TO INVESTIGATE THE DRIVERS OF ONLINE PURCHASING BEHAVIOUR IN MALAYSIA BASED ON THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOUR (TPB): A STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING (SEM) APPROACH

Internet purchasing has been a growing phenomenon around the globe, especially among countries that have well-developed infrastructure for marketing activities over the Internet. Despite of the world internet potential, the growth of actual number of internet users who purchased online in Malaysia has been quite low, but it is gaining popularity Thus, our study intends to investigate the drivers of internet purchasing behavior in Malaysia based on the application of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This study examines the relationships between attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control toward intention to purchase and actual internet purchasing. Data was collected from 290 internet users consisting of executives of private firms in Malaysia via questionnaires and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The result of generated model conforms to goodness of fit and produces two direct significant impacts on actual online purchasing (purchase intention and attitude), thus supporting hypotheses H1 and H2. Finally, the generated model achieved SMC (R-2) explaining 39.4 percent variance in actual online purchasing, and 11.0 percent variance on purchase intention. The findings are discussed in the context of internet purchasing behaviour in Malaysia.