Online Shopping: A Potential of Herding Behavior Symptom?

Abstract

The Internet has grown tremendously in the recent and many of its applications have been used by people all over the world. On-line shopping which is a recent phenomenon in the field of e-commerce is definitely going to be the future of shopping in the world. It seems that online shopping has been one of the ways that customers shop nowadays especially to the younger generations and working people. Most of the young working people have accessed to Internet and many have started to sell and buy online. Though online shopping is quite common now, its growth in Malaysian market is still not in line with the global market. The potential growth of online shopping has triggered the idea of conducting an exploratory study on online shopping in Malaysia. A survey was carried-out with 168 part-time students who work in Klang Valley area and also currently study in UKM. In addition to the survey, 15 face-to-face interviews were carried-out with available respondents after they answer the survey. The purpose is to find out how well they understand about online shopping and what factors contribute to their online shopping behaviors. The results of study reveal that customer satisfaction, motivation and influence from other buyers are among the critical factors for customers to shop online. Respondents since to mimic other customers in buying online. The results of the study could be further used by the researchers and practitioners for conducting future studies in the similar area.