A STUDY ON CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS ONLINE SHOPPING ON PENANG FAMOUS FRUIT PICKLES HO SOO FONG A Project Paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in Psychology

Online shopping is no doubt the future trend. Online shopping on sectors such as fashion and accessories, electronic/electrical goods and books are growing in Malaysia. Many researches claimed that online shopping is still at the early stage of development in Malaysia and the potential for growth is inevitable. However, little is known about the acceptance of online shopping on localized products such as Penang famous fruit pickles and the factors which influence consumers’ attitudes purchasing it online. The purpose of this study is to identify the potential of online sales on Penang fruit pickles by investigating consumers’ attitudes towards purchasing Penang fruit pickles through online shopping as an alternative to visiting the physical shop. It also investigated the influence of factors (demographic profile, previous online shopping experience, perceived benefits, consumers’ lifestyles, and perceived merchants’ trustworthiness) towards attitude. In total 55 valid responses were gathered through self-administered questionnaire survey. The survey questionnaire consists of a total of 34 questions. The first 2 questions are for screening purpose to ensure only those who have either bought fruit pickles at any retail store before or at least like fruit pickles to take part in the survey. Pearson‘s Correlation and 1-way ANOVA were used to test hypotheses and determine the significance and degree of relationship between dependent and independent variables. The results and findings show that consumers exhibited positive intention to make an online purchase in future and attitude is positively and strongly correlated with behavioral intention. The study also concluded the perceived benefits of online shopping, perceived merchant’s trustworthiness, consumers’ lifestyle and consumers’ prior ecommerce experience have direct influence on attitude. On the contrary, demographic profile, online shopping frequency and duration of daily internet usage found to have no impact on attitude. The research model applying Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) can effectively be used to achieve the primary purpose of this study. Finally, future researches are suggested to improve the generalisability by selecting truly randomized and a larger sample size. The research should be conducted by inviting participants to take part in the survey through the actual website. The website should have been improvised with features that consumers prefer such as ease of transaction, security and trustworthiness.