Malaysians still wary of online transactions

This is one of the findings of global media agency network Mindshare’s study of online habits in 33 countries.

In fact, the study shows that Malaysians came up 32nd among these 33 countries in the category of “doing transactions” as their motivation for going online.

Mindshare says that not surprisingly, Malaysians fared well in the other categories of going online – coming up eighth in communication and self-expression and ninth in entertainment. Malaysia has among the highest Facebook and Twitter penetration worldwide.

“This signals to businesses and brands that the potential for more Malaysians to conduct transactions online is huge. We are perhaps only tapping the tip of the iceberg here,” said Gerald Wittenberger, managing director of Mindshare Malaysia.

On a positive note, the study also found that Malaysians scored slightly above average in seeking information on the Internet. Results of the study, called “The 2013 Mindshare Digital Normalness Index (MDNI)”, were released in Britain last week. The MDNI is part of a Mindshare research project entitled “Are you Digitally Normal?”

“This new research is a fresh way of looking at online audiences and shows the importance of understanding that every group is motivated by different reasons when they go online – and when in these different ‘modes’ they need to be communicated with in bespoke ways, making the use of adaptive marketing techniques vital,” said Norm Johnston, Mindshare global digital leader.

The research also challenges some of the world’s widest held preconceptions about the motivations for the use of digital media by 33 nations across the globe, from Australia to the US – helping to reveal what drives consumers to go online and in which ‘mode’ consumers are when they are online.

It uses a methodology that looks at the motivations behind online behaviour, (self–expression; entertainment; information gathering; transacting) matched against a ‘normal’ benchmark created by looking at the quality of digital infrastructure (penetration and quality of connection) available in the country.

 

The MDNI has also revealed:

The US is among the least motivated (31st) for using digital media for self-expression, being beaten by neighbour Canada at 17th. Instead, things traditionally associated with self-expression (eg. blogging) are driven by a desire to be entertained: South Korea, one of the most advanced digital nations in the world, ranks only 23rd globally when it comes to being motivated to search for information, while scoring highly on all other motivations.

A sample of 33,000 respondents was questioned about whether, and how often, they undertook a range of online behaviours, from blogging to online banking. Statistical analysis was then used to group these behaviours by country and by motivation.