Factors Affecting Customer Satisfaction on Shopee

There are several elements that have a direct impact on the level of enjoyment that consumers derive from online shopping. Consequently, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the personal experiences of Shopee users and the elements that influence their degree of satisfaction. The result of this study is expectantly to allow Shopee to strengthen their business policy and practices on how they can provide better service to the customer. A total of 162 Shopee customers who met the study's eligibility standards were asked to complete a series of questions. Using descriptive, correlational, and ANOVA analyses, the questionnaire data were examined. This study employed four independent variables: perceived usefulness, perceived usability, perceived trust, and perceived convenience. These independent variables were derived from the Technology Acceptance Model (henceforth TAM) and their link to the dependent variable, namely Shopee customer satisfaction, was examined. The findings indicate that all variables were significantly correlated. The findings further revealed that perceived trust and perceived usefulness of use are the highest determinants of consumer satisfaction. The results of this study lead to a better understanding of the level of consumer satisfaction with online shopping services, particularly Shopee. Future research could be extended to a variety of online shopping platforms for comparison. Intervening variables could have also been included such as psychological, emotional, attitudes and others as to obtain a more comprehensive result.


Introduction
E-commerce, often known as online shopping, has become an increasingly important element of the global economy, including Malaysia. In recent years, e-commerce activities are expanding in tandem with the expansion of the country's internet infrastructure. Since most Malaysians have better access to the internet, there has been an increase in the number of companies that rely on online transactions. Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (2018) stated that there is an increasing of consumers in Malaysia doing online shopping, which is from 48.8 percent in 2016 to 53.5 percent in 2018.
To date, there are a lot of e-commerce marketplaces that offer online shopping platforms such as Lazada, Taobao, Zalora, and Shopee, which is the focus of the current study. According to the findings of a survey carried out by Ipsos, 82% of the respondents reported that they had utilized Shopee for their online shopping needs over the last six months (Loheswar, 2021). Additionally, most of the respondents reported that Shopee was their chosen platform due to its user-friendliness, quickness of delivery, and dependability of reviews, in addition to its competitive pricing and many discounts and deals. Before making any purchases using an online marketplace, customers should have a solid understanding of the factors that might influence the degree of pleasure experienced by them. This is because the level of satisfaction that customers have with a product has a direct bearing on whether they would purchase any products from the similar platform again. Some consumers may have the intention of making a purchase; however, because of the interception of internal variables such as the negative perception of the items by other consumers, it would then force the consumers in question to refrain them from making any purchase.

Literature Review Customer Satisfaction towards online shopping
Regarding online purchases, it is essential for e-commerce operators to ensure excellent customer satisfaction through understanding clients' feelings and experience during the online purchase transactions. There are a wide variety of factors identified as the factors influencing customer satisfaction including the customer's perception of the product's quality, the customer's expectations, the ease of communication, and the convenience of the product. Each owner of a brand or product has the goal of increasing the level of happiness experienced by their customers; as a result, they need to have a solid understanding of who their customer is and what it takes to win them over. According to Vasic et al (2019), customer satisfaction is defined as the state of being glad for the client when the delivery meets or surpasses their expectations. The level of satisfaction experienced by customers is a major factor in determining an online retailer's success in their businesses. Additionally, due to online customers not being able to physically inspect or try out the products they purchase, it is imperative that these retailers provide customers with detailed and accurate images.

TAM Model
The Technology Acceptance Model, or TAM, is a theoretical model that can be used to predict customers' intent to make an online purchase by utilising technology. TAM was created by Davis (1989) and is often used to describe the amount of technological acceptance among users. This model implements the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). TAM identifies two significant variables: perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU). Additionally, this model can be used to assess consumer acceptance of e-commerce terms. TAM is comprised of five variables: perceived ease of use, perceived utility, actual usage, attitude toward using, and behavioural intent to use. In the TAM model, perceived utility and perceived ease of use are linked to computer usage behaviours and are the most influential determinants of actual system use

Perceived Usefulness (PU)
Online shopping is growing tremendously among users due to the evolution of digital technology that enables a wide spread of internet usage. Over 2 billion users were expected to engage in online shopping by 2019 and it is evidenced that Malaysia had achieved the figure. According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia, e-commerce soared to RM270 billions in the third quarter of 2021. One of the major drives that accelerated Malaysia ecommerce and ICT usage is the Covid-19 pandemic where people are adopting the new norms of digital living through online shopping, online and distance learning, working from home settings in attempt to break the chain of the infectious disease.
Perceived usefulness is the individual's perception of the degree to which the employment of a certain technology enhances performance (Rehman et al., 2019). According to Prakosa and Sumantika (2021), PU also refers to the benefits a user receives from utilising a technology. The intention to use a technology depends on a user's competency, and the intention is influenced by the PU a user may have toward a technology. Numerous studies have demonstrated a positive and strong correlation between PU and client purchasing desire (Prakosa & Sumantika, 2021;Rehman et al., 2019). In a study conducted by Reyes-Mercado et al. (2017), PU is favourably connected with Indian market consumer views regarding online buying.

Perceive Ease of Use (PEOU)
The term "perceived ease of use" (henceforth, PEOU) refers to the degree to which one considers the operation of a particular system to be simple or difficult (Dong et al., 2017). Ease means having no difficulty or does not require hard effort when using the technology. Perception about the ease of use of this technology refers to the individual belief that information technology systems can facilitate their activities without much effort (Pratama et al., 2019).
The greater frequency of use indicates that the system is simpler to comprehend, run, and employ (Kahar et al., 2019).The frequency with which consumers make online purchases implies that the benefit effect on their attitude gets more substantial as they gain experience through shopping. If the inconvenience of purchasing over the internet outweighs the advantage, potential Internet customers will prefer to buy through traditional means (Ramayah & Ignatius, 2005). This suggested that PEOU of an e-commerce system has a substantial impact on user behaviour as they will have positive interest in utilizing the system if the system is simple to use thus leading to a greater preference to utilize e-commerce systems (Budyastuti & Iskandar, 2018).

Perceived Trust
People nowadays are immersed in the digital world (Daroch et al., 2021). Due to the digital change and the COVID-19 pandemic problem, online shopping has increased. Online shopping is the process by which consumers directly purchase goods, services, etc. from a seller interactively and in real-time over the internet, without the use of an intermediary provider (Sharma, 2021). Online purchasing is a fast-growing trend nowadays. Many people choose to shop online because of the convenience and cost savings. Consumers can purchase a wide range of commodities from online sites (Sharma, 2021). Customers increasingly like internet shopping since it is more convenient and saves them time. (Huseynov and Yildirim, 2016;Mittal, 2013). Despite the obvious benefits, some customers may view online shopping as risky and unreliable (Daroch et al., 2021). When shopping online, buyers are unable to see, touch, feel, smell, or try the products they intend to purchase. People are hesitant to buy from internet businesses since they cannot touch the merchandise (Daroch et al., 2021). Furthermore, several consumers have claimed receiving false or counterfeit products in their orders (Jun and Jaafar, 2011). According to Daroch et al (2021), a low quality of merchandise never generates consumer trust on online vendor.
Trust and satisfaction are two stepping stones for success in online business (Tang & Nguyen, 2013). However, the relationship between these two core assumptions is still muddled in uncertainty. Customer trust can be defined as a set of beliefs held by an online consumer about the e-traits supplier's and future behaviour. Furthermore, trust is described as a readiness on the part of one group to acknowledge the behaviour of the other, even though the main party is not always secure and neglects to control the behaviour of second parties (Puspitasari et al., 2018). Thus trust in the e-commerce retailer is crucial to converting potential customers to actual customers (Daroch et al., 2021). McKnight, Choudhury, and Kacmar (2002) proposed a model of e-commerce customer trust based on the Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) and the TRA theory. In their model, McKnight et al (2002) posit those trusting beliefs (perceptions of specific vendor website attributes) lead to trusting intentions, which in turn influences trust related behaviours. Trust has a vital influence on consumers' activities and thereby on e-commerce success (Rahayu et al., 2020). Previous studies have shown that trust has a positive effect on customer satisfaction (Lim et al., 2021;Rahayu et al., 2020). When people consider establishing a long-distance relationship with something, they must ensure that it is profitable and trustworthy, as no one wants to be duped (Lim et al., 2021).

Perceived Convenience
Convenience of shopping from online stores can benefit consumers because online shopping eliminates the burden of physically handling a product. Normally, convenience is measured based on three factors: the amount of time spent, the physical location of the establishment, and the steps involved in making a transaction. According to Yo et al. (2021), convenience is the online shopping practice that saves customers' time and effort during the check-out process. The convenience of making purchases online is growing in popularity among consumers, as it is the option to shop on the go via several mobile-only promotions made available on online platforms.

Research Methodology Data Collection and Measures
Non-probability sampling was utilised for data gathering in this investigation. There was a random distribution of 162 surveys to Shopee users. Each set of questionnaires contains six primary sections (as shown in Table 1), including sections for demographic factors and measuring items for independent and dependent variables. This study investigated four independent variables: perceived usefulness, perceived usability, perceived trust, and perceived convenience. All measurement items were rated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). It was intended for responders to answer the pertinent questions given in the survey. The questionnaire was derived from previous research (Ru et al., 2021;Kiew et al., 2021;Lim et al., 2021). Section F Customer Satisfaction level towards Shopee 3

Data Analysis and Findings
The collected data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0 software. SPSS was utilised to examine the relationship between the independent variables (which are perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived trust, and perceived convenience) and the dependent variable (which is customer satisfaction on Shopee). The data analysis employed a multiple regression and correlation to examine the relationship between the factors that influence the customers and customer satisfaction level. Table 2 displays the summary of the respondents' background information. Using descriptive analysis, the respondent profiles and other pertinent background information were evaluated. Descriptive analysis can be regarded as a summary of the research sample's key findings. The summary of the demographic features is presented in Table 2. According to the profile, 76.9% of responders were females. 60.3% of respondents were between 18 and 25 years old, students with a bachelor's degree, and residents of the state of Melaka. Moreover, the majority of respondents' monthly income was less than RM10,000 (76.3%). In terms of online purchasing behaviour, the data indicate that 51.9% of respondents purchased 1-2 times each month on Shopee. In addition, 46.8% of respondents' monthly internet spending was less than RM100. In addition, the respondents favoured purchasing household appliances (63%) and health and beauty products (62.2%). Lastly, 85.3% of respondents preferred to use online banking as a payment method when shopping on Shopee.

Reliability Analysis
Cronbach's Alpha, as indicated in Table 2, is used to measure reliability analysis. Internal Consistency, also known as Cronbach's alpha coefficient, was utilised to assess the reliability of measurements in the present study. As indicated in Table 2, the constructs' dependability score is 0.95695336, which is greater than the bare minimum of 0.8. Therefore, each variable is deemed reliable, as each value must be at least 0.6 in order to achieve a valid composite reliability result.  Table 3. (Dependent variable). All data indicate that the aggregate mean is greater than the median, which is 3. Therefore, it can be stated that most respondents concurred that perceived usefulness, perceived simplicity of use, perceived trust, and perceived convenience influence Shopee customer satisfaction. Table 3 Overall Mean Scores Constructs Mean Std. Deviation Perceived Usefulness 1. Shopee has a variety of options for me to choose the products.

Table 4: Relationship Between Variables
Pearson correlation was used to examine the relationship between variables (r). The two-tail significance tests were conducted in accordance with the research hypotheses. The correlation between the independent variables and the dependent variable is displayed in Table 4.    Table 5 presents the significance of the answers towards the level of Customer Satisfaction. The result shows that the regression is at 0.000, which is significant. In Table 6 summary, the R-square value is 0.825%, which is equivalent to 82% when converted to a percentage. This indicates that 82% of the volatility in Customer Satisfaction can be accounted for by variance. The combination of four independent variables determines this value. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the regression is statistically significant and that 82% of Customer Satisfaction is jointly driven by Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Trust, and Perceived Convenience.

Discussion and Conclusion
In this section of the report, the researchers provide Shopee Malaysia with pertinent recommendations designed to increase the degree of happiness experienced by Shopee Malaysia's online consumers. The study revealed all four variables; perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived trust and perceived convenience are significantly correlated to customers' satisfaction. The findings indicate that the higher the customers feel that the online shopping platform is facilitating their work, easy to be used, highly secured, and convenience, the higher will be their satisfaction. The findings further revealed perceived ease of use and perceived trust have the highest substantial impact on the online customer satisfaction of Shopee's online platform. It may imply that the Shopee platform provides comprehensive information and an easy-touse interface, hence increasing user satisfaction with the platform. Previous research by Ru et al (2021) revealed that the usability of an online platform is sometimes sufficient to encourage consumers to purchase and search for information about products they are interested in learning more about. The majority of people prefer online shopping due to its convenience and potential to save a great deal of time and effort. The second component, perceived trust, was likewise found to influence Shopee customers' happiness. The higher they perceived trust over the platform the higher will be the customer satisfaction. Similarly to a prior study conducted by Isa et al (2020), the aspect of trust during sales and purchase activities is crucial. Thus, it can be argued that consumer satisfaction with the Shopee platform is proportional to the level of perceived trust in Shopee. Similarly, Yo et al (2021) support the conclusion that consumers' trust in an online shopping platform will influence their frequency of online shopping. It has also been suggested by Kiew et al (2021) that it is preferable for Shopee to develop a strong consumer relationship by displaying engaging advertisements and providing surprises or freebies in order to prevent customer from migrating to another online shopping platform. The third factor, perceived usefulness, was found to significantly influence customer satisfaction with the Shopee platform. In the context of e-commerce, Anifa and Sanaji (2022) also stated that the greater the perceived usefulness is, the higher the rate of transactions. The last factor, perceived convenience, was also found to have an influence towards customer satisfaction. Based on the results of the analysis in the present study, it was discovered that there is a positive correlation between perceived convenience and consumer satisfaction. In a previous research by Yo et al (2021), online shopping is claimed to be growing due to its easiness and convenience. In addition, there is also a concept of mobile-only promotions, whereby online platforms let people shop while they are on the go. Consumers' desire for convenience has grown as they devote less time to shopping and more to other interests. As a result, they have switched their attention and preference to online shopping rather than visiting brick-and-mortar stores.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research
To begin with, the sample size of the present study was insufficient enough to provide an accurate representation of the entire population that was planned to be investigated. Therefore, in future studies, it is suggested that researchers should use both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect sufficient data from the general population of Malaysians from various age groups in order to evaluate their perceptions and levels of satisfaction as Shopee users. In addition, the scope of this investigation could be broadened by conducting future research using a variety of online shopping platforms, such as Lazada, Mudah.my, and Zalora, to name a few. This would allow for a greater amount of data to be collected. And finally, there is a need for further research to investigate additional factors that may influence customer satisfaction among online shopping platform users in Malaysia.