Factors Affecting Women Shoppers Essay

Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development 3. 3 2013 Budget Presentation Speech by Malaysia Prime Minister. 3. 4 The Household Use of Internet Survey,2005 by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commisions. | | | | | CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. 1Background of the Study The usage of Internet has grown rapidly over the past years and it has become a common means for delivering and trading information, services and goods. Nowadays, internet is not only a networking media, but it is also used as a means of transaction for consumers at global market. Women contribute the large number of Malaysia’s population. Major contribution of women to the nation always been recognized. With the increasing number of career women in Malaysia contribute further enhance of the purchasing power among women buyers. The existence of telecommunications equipment such as smart phones and tablets are not limiting time and place for them to be online. The roles of a shopper’s personal attitudes have been widely acknowledged in consumer decision-making and behavioral intentions (Wu, 2003). In particular, attitude serves as the bridge between consumers’ characteristics and the consumption that satisfies their needs (Armstrong & Kotler, 2003). Moreover, consumers’ characteristics, such as personality, as well as demographic and perception on online shopping benefits, have also been found to influence their online shopping behavior (Cheung & Lee, 2003). Thus, identifying the relative importance of each determinant of choice towards a given action could be a useful step in understanding such behavior occurs. The main aim of this study is to investigate purchasing intention of women shopper at Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), with a particular emphasis on understanding and evaluating the factors which directly or indirectly influence their purchasing intentions by measuring the attitude towards online shopping. 1. 2Problem Statement Online shopping in Malaysia is a new technology breakthrough since it has just begun to assault the Malaysia retailing sector with the online shopping services (Haque et al. 2006). In order to increase online shopping in Malaysia, understanding consumer online shopping behavior and factors affecting this behavior when shopping online should be given priority. With the expansion of career women in Malaysia, women shoppers become one of the important market segments or two reasons; first, this group has money and shopping interest. According to Statistics on Women, Family and Community 2011, shows that number of female employed increased from 2000 until 2010. It shows that women in Malaysia have purchasing power (See Appendix 3. ). Second, this segment of the population has the potential of earning a greater income than other segments of the population. It will be great significance to find out the factors which influence women shoppers’ intention to shop online if we want to expand group of online buyers and the volume of e-commerce. According to to Statistics on Women, Family and Community 2011, Number of female enrollment in University is higher than ma le and the number keep increasing. In 2001, number of male enrollment student in University is 103,747 and female 142,242. In 2010, Number of male enrollment in University is 184,457 and female 278,323 (See Appendix 3. 2). The differences of student become bigger each year. The higher of education background can contribute to higher income in the future. Third, growth of online business keeps increasing. Recently, during the 2013 budget presentation by our Prime Minister has stated that; the Malaysia Government aware women not only important in a family, but also contribute to the development to the national economy. The government allocated 50 million to support women’s role. One of them is, Get Malaysia Business Online Program (GMBO) introduced to help 50 thousand small entrepreneurs, especially women to increase their online sales. Grants of thousand Ringgit Malaysia through the provision of 50 million Ringgit Malaysia by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) (See Appendix 3. 3). A mid-2005 survey by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Corporation (MCMC), only 9. 3% of Internet users had purchased products or services through the Internet during the preceding three months. Among those who did so, airline tickets were the most popular items (43. %) followed by books (15. 6%) and music (6. 8%). Amounts spent on these items were small, however, with 57. 7% of transactions worth less than M$500. Moreover, it is expected Malaysian online sales will increase every year at a high growth (See Appendix 3. 4). Opportunities of online shopping can be restricted by internal and external constraints on behavior. It is important in expl aining human behavior since an individual who has the intention of accomplishing a certain action may be unable to do so because her environment prevents the act from being performed. Moreover, there are some barriers which have contributed to the unwillingness of Malaysians to shop online because they afraid their personal information will be stole or misused by others. Despite the high potential of online shopping in Malaysia, there is still lack of understanding concerning the online shopping and its impact on marketing. Consequently a framework is needed to structure the complex system of effects of these different factors, and develop an in-depth understanding of consumers’ attitudes toward internet shopping and their intentions to shop online. 1. Objectives of the Research The objectives of this study are; 1. To determine women shoppers’ shopping attitudes towards website design. 2. To determine women shoppers’ shopping attitudes towards reliability of online retailer. 3. To determine women shoppers’ shopping attitudes towards online shopping customer service. 4. To determine women shoppers’ shopping attitudes towards trust on online retailer. 1. 4Scope of Study Literature Review Factors influencing online shopping intention toward online shopping have been researched and documented in the context of traditional consumer literature. A review of empirical studies in this area shows that the theories of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975) and Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) are among the most popular theories used to explain online shopping behavior. Therefore the theoretical framework f this study is based in these theories. Online Shopping Perceived Benefit Perceived benefits are advantageous results derived from attributes. The benefit can be physiological, psychological, sociological, or material in nature. Within the online shopping context, the consumers’ perceived benefits are the sum of online shopping advantages or satisfactions that meet their needs or wants. There are many differences between a physical store and its electronic counterpart. Most of the previous online shopping research has focused on identifying the attributes of online stores that promote success (Davis, 1989; Liu & Arnett, 2000). Previous studies of online shopping have established two categories of benefits; intrinsic and extrinsic. Both are important in customers’ selections to patronize the online stores. Extrinsic benefits include features such as wide selection of products, competitive pricing, easy access to information and low search costs. Intrinsic benefits include features such as design and color. Research Framework The key components of the research framework for consumer attitude towards online shopping can be seen in Figure 1. Website Design| | Online Shopping| Reliability| | | Customer Service| | | Trust| | | Hypotheses: A series of testable hypotheses were developed from the proposed research model, as shown below: Hypothesis 1: There is a significant relationship between web site design and online shopping. Hypothesis 2: There is a significant relationship between reliability of online retailer and online shopping. Hypothesis 3: There is a significant relationship between customer service and online shopping. Hypothesis 4: There is a significant relationship between trust on online retailer and online shopping. In general, base on the hypotheses, the research framework will be focusing on four factors as independent variables and propensity to shop online will be the dependent variable. . e. for the hypothesis 1, 2, 3 and 4 which are focusing on Web Site Design, Reliability, Customer Service, and Trust, it is hypothesize that there should be a positive relationship that would likely to influence the online shopping. Research Methodology To undertake this project, two types of data will be gathered. i. Secondary data This type of data will be used extensively in literature review to provide the framework of this study. Textbook, journals and internet shopping reports will be the sources of this desk research. ii. Primary data This type of data will be the main instrument used in evaluating the factors affecting women shoppers’ online shopping attitude and purchase intention. The process of gaining this input is discussed next. In doing so, the rest of this section organized into four main areas; the research design, the target population and the sample size, methods for data collection, and data analysis and interpretation. The research design In getting the shoppers data, I choose to employ descriptive research over exploratory or causal research. This type of research is suitable when a study intends to produce accurate description of variables relent to the decision being faced, without demonstrating that some relationship exists between variables. This description fits well with the objectives of this study. In addition, a cross sectional studies is elected over longitudinal studies. The former allow the researchers to assess to a larger number of customers, thus enabling them to produce a more representative data. Through this method, data is typically cross tabulated against each other to answer specific issues. This kind of data is meaningful to companies that appeal to many segments of the markets such as internet shopping. The target population and the sample size In line with the scope of the project, the population refers to the female employee of Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP). To further define the population, this study will only examine the behavior of women shoppers in the age bracket 20 to 55 years old. The sample elements will be chosen using systematic sampling. Within this pool of shoppers, a sample of 200 shoppers will be selected. This sample size is considered appropriate. Roscoe (1975) for instance stated ‘samples sizes larger than 30 and less than 500 samples are the appropriate for most research. Likewise, Sekaran (1994) agrees that 500 samples are the appropriate upper limit for the sample size. Methods for data collection Since cross sectional study has been chosen for this study, data will be collected through questioning. Using this method, the respondents will be identified systematically and to aid questioning the shoppers, a set of questionnaire will be designed. The questionnaires will be distributed through online and respondents will be invites through UMP Portal.