The Barriers in Adopting E-commerce in Malaysia (PDF)

**The Barriers in Adopting E- commerce in Malaysia** **A case of Malaysia and China** **Abstract** E-commerce is the most growing technology nowadays for doing business online. This technologyis getting rapid implementation in most of business portals and companies are becoming global sellers bec...

**The Barriers in Adopting E- commerce in Malaysia** **A case of Malaysia and China** **Abstract** E-commerce is the most growing technology nowadays for doing business online. This technologyis getting rapid implementation in most of business portals and companies are becoming global sellers because of e-commerce technology. The adopting e-commerce bear many challenges and there are certain barriers that should be identified and eliminated before the implementation process, some of the barriers are technological capacity and infrastructure in a particular country and government support. This study will produce general knowledge about the adoption of e-commerce in China and Malaysia with a comparison between the two countries. The study will identify the main barriers of adoption e-commerce in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia and evaluate why it is more complicated to implement e-commerce in Malaysia and less complicated in China, and how do Malaysian and Chinese small medium enterprise (SMEs) use web 2.0 to improve customer relationship and improve their online sales. This study will analyze how China started this technology in the early stages of emerging the technology of e-commerce and now become completely dependent to do most of business and trade transaction online, the study will attempt to replicate the Chinese experience with e-commerce in Malaysia The main problem that will be discussed in this study associated with the limited online sales volume because of certain barriers on e-commerce that make the adoption of e-commerce a difficult task and why Malaysian small and medium enterprises are still not reaching the target sales volume comparing to Chinese firms. The research will be conducted in Malaysia with selected online sellers to identify the current barriers on adoption of e-commerce and understanding the main factors that affect their business and building strong relationship with online shoppers **Keywords:** Small and Medium Enterprise (SME), Electronic commerce, Barriers 1. **Research Problem** Malaysia is one of the developing countries that started to apply e-commerce for trade and selling of goods online in recent years, but the implementation is still limited and not widely used in Malaysia. The implementation and adoption of a new technology such as e-commerce is not an easy task, other countries like the US and European countries have passed many stages to reach a high level of adoption and usage of e-commerce The adoption of e-commerce in Malaysia does not only stand with removing technological barriers but is also associated with providing the sufficient funds and enhancing the knowledge of Malaysian users in order to ease the process of implementation by small and medium size companies in Malaysia. For instance despite China having invested huge funds in Internet infrastructure, but China is still trying to track United Stated and Japan in this field, gaining significant benefits from e-commerce is not an easy task to a developing country and Malaysia in particular, it is a long way forward including many studies and huge funds to be spent on training programs and installations of advanced software, even though going towards full implementation of e-commerce is a difficult task, China has benefited significantly from the adoption of e-commerce , which improve the annual revenues for Chinese companies from local and international buyers, Malaysian companies should release that e-commerce can play a significant role in improving their business locally and worldwide The study will discuss the problems associated with adaptation of modern e-commerce application in the systems of small and medium size companies, the main problem associated with the adoption of e-commerce is to remove certain barriers such cultural difference, technological capacity, financial and technology limitations, internet infrastructure, and online payment security, in addition to that knowing the best approach and the suitable systems for the Malaysian market is an important issue need to be discussed in detaild, One of the main problems facing the researchers on this field of study is determining the model of e-commercethat would be suitable to a specific country and may not for others. Many issues involved in the implementation process like buildingtelecommunications infrastructure which might be costly or without qualified technological culture capable to accept this technology and deals with. 2. **Research Objectives** 1. To identify the main barriers of adoption e-commerce in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. 2. To analyse the impact of using (web 2.0) and its interaction and collaboration facilities to improve customer relationship with Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) in Malaysia and Chine. 3. To identify the success factors from adoption e-commerce by Chinese sellers and compare these factors with the case of Malaysia. 4. To measure the current practicing of e-commerce in Malaysia. 3. **Research Questions** The main question of the study is concerning the main drivers and barriers that facing the developing countries in the adoption process of e-commerce, other questions are: - What are the main barriers associated with the adoption of e-commerce in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia? - How to measure the current practice of e-commerce by internet users in Malaysia? - Why it is complicated to implement e-commerce in Malaysia and why it is less complicated in China? - How do Malaysian and Chines small and medium enterprises (SMEs) use web 2.0 to improve customer internship ? 4. **Research Methodology** The research will use a mixed approach that includes Qualitative and Quantitative methodology, the researcher believes that applying the two methodologies in this research is very important to get the accurate results, in addition to that both methodologies complement each other. The qualitative research will be used in this research in the earlier phases of the research. The quantitative methodology is important in this research to calculate the data collected from the respondents using statistical analysis and will support the conclusions of the analysisin the next stage of the research due to the use of reliable statistical tool. - The main research techniques are focus groups and making in-depth interviews with the experts in charge the developing the e-commerce applications in small and medium enterprises SMEs. - In the quantitative analysis, the study will use the Rating Scale instrument which is composed of a set of 5 categories designed to obtain information for the quantitative analysis, the type of rating scale is Likert scale which is widely used in research that employs questionnaires for measuring consumer behavior and factors affecting the adoption of e-commerce in Malaysia. - The type of data obtained from the qualitative research are the analysis of interviews, and the type of data obtained from the quantitative research will contest of numerical tables containing data in the form statistical numbers like the mean value and standard deviation factor, reliability factor, validity, frequencies, and the mode numbers. 5. **Research Framework** The framework shows payment decision-making process is divided into four stages. The first stage if the awareness of consumers, the second stage is the primary evaluation, the third stage is intention to purchase, and the last stage is the final evaluation