THE INTERRELATION BETWEEN THE SYSTEM FEATURE DETERMINANTS OF INDIVIDUALS' ONLINE PURCHASE INTENTION

The majority of previous studies have investigated the direct influence of privacy and security featuresof the Website on customer's purchase intention from a broad general perspective and researchers haveneglected to investigate the direct influences of more specific confidentiality factors on customers'purchase intention. This research attempts to study the direct influences of rarely used Websitefeatures and specific privacy and security factors on customers' purchase intentions among Malaysianonline shoppers. Two confidentiality features of a Website, namely privacy and security assurancesalong with customization attributes were considered as the determinant factors of customers' onlinepurchase intention. Using a survey methodology, data was collected from 273 Malaysian onlineshoppers. The data were tested for its validity, reliability and goodness of fit, using differenttechniques and SEM -path analysis- was conducted to test the hypotheses. The findings indicate thatcustomization features have a positive and significant influence on customers' purchase intention fromthe Website. Moreover, it was found that a Website customization features significantly influencecustomers' perception of security and privacy assurances while security assurance evidences werefound to have positive significant influence on Malaysians' purchase intention from the Website.However, no empirically significant influence was found for the variable privacy assurance on purchase intention. The results indicate that a well designed Website interface positively enhance customers' perceived security and privacy assurances and also purchase intention from the Website. It implies that in order for an e-commerce Website to enhance its customers' purchase intentions in future, it should focus on improvement of its design quality and provide security assurance evidences such as third party security seal and security policy statement on the Website but need not spend huge amounts to obtain privacy assurances since they have no significant influence on customers' purchase intention.

Keywords:

Purchase intention , Customization , Security and privacy assurance ,