was located in Kuala Lumpur city area; normally city center had better broadband services, so that more residents had the opportunities to do the online activities when compared to the residents in rural area. It is important for the respondents to had better online facilities since this study is focusing on online shopping. A total number of 100 residents in Taman Kepong, Kepong, Kuala Lumpur with different ages, educational background, male and female were chosen as the respondents to answer the questionnaires. The sampling procedure that have been used in this study was purposive sampling as this study need to choose the residents with online shopping experiences. The data was collected using a self-administrated questionnaire which consisted of four sections for the respondents to complete. The questionnaire was conducted during the university semester break in December 2008. A pre-test of the questions was conducted before collected the real data for this study. The purpose of the test was to identify any items that may be difficult to comprehend and revised them prior to conducting this survey. Pre-test of the questions was also useful to check for the reliability of the questions and estimated time required to complete the survey questions. The pre-test was conducted among 10 respondents that had been chosen from the real sample. This was to ensure that the questions were suitable and understands by the respondents so that the answers given will fulfill the information needed in this study. Besides that, pre-test was conducted to provide an opportunity for researcher to run the data collection and analysis to identify problems and errors that potentially occurs.

3.5 INSTRUMENTATION

Each respondent is needed to complete a set of self-administrated questionnaire that consisted of four parts. In part A, respondents are asked about their age, gender, race, religion, marital status, educational attainment, internet usage and online shopping experiences. In part B, the respondents needed to complete fourteen questions regarding their attitudes towards online shopping. The questions were conducted using five point Likert scale from "1"= "strongly disagree" to "5"= "strongly agree". In part C, respondents needed to complete sixteen questions regarding vendor characteristics that influenced them to do shopping online. The questions were conducted using five point Likert scale from "1"= "strongly disagree" to "5"= "strongly agree". This part was used to test the third specific objective in the study which is the vendor characteristics and attitude towards online shopping. In part D, respondents needed to complete ten questions regarding the website quality that influenced them to do online shopping. The questions were conducted using five point Likert scale from "1"= "strongly disagree" to "5"= "strongly agree".

DATA ANALYSIS

The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS for Windows version 13) was used to analyze the data. The main statistical analysis was descriptive statistics, i.e., frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were calculated to describe respondents' background. Item's mean value and standard deviation were computed for the hours a day use the internet, how long had been on the internet, level of online shopping experience, how long have been shopping online and types of goods that the respondents have tended to buy via online. Independent sample t-test was performed to determine the significant difference in attitude towards online shopping behavior between male and female. Meanwhile, Pearson correlation analysis was utilized to assess the relationship between independent variable (ages, consumers' attitudes, vendor characteristics and website quality) and dependent variable (attitude towards online shopping behavior).

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter discusses the research findings of the study in terms of the respondent's socio-demographic background, patterns of using internet and buying online, attitude towards online shopping, vendor characteristics and website quality. Pearson correlation analysis was used to test the first hypothesis which is the relationship between age and attitude towards online shopping behavior, third hypothesis which is the relationship between vendors' characteristics and attitude towards online shopping behavior, fourth hypothesis which is the relationship between website quality and attitude towards online shopping behavior. Meanwhile independent sample t-test was used to test the second hypothesis that is to measure the difference in attitude towards online shopping behavior among gender.

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SAMPLE

In this study, there were 81% males and 19% females and the age of the respondents ranged from 18 to 28 years old with mean 22.11 years old. The highest percentage of respondents' age was 23 years with total of 22% out of 100 respondents. The minimum percentage of respondent age was 28 years with only 1% out of 100 respondents. The highest percentage of respondents was undergraduates with 53%. Most of the respondents were Chinese (86%) and Buddha (76%). In term of Internet usage, 42% of the total respondents did served the Internet more than four hours per day while the lowest percentage was 18% of respondents used internet between 1-2 hours per day. There were 21% of respondents using internet between 2-3 hours per day, 19% of respondents using internet between 3-4 hours per day. In terms of years of using internet, the study found that the highest percentage of respondents been on internet were 48% who been on the internet for more than 4 years, meanwhile the lowest percentage of respondents were 1% who have been on the internet for 1-2 year. There were 22% of respondents been on the internet for 2-3 years and 29% of respondents been on internet for 3-4 years. 62% of respondents described themselves as beginner in online shopping experience, 28% of respondents were intermediate and 10% of respondents were expert in online shopping experience. The highest percentage of respondents (32%) has been shopping online between 6 months-1 year, while the lowest percentage was 3% of respondents which have been shopping online for more than 4 years. There were 28% of respondents have been shopping online less than 6 months, 16% of respondents have been shopping online between 1-2 years, 16% of respondents have been shopping online for 2-3 years and 4% of respondents have been shopping online for 3-4 years. The most online shopping activity was purchasing travel booking with 46% of respondents, while the least activity was purchasing music/DVD/ video with 12% of respondents. 24% of respondents purchased electrical equipment, 36% purchased clothes, 15% purchased books, 37% purchased computer hardware, 41% purchased software/games, 26% purchased toys/collectibles.

ATTITUDE TOWARDS ONLINE SHOPPING BEHAVIOR

Table XXX shows that most of the respondents disagreed with the statement "online shopping is as secure as traditional shopping" (61%), 47% respondents showed neutral attitude with the statement "the description of products shown on the websites is very accurate". However, most respondents agreed with the statement "it is a great advantage to be able to shop at any time of the day on the internet" (93%). Higher scores indicated higher attitude towards online shopping. The same table shows that most of respondents (82%) have medium level of attitude towards online shopping. There were only 7% of the respondents had high level of attitude towards online shopping

4.41 Vendors' Characteristics

Most of the respondents disagreed with the statement "returns and refunds are easier with web-based vendors" (56%). Most respondents showed neutral with the statement "web-based vendors deliver orders/services in a timelier manner" (41%). However, most respondents (73%) agreed with the statement "it is more risky to make payment to web-based vendors when purchasing an item". The higher the scores indicated the higher vendors' characteristics towards online shopping attitude. Based on Table XXX, it shows that most of the respondents (93%) were found to have medium level of concern with regards to vendors' characteristics towards online shopping. There was only 1% of the respondent who has low level that influences the attitude concern.

Website Quality

From the Table 8, it showed that most respondents disagreed with the statement "I enjoy taking chances in trying new and different website" (40%). 38% respondents showed neutral for statement "I enjoy taking chances in trying new and different website. However, most respondents" (92%) agreed with the statements "when shopping online, I often go and buy on a website I experienced and familiar with and when shopping online, I often purchase at the website which assure me of safety and easy to navigation and order". The higher scores indicated the higher website qualities towards online shopping behavior. Based on Table 9, it shows that most of the respondents (71%) were found to have medium level of website quality that influences their online purchase behavior.

4.5 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF HYPOTHESES

Pearson correlation was performed to measure the relationship between factors affecting consumers' attitude towards online shopping. The factors were age, vendors' characteristics and website quality meanwhile independent sample t-Test was performed to measure the difference between gender and attitude towards online shopping behavior. The results of these analyses were summarized in Table 10. Table 10 shows that there was no significant relationship between age and consumers' attitude towards online shopping behavior (r = 0.065, p>0.05). Hence, Ho1 was failed to be rejected. This results was consistent with the Forrester Research that concluded "demographic factors such as race, age and gender do not matter anywhere near as much as the consumers' attitudes toward technology" (Modahl, 2000). Table 10 shows that there was a significant relationship between vendors' characteristics and consumers' attitude towards online shopping behavior (r = 0.222, p≤ 0.05). Hence, Ho3 was successfully rejected. This was consistent with the findings from the previous research which found that vendor's reliability is a great concern of online shoppers when making online shopping decisions (Gupta, 1995). Table 10 shows that there was no significant relationship between website quality and consumers' attitude towards online shopping behavior (r = 0.082, p > 0.05). Hence, Ho4 was failed to be rejected. This results was inconsistent with the findings from the previous research which found that website qualities features can be regarded as hygiene and motivating factors that contribute to user satisfaction and dissatisfaction of a website which can affect their online shopping decisions (Liang and Lai, 2000).

Independent sample t-test was used to measure the difference between male, female and consumer attitude towards online shopping behavior. Table 11 shows that there was no significant relationship in online shopping behavior between male and female (t = -0.076, p> 0.05). Hence, Ho2 was failed to be rejected. This results was consistent with the previous findings which found that there was no significant difference between online shoppers and non-shoppers in terms of gender (Donthu and Garcia 1999).

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The research was conducted in Taman Kepong, Kepong, Kuala Lumpur. Purposive sampling method was used to choose 100 respondents who had buying things online before to complete the questionnaire. Majority of the respondents were male (81%) and the remaining 19% were females. The respondents' ages were between 18 to 28 years old. All the information in this research had been collected using self-administrated questionnaires in 5 point Likert scale ranging from "1"= "strongly disagree" to "5"= "strongly disagree". The questionnaires consisted of information of respondents' socio-demographic background, patterns of using internet and buying online, attitude towards online shopping, vendors' characteristics and website quality. The respondents' socio-demographic consisted of age, education background, race, religion and marital status.

There were five questions used to measure the respondents' patterns of using internet and online shopping behavior. Attitudes towards online shopping consisted of 14 questions to examine the respondents' attitudes towards online shopping. Vendors' characteristics consisted of 16 questions were used to measure the third specific objective which was to identify the vendors' characteristics that influence the consumers' attitude towards online shopping. Website quality consisted of 10 questions were used to measure the fourth specific objective which was to determine the influence of website quality on attitude towards toward online shopping.

All data and information were gathered and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The descriptive statistic analysis was used to describe the respondents' socio-demographic background. Independent samples t-test was used to test the second hypothesis which was the difference in online shopping behavior between gender. Pearson correlation was used to test the relationship between age and attitude towards online shopping (first hypothesis), the relationship between vendors' characteristics and attitude towards online shopping (third hypothesis) and the relationship between website quality and consumer attitude towards online shopping (fourth hypothesis).

From the results of SPSS, it showed that most of the study hypotheses were failed to be rejected except the third hypothesis regarding vendors' characteristics and consumer attitude towards online shopping behavior The first hypothesis which was the relationship between age and attitude towards online shopping was failed to be rejected (r = 0.065, p > 0.05). The third hypothesis which was the relationship between the vendors' characteristics and attitude towards online shopping behavior was successfully rejected (r = 0.222, p ≤ 0.05) and fourth hypothesis which was the relationship between the website quality and attitude towards online shopping was failed to be rejected (r = 0.082, p > 0.05). The second hypothesis which was the differences in online shopping behavior between male and female was also failed to reject (t = -0.076, p> 0.05).

5.2 IMPLICATION

Online shopping has becoming a popular activity today because of the ease and large population of people using information technology tools and internet. Everyone can online nowadays by using the information technology tools such as notebook, PDA, computer or even hand phone if the hand phone can support the WIFI function. Many cafeterias, fast food restaurants and supermarkets have provide the WIFI service for customer to surf the internet in order to attract the consumer to spend longer time in their shop.

It was found that vendors' characteristics were significantly influenced attitude toward online shopping behaviors. From the results, it shown that the vendors' characteristics had positive relationship to the consumer attitude towards online shopping. It meant that the more positive the attitude towards vendors' characteristics, the more increasing consumer did online shopping. The direct implication of the finding was that targeting more appropriate consumer groups, improving consumers' attitudes, vendors' quality can positively influence consumer online shopping behavior, potentially leading to increased frequency of initial purchase and repeat purchases on the part of consumers. Demographics characteristics (age and gender) and website quality were found to have no significant influence in consumers' attitude towards online shopping behavior.

Online shopping is under e-commerce which is categorized under the business to consumer (B2C). Online shopping has become the third most popular activity following the e-mail using and web browsing (ULCA Center for Communication Policy, 2001). It is even more popular than seeking out information and news which are the most two common activity that people do when online. There were few popular websites where consumer can buy things online such as lelong.com.my, Amazon.com and Ebay. These websites provide variety of products for consumer to choose and buy the things they interested. Hence, this research was important to find out that some of the factors that can influence consumer to buy or making decision to buy things online which are the age, gender, vendors' characteristics and website quality.

Besides that, the current research made consumers to know more about the online shopping and its benefits and risks. This research created public aware of the importance of online shopping. The research created consumer awareness to make careful analysis before they decide to buy online to avoid being scammed. It can boost consumer confident level, encouraging them to make more online shopping after they had identified these critical factors- age, gender, vendors' characteristics and website quality which can affect the online shopping decision. Finally, consumers were benefited through this study. They were becoming "techno-savvy" and collect as much information as possible before making the purchases and thereby, they chose right product at an economical price. They were becoming smarter day by day. Hopefully the consumers can involve more in online shopping after they had knowledge about the pros and cons of online shopping. This was because online shopping in Malaysia was still in its infancy compare to the western country. Malaysian people were more likely to use internet for communication and entertainment but still not popular using the internet to shopping.

Furthermore, this research was important for online marketers who were interested in exploring the Malaysian market; thereby they can win the confidence of the consumers and also understand potential consumers' behaviors. The information derived from this research enable offline retailers, especially local manufacturers, to diversify and offer their products and services through the internet and not stay in the local traditional "brick and mortar" environment. This research enable the online seller or vendors to identify their strengths, weaknesses and the criterias they must fulfill in order to attract more consumers to buy things from them. These criterias included provide secure online transactions, good services after sales, fast warranty claim and quick response in replying buyer questions. Moreover, the research made the online seller or vendor to identify the importance of website quality such as the design of the website, clear and sufficient information about the selling product, organization of the information content and visual appearance which were also the important factors to influence consumer decision to buy things online.

Besides that, the study would made government identified the importance of online shopping and they should also play an active role by giving much priority in terms of increasing the computer literacy rate among Malaysians for the creation of knowledge-driven and IT-savvy society. This measure could be exercised through the provision of short courses, seminars, workshops, and conferences on issues of internet and computer related technologies. Hence, these public educations could help build up Malaysian consumers' confidence to shops online as well as increase the volume of sales in the electronic commerce sector. Finally, this research was useful to academicians where current research could serve as a reference and may provide some guides for further researchers who would like to study about the same topic.

5.3 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTION FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Although this research has clearly identified the factors that influencing online shopping, it also have some limitations. Firstly, the limitation of the data prevents further exploration of the research. There were only 100 respondents who had participated in this research using the self-administrated questionnaire and purposive sampling method. However, the respondents in Taman Kepong, Kuala Lumpur only represented the early adulthood where their ages are closely ranged to each other from 18-28 years. It is important to know that different or large range of age levels would give different and better results. Therefore, further researchers are suggested to use more representatives sampling method and increasing the sample size of respondents especially in increasing the respondents' age range to decrease the error of generalizing to a wider population.

Secondly, the research only examined and limited to four factors that influence the attitude towards online shopping which are age, gender, vendors' characteristics and website quality. Further researches are suggested to find out other factors influencing online shopping so that it can help consumer to know more factors that can affect online shopping behavior. These factors such as price, type of internet access, perceived risk, education level, income level and cultural environment.

5.4 CONCLUSION

No one can predict how successful e-commerce will be in Malaysia in this competitive market. Malaysia is still lagging far behind developed countries. Online shopping is supplementary or complementary to existing business as an additional marketing, promotion and fulfillment channel. Malaysia has a huge potential for internet procurement. It will be hard for Malaysians to rapidly adopt online shopping due to cultural inertia. Malaysians like going to the shops rather than browsing the internet without an initial inspection of the goods. This culture will change for Malaysian consumers as they become aware of the advantages of online shopping. If the consumer can be convinced that it is safe and reliable to purchase online, the potential will be unleashed. A new economic culture that is in contrast to the traditional one of owning and keeping the intellectual property one creates, may flourish. Malaysia had made great strides in education and training of IT knowledge. Various approaches have been utilized to address the gap between the information rich and poor. The government is creating a telecommunications infrastructure to give equal access throughout the country. Malaysia will have more internet users with the reduction in PC prices, access to cyber cafes and more ISPs coming on stream. E-commerce in Malaysia will be facilitated by the preparation of the necessary infrastructure, legal and regulatory framework.

However, new security systems for transactions are under development and electronic commerce will not provide opportunities, but also risks that companies and consumers will have to consider. E-commerce seems to be still in a gestation period. There are not many success stories in Malaysia. Confidence needs to be instilled in businesses to invest in and the public to purchase via the internet. Recognition of online companies by a reputable third party would have a positive effect on online shopping. It would have the strongest impact among those who are already online purchasers. The barrier of security of payments has to be overcome before other considerations in order to convert non-users. Many people are still cautious about giving out credit card numbers or even buying anything off the internet, whether it is cash on delivery or other means. Subsequently, e-commerce solutions are increasingly secure with many measures in place to ensure as secure an environment as possible. The industry is growing slowly but still lacks the maturity and creativity needed to gain a strong foothold on the global internet or e-commerce market. In order to be the driving force in the internet world, Malaysians need to be ready to face the challenges of the internet global market.

Acknowledgement

I want to express my appreciation to my undergraduate student, Mr. Hing Yoong Keen in converting his final year project paper into this paper. Knowing that there are rooms of improvement in this paper but his first attempt in publication should be given supports and encourages.