Online Shopping in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to empirically explore the perception of a group of United Arab Emirates (UAE) web users towards e-commerce transactions, study their willingness to trade online, and isolate factors that drive these users towards purchase decisions. The study finds that web users largely use functional characteristics to assess the effectiveness of e-commerce websites, and are driven towards online purchase decisions by factors such as greater security, better value, and convenience. Overall, web experience was defined by the users in terms of three main dimensions; website features, credibility and trust, and transaction value. Practitioners can use these findings to improve their websites and online offers to better serve this market. The paper fills an identified gap in the literature by investigating the perceptions of the UAE web users, and makes a contribution towards studying the concept of online shopping in this region.