Analysis of Online Shopping Involvement among Teachers in Perak

This quantitative study has four objectives to be achieved. It includes identifying teacher’s total expenditure in online shopping, products purchased, online shopping platforms and also the factors that influence online shopping. A five-point Likert scale survey form was used as the research instrument. The sample of this study consists of 319 teachers in the state of Perak selected through snowball sampling. The findings of the study show that the majority of respondents spend online with a total expenditure not exceeding RM1,000 per year and make online purchases on daily necessities such as clothing and personal appearance accessories. Lazada, Shopee and Taobao have been identified as the most widely used online shopping platforms. All independent variables were found to be significantly positive contributing to online shopping. There are some suggestions highlighted at the end of the study.


Introduction
Internet facilities are no longer considereded as a current trend, but also concludeded as a platform to simplify daily transactions and events. In addition, the use of information and communication technology is accelerated to increase access to information related to business, education, services, agriculture and health. It can also expand business opportunities and generate income that will improve the well-being of the people. The Internet is a powerful communication tool in commerce. Trade conducted through the internet or e-commerce is faster and more efficient because traders can reduce operating costs, save transaction and delivery time as well as expand strategic networks between traders (Portal Pusat Maklumat Rakyat, 2018). Along with the rapid and popular development of the internet, consumers have gradually shifted from making traditional purchases in stores or supermarkets to online shopping. Online shopping has become a global event and has become a part of our daily lives. This is because the internet network is not limited to space and time, the goods offered can also be said to be diverse and infinite.
number of internet users in Malaysia was 28.7 million compared to 24.5 million in 2016. This shows the percentage of total internet users among Malaysian population has increased by 10.5 percent, from 76.9 percent in 2016 to 87.4 percent in 2018. These IUS findings also show that the percentage of online shoppers among internet users increased from 48.8 percent in 2016 to 53.3 percent in 2018 (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, 2019). In general, online business is a business concept in the virtual market that was introduced by Rayport and Sviokla in 1994. The virtual market is able to grow with the existence of transactions between buyers and sellers without the need for traditional business premises to trade. Jamaludin & Yunus (2014) state that the majority of the consumers use internet to find information first before deciding to make a purchase. The purpose of this information search is to get a positive buying experience by leveraging the right information from the internet and sharing that experience with friends. E-commerce or online business is a very important and complementary alternative to traditional business where it does not require the cost of renting a place to start a business (Coker et al., 2011). By 2011, the online shopping industry is growing rapidly and is gaining ground in the hearts of the people in Malaysia due to the lifestyle of the people who are increasingly dependent on the use of services and business on the internet. With the advancement of technology and the widespread use of smartphones among Malaysians, online business activities are now more active than in previous years. Chew 's study (2018), has stated that e-commerce is gaining high growth potential due to the rapid increase in the number of computer users and faster internet services every year. Advances in technology have brought about changes in the current lifestyle, including during the online trading period. Such changes have a huge appeal and influence on consumers, sellers, entrepreneurs and markets. There is no denying that online shopping has become a business model that creates a 'win-win' effect in the new market economy. This business model has become an option for shopping among the younger generation from various walks of life in Malaysia.
Along with the progress that has taken place, more Malaysians choose to engage in online shopping activities. Apart from wanting to save time, there are also various promotions that can attract the community to shop online at a much cheaper price. So far, there are many studies conducted that involved various groups of people in online shopping. This includes students, college students, youth, domestic and international consumers and others. Although teachers are the largest group of civil servants in the public sector which reach up to 419,904 teachers (www.moe.gov.my, 2019), the involvement of this group in online shopping is rarely given attention. Generally, teachers are categorized as one of the groups that made up the total 40 percent of the populaiton with a estimated moderate income (M40) of between RM3,861 to RM8,300 per month (Ho & Suraya, 2020;Khalid, 2020). Based on the income earned, the ability of teachers to stimulate demand in the online shopping market is undeniable. This situation is also supported by the accessibility of teachers to obtain internet facilities as well as computers, laptops or smartphones to enable online shopping activities to take place smoothly. Accordingly, there are four objectives targeted in this study: • To examine the expenditures of teachers in online shopping.
• To identify the items purchased online by teachers.
• To identify the online shopping platforms among teachers.
• To analyze the factors influencing the online shopping of teachers.

Literature Review
Electronic commerce or e-commerce is defined as the process of buying, selling, transferring or exchanging products, services and information using electronic networks such as the Internet (Turban et al., 2015). The Internet removes physical barriers, geographical limitations and provides access to information, reducing the amount of time and energy required to shop online. As the main path for e-commerce, online shopping can solve various problems such as transportation and provide convenient way of shopping for customers. From a business perspective, online retailers can leverage prices and offer a wide range of products to potential customers through the internet (Maleki & Pasha, 2012). Internet technology has transformed customer and business relationships and encouraged companies to create business models to exploit e-commerce. Simple and time-saving factors are a major advantage in online shopping. The Internet offers an element of convenience and saves time for shoppers, as opposed to shopping in traditional stores (Chang, 2003).
Despite its many benefits, the absence of physical product inspection is a major drawback in online shopping. Buyers buying goods over the internet are not given the opportunity to physically touch, try, test or operate the product to find out how it works (Gupta, Bansal & Bansal, 2013). In addition, high shipping costs are a disadvantage that can have a negative impact on online shopping. The cost of delivery on goods is usually borne by the buyer except through the purchase of a large amount or free offer from the seller (Gupta, Bansal & Bansal, 2013).
In this study, Theory of Consumer Choice has been used in studies involving teachers. According to Swiecka et al. (2020), Theory of Consumer Choice means that every consumer has a preference and at the same time faces budget constraints or choice limits to maximize utility or well-being through the use of goods and services. In this regard, teachers who have a preference to buy are required to make rational choices to obtain maximum satisfaction based on their income. For example, when the price of an item sold online is cheaper than another, the demand for the item will increase. Rationally, teachers allocate their limited income to achieve the best utility in online shopping. In the process, the teacher examines all available options, compares features and prices and then makes a logical decision to buy online.
There are several empirical studies that have been conducted on the factors that influence online shopping. This includes Riki (2017) who has conducted a study related to the desire to shop online among 215 respondents who use the Facebook trading forum in Batam. The results showed that demographic characteristics such as gender have a significant influence on online shopping intentions. Age has a significant influence on online shopping intentions, while education, income and marital status do not have a significant influence on the desire to shop online. Stafford, Turan & Raisinghani (2004) found that younger consumers get more online shopping benefits than older consumers, while Joines, Scherer & Scheufele (2003) suggest that older internet users are more likely to shop online from their younger counterparts even though younger users have a more positive attitude towards online spending.
Meanwhile, Cheng & Yee (2014) studied the factors that influence the intention to buy online among university students in Malaysia. A quantitative research approach has been used to collect online questionnaire data from 250 Malaysian university students with experience in online shopping. This study has found that trust, usability and subjective norms are important factors in predicting online buying intentions. Kamariah, Salwani & Ahmad (2005) have studied the factors that influence the intention of consumers to shop online as the dependent variable. The main independent variables of the study were demographics, trust, quality and loyalty to the websites visited. Data were collected from 84 Universiti Utara Malaysia students randomly selected through questionnaires and both descriptive and inference statistics were used in the data analysis. The findings showed that quality and loyalty contribute 26.8 percent and 6.1 percent respectively to the variance in online shopping intentions of the consumers. Arisah, Badari & Hashim (2016) have studied online shopping practices and the factors that influence them. The study aimed to examine the differences in online shopping practices according to selected demographic background factors, namely, gender, generation, ethnicity, household income, education level and zone. A total of 1321 respondents were selected by convenience sampling through the 'mall intercept' method. This study used the questionnaire survey method and the findings of the study showed only five main factors that consumers choose before making online shopping, namely safety factors, products offered, risk, reliability and user experience. Lim, Osman, Nizam & Rahim (2016) conducted a study to determine the relationship between subjective norms, perceived uses and online shopping behavior while being influenced by purchasing intentions. A total of 662 students of Universiti Malaysia Perlis were selected as subjects of the study. Hsieh et al (2018) have conducted a study to investigate the relationship between color, price, and intention to buy on the Internet. This study is concerned with the effect of website store background color and product price, background color interaction and price level that can influence buying intentions through perceptions of quality, sacrifice and value. Aris & Halim (2016) examined consumers' perceptions of online shopping. The focus of the study was the exploration of consumer attitudes, respondents' behavior, motivating factors and consumer satisfaction in general towards online shopping. Ilham & Salleh (2016) have studied the need for privacy and information security when making online purchases on Instagram users. This quantitative method has used a questionnaire distributed to 200 respondents in the Klang Valley. The findings of the study indicated that awareness of privacy and information security issues also influences consumer preference.

Research Methodology
This study used quantitative methods and involved a sample consisting of 319 government school teachers who have been involved in online shopping around Perak. Respondents in this study were selected through snowball sampling. Questionnaires in the form of printed copies were distributed to target respondents and Google Form links were also used to collect survey information. Questionnaires were used to gather information on the features and variables to be studied. This questionnaire was adapted from Arisah, Badari & Hashim, (2016) and modified according to the suitability of the research. In this study, the total online shopping expenditure of teachers was chosen as the dependent variable while satisfaction, price, social influence, services, product appearance, security, convenience and number of hours surfing the internet were used as the independent variables. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis in this study. The descriptive analysis used includes frequency and percentage while inference analysis was a multiple regression test.

Research Findings Profile of Respondent
This study involved a total of 319 teachers around the state of Perak. Analysis of the respondents' profiles in Table 1 below showed that the number of male teachers was 50 which was 15.7 percent, while there were 269 female teachers which is 84.3 percent. The majority of respondents were between 26 to 35 years old and 36 to 45 years old which made up a total of 244 teachers (76.5 percent). In terms of race, 143 of the respondents were Malay teachers (44.8 percent), 150 Chinese teacher (47 percent) and 26 Indian teachers (8.2 per cent). Based on the analysis of academic qualifications, the majority of teachers have a Bachelor's Degree that is, a total of 256 teachers (80.3 percent) while 47 (14.7 percent) of the respondents did not have a degree. Meanwhile, in terms of income, the majority of respondents have a total income between RM4,001-RM5,000 and RM5,001-RM6,000 (66.4 percent). The situation was influenced by several factors including the level of education, years of service and so on. In addition, more than 70 percent of respondents were married while the rest were single or divorced. Furthermore, more than half of the respondents, that is, 56.4 percent (180 teachers) have served less than 10 years. Meanwhile, only 15.7 percent of respondents have a service experience of between 11 to 15 years, 9.1 percent between 16 to 20 years and 10.3 percent between 21 to 25 years. Furthermore, all respondents surfed the internet every day with the average number of hours as follows. There were about one-third of respondents that is, 32.9 percent (105 teachers) surfed the internet not more than 2 hours a day. Then, only 26.3 percent of respondents surfed the internet on an average between 3 to 4 hours a day and 24.8 percent of respondents surfed the internet between 5 to 6 hours a day. Only a small number of respondents (4.7 percent) surfed the internet at least 9 hours a day with various purposes such as to acquire current information, seach for teaching materials, entertainment, make purchases or bookings and so on.

Teacher Expenditure in Online Shopping
Generally, all respondents involved in online shopping. Nevertheless, 76.2 percent of respondents spent less than RM1,000.00 per year as shown in Table 2. In more detail, 39.2 percent spent between RM50.00 to RM500.00 while 37.0 percent spent between RM501.00 to RM1,000.00 per year. Only a small number of 11.9 percent of respondents spent between RM1,001.00 to RM1,500.00 per year and 4.7 percent of respondents spent between RM1,501.00 to RM2,000.00 per year. There were 7.2 percent of respondents who spent more than RM2,000.00 per year. 1,501 -2,000 15 4.7 2,001 -2,500 8 2.5 2,501 -3,000 6 1.9 3,001 dan ke atas 9 2.8 Source: Questionnaire, 2019

Online Shopping Items
The analysis of the study also found that respondents who bought in the range of RM501.00 to RM1,000.00 were the most active group of teachers in making online shopping, which was a total of 345 purchases in all items as studied in Table 3. Clothing was the most popular item and all respondents had bought regardless of spending categoriess. Respondents who bought in the range of RM2,501.00 to RM3,000.00 and more than RM3,000.00 were two groups of teachers who were not very active in online shopping with 22 and 26 purchases only. But the high total expenditure for these two groups of respondents was indentified in expenses in booking hotel rooms and flight tickets. Overall, the majority of respondents prefered to spent with a total expenditure not exceeding RM1,000.00 per year in online shopping. The analysis of the study also found that the majority of teachers nowadays were frugal in purchasing online for necessities such as clothing and personal appearance accessories. However, the purchase of flight or transportation tickets and online hotel room bookings were also a trend that could be traced in this study. This might be because teachers felt easier and more comfortable with the purchase of these items online. Table 4 showed a list of online shopping platforms that were respondents' choice with relative frequency and percentage comparison. A total of 216 respondents or 21.6 percent chose the Lazada platform as their top choice. Respondents used the internet to browse the platforms of choice for online shopping at the same time. The Shopee platform was the choice of 180 respondents' equivalent to 18.0 percent of the total purchases through the internet. Both platforms successfully attracted customers to make online shopping through attractive and a variety of promotions. These include Flash Sale, Featured Weekly Deals, cashback vouchers, free shipping and advertising through social media and the Mobile App. Lazada wallet offers safer payment facilities, instant refunds and top-up through online banking.

Online Shopping Platform
Meanwhile, Booking.com and Agoda were the third most visited platforms (93 respondents). Both platforms also offered promotions such as discount, cash rebates and reasonable cancellation policies for those who wanted to get a hotel or accommodation. Meanwhile, the Taobao platform received a response from 81 respondents while AirAsia and MAS were the platforms visited by a total of 80 respondents. The Go Shop and 11 Street platforms were the sixth and seventh in the list of most frequently visited platforms by the respondents of this study with 60 and 58 respondents respectively. The other platforms on the list only obtained less than 5 percent of the total visits by the respondents in this study. Overall, the respondents of this study were teachers in the state of Perak who prefered to choose an online shopping platform that offered a variety of daily use items such as Lazada, Shopee and Taobao. All these three platforms offered clothing, personal appearance products and accessories, mobile phone products and accessories, electronics equipments, home appliances and other gadgets. While platforms such as Booking.com, Agoda, AirAsia and MAS were also well received and used for various purposes such as travelling. All online payment transaction were usually completed through internet banking or credit card.

Factors Influencing Online Shopping Among Teachers In Perak
Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the factors influencing online shopping among teachers in Perak. In the multiple regression analysis, the total expenditure for online shopping was considered as the dependent variable and independent variables include eight factors namely purchase satisfaction, price, social influence, services provided, product appearance, security, convenience and number of hours surfing the internet. The findings of the multiple regression analysis showed that the value of R 2 in this regression analysis was found to be equal to 0.817. This means that these eight predictors or independent variables contributed 81.7 percent of the variability in the expenditure for online shopping as shown in Table 5.
The findings of multiple regression analysis showed that there was a significant linear relationship between predictors (independent variables) and dependent variables (F = 173.55, p < 0.01). This F value indicated that the independent variables can predict the dependent variable significantly with statistical evidence and the regression model is consistent with the data. The independent variables namely, purchase satisfaction, price, social influence, services provided, product appearance, security, convenience and number of hours surfing the internet were found to be significant as well and had contributed to the online shopping (p ≤ 0.05). The purchase satisfaction factor was found to be the main variable (β = 0.433, t = 9.342, p < 0.01) that contributed to the variability in expenditure for online shopping. These findings were in line with the findings of Lee, Mustaffa & Salman (2014). This showed that teachers who practice online shopping were satisfied with the purchase made through the internet and this satisfaction will also drive the next purchase. In addition, price factor was also found to significantly contribute to online shopping and this finding was consistent with the findings of Aris & Halim (2016). The more attractive the online selling price offered, the higher the purchase will be made by the customers.
Social influence factor was also found to significantly contribute to online shopping and in line with the findings of Mamat & Othman (2017). Family, friends, relatives and social media were also found to have an influence in online shopping. In addition, the supporting services that facilitate the online shopping were also found to have a significant positive relationship in online shopping. These findings are similar to the findings of the study by Aris & Halim (2016). Services offered such as low cost of parcel delivery, simple refund process and fast delivery were value added when purchasing essential items over the internet. The better the supporting services, the more online purchases will be made.
Similar to the findings of Arisah, Badari & Hashim (2016), the findings of this study also found that product appearance factors played an important role in influencing online shopping. Appearance of products that can be clearly seen through images or videos influenced online shopping. Furthermore, if teachers felt safer and the risk of being deceived while buying necessary items through the internet was low, online shopping would also increase as proposed by Arisah, Badari & Hashim (2016) who stated security factor as consumer choice before doing online shopping. In addition, online shopping was more convenient and buyers did not need to leave the house and this was also one of the factors that influence online shopping for the respondents in this study. The number of hours surfing the internet also influenced online shopping. This means that the longer the internet browsing time, the higher the purchases made. It is likely that respondents were interested in the variety of promotions advertised, obtain sufficient information about a product when surfing the internet and so on.

Conclusion and Suggestion
Online shopping is gaining popularity among Malaysians regardless of the diverse internet users in terms of age, background, location and income. In general, this study shows that teachers prefer to buy clothing, personal appearance products and booking flight tickets as well as hotel rooms which cover expenditure of less than RM1000.00 per year. While the most frequently visited platform to buy was a platform that offers a variety of products for daily necessities and uses as well as transportation and accommodation booking services. All the independent variables in this study, namely purchase satisfaction, price, social influence, services provided, product appearance, security, convenience and number of hours surfing the internet were also found to have a significant positive influence on online shopping among teachers in the state of Perak.
The findings of this study have positive implications for school teachers in general. In this regard, the Malaysian community can identify which platform is more suitable to conduct online shopping in terms of convenience, product quality assurance and payment security. Furthermore, the results of this study also open the minds of entrepreneurs and online sellers to be more sensitive and cater for the needs and wants of their customers. Entrepreneurs and online sellers will strive to find innovative new ideas to grow the business by offering better quality goods and services to their online customers.
The results of this study also provide information to the government in order to play a role in regulating and enforcing the law in all online shopping events to ensure the safety of internet users and prevent fraud or cyber crime. Government and communities need to pay attention to the online shopping model and introduce better and safer e-commerce mechanisms. The government should take regulatory measures to facilitate online shopping by increasing the internet speed, broadband and cheaper internet access or broadband access facilities so that Malaysian can enjoy more advanced online shopping facilities. Authorities, especially the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, should monitor social media and problematic websites from time to time to ensure virtual security.
Concisely, this study revealed that online shopping is getting more acceptable among teachers with purchases on the daily necessity items and bookings for travelling. This trend of online shopping is more noticeable during the Covid 19 pandemic as schools were closed where movement control orders were implemented since March 2020. Besides that, the most preferred platforms for online shopping among the teachers were also identified and these platforms were also among the top three online shopping platforms in Malaysia. These platforms facilitate convenient online shopping in terms of quick delivery services with product quality assurance and secured online payment modes. All the independent variables consisted of purchase satisfaction, price, social influence, services provided, product appearance, security, convenience and hours surfing the internet had influenced and contributed significantly to the online shopping among teachers. Purchase satisfaction was found to be the most influential factor towards the online shopping and this would provide a good insight to the e-commerce entrepreneurs to further improve their service in the sector.