Social Media, Online Shopping Activities and Perceived Risks in Malaysia.

Abstract

The Internet shopping experience offers dissimilar ways of off-online communications with communication differences tools that need a better decision of their effect on customer communications. Social networking sites is also fast becoming the platform for interaction, attracting new potential customers and has become the trend for companies to engage with their consumers online. The main objective of this research is to examine Malaysia customer’s risk perception toward online shopping via social media website. Findings suggest that respondents from all age groups have generally accepted the Internet to be used for social networking, while older groups use the Internet for information search and online shopping. The key areas of risk for not using Internet shopping is related to product quality, scamming, and poor customer service; in which the female groups appeared to be more concerned about the risk involved. Higher income groups are more concerned with the risks on product quality suggesting they expect value for their money for the products. Findings further shows that older consumer groups require some form of education in technology, which is preventing them from fully exploring the Internet and shopping potentials. The area of concern for both genders, is information security, such as protecting private information, security of the website, comfort level with the site, information completeness and trust of the vendor. Female groups were found to have higher tendency of fear of the risk of breaching information, suggesting that they highly value their privacy and secrecy.