Cultural Dimensions of Behaviors Towards E-Commerce in a Developing Country Context

Customers prefer to shop online for various reasons such as saving time, better prices, convenience, selection, and availability of products and services. The accessibility and the ubiquitous nature of the Internet facilitate business beyond brick and mortar. The web-based businesses are required to understand the consumers’ expectations, attitudes, and behavior across the globe and take into consideration of cultural effects. Saudi Arabia has become a highly potential lucrative market for web-based companies. However, the growing number of Saudi Internet users has not become leading online shoppers. It is important for web based companies to identify the barriers that are causing Saudi users to stay away from online shopping mainstream. This led to understanding Saudi culture, expectations, behavior, and decision-making process to promote e-commerce. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of Saudi Arabian culture on the diffusion process of e-commerce. The study addresses the cultural differences, risk perceptions, and attitude by investigating Saudi people about shopping online. An empirical study was conducted to collect the data from Saudi