Intention to purchase through the world wide web (WWW): The Malaysian experience

The rapid growth of the Internet as a consumer technology has led to the accelerated use of electronic commerce (e-Commerce) globally as well as nationally. e-Commerce has not only affected business and individual consumers, but it has also reshaped market places, trading relationships and even trading boundaries. Although purchasing through the Internet is something common in the West but in Malaysia it has still not caught the attention of the consumers. This study tries to look at the possible factors that might influence the intention of the Malaysian consumers to purchase through the WWW. The factors used are perceived web security, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of navigation and perceived enjoyment. Data was collected using a structured self administered,questionnaire from 505 respondents residing in all the states in Peninsular Malaysia. The findings showed that the more positive the perceived web security the higher was the intention to purchase through the WWW. The ease of navigation and perceived usefulness was also positively related to intention to purchase through the WWW. The more enjoyable the experience the higher is the intention to make purchases through the WWW. The greatest impact was that of perceived web security followed by perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. This goes to show that the one burning issue of purchasing through the WWW is the security issue. Given that Malaysians are known to be risk averse,, this particular issue has to be adequately addressed in the minds of the consumers for e-commerce to florish in Malaysia.