Consumer Online Shopping Behaviour; Empirical Evidence from Malaysia

Abstract

Consumer online shopping behaviour has been studied worldwide. In Malaysia, online shopping market size was RM1.8 billion in 2013 and it is estimated to reach RM5 billion by 2015. However, online shopping was rated 11th out of 15 purposes of using internet in 2012. Therefore, examining factors affecting consumers’ online shopping behaviour has attracted many researchers and online retailers because it helps them to better understanding of e-commerce success. In this study, consumer attitude, subjective norms (SN) and perceived behaviour control (PBC) of Theory of Planned behaviour (TPB) and domain specific innovativeness (DSI) were established as predictors to online shopping behaviour. Within this area, consumers’ perceived risks of online shopping is also important to research as it will directly influence their attitude towards online purchasing. The conceptualization of consumers’ perceived risk, attitude, SN, PBC, DSI and online shopping behaviour (SB) of this study provides empirical evidence in the study of consumer online behaviour, particularly from the Malaysia perspective. Four types of risks—product risk, financial, convenience and non-delivery risks—were examined in term of their effect on consumers’ online attitude. In addition, attitude, SN, PBC and DSI were analyzed to determine their effect on consumer online SB. A web-based survey was employed, and a total of 300 online shoppers of a Malaysia largest online marketplace participated in this study. The findings indicated that product risk, financial and nondelivery risks are hazardous and negatively affect the attitude of online shoppers. Convenience risk was found to have positive effect on consumers’ attitude, denoting that online buyers of this site trusted the online seller and they encountered less troublesome with the site. The online buyers’ attitude, SN, PBC and DSI were significantly and positively affects their online SB. The findings provide empirical evidence regarding consumer perceived risk, used of TPB and understanding factors affecting online shopping behaviour in the Malaysia e-commerce setting.