UTAR Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) students Ang Xue Li, Chan Sy Ni, Goh Jia Hui, Tan Si Bee and Lee Pei You impressed the jury with their virtual paper presentation at the BLM2-ICAM4: An International Joint e-Conference. As a result, the Year Three Bachelor of Marketing (Honours) students won the Best Presentation Award (Bronze) at the  e-Conference which was held on 1 September 2021 via Zoom.

Their paper, titled “Understanding the Factors Affecting Customers’ Purchase Intention from A Procedural Perspective” aimed to observe the factors that influence Gen Z's purchase intention towards online shopping in the fashion industry. The research was supervised by FBF Department of Marketing Lecturer Loh Xiu Ming.

As the presenter of the online presentation, Ang explained, “In recent years, the fashion industry has been disrupted due to the emergence and assimilation of online technology. On one hand, it made it easier for marketers in the fashion industry to reach and engage with their customers through online channels such as social media. On the other hand, it has also intensified the competition among companies and made the marketing decision more complicated, especially in the online setting. This has become more prominent because of the Covid-19 pandemic that caused the rapid digitalisation of many daily activities including online shopping.”

She continued, “As such, this study was conducted to explore the factors that affect customers’ purchase intention for fashion products through online shopping. A uniquely developed Cognitive-Affective-Conative Framework was utilised to capture the procedural manner in which customers’ purchase intention is developed. More precisely, the cognitive dimension is represented by perceived quality, brand image and price, whereas the affective dimension is represented by satisfaction while the conative dimension is represented by purchase intention. A total of 250 valid and usable responses from Gen Z consumers were obtained which were analysed with the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling. The results of the data analysis revealed that except for brand image, all other hypotheses were significant. In addition, the mediation analysis established the presence of a process when it comes to the development of customers’ purchase intention. Consequently, numerous practical and theoretical insights were derived from the results. The most notable contribution of this study is that practitioners and academics should look into the development of purchase intention as a process rather than oversimplifying it as a direct cause-and-effect situation.”

On behalf of the team, Ang also enthused, “We are sincerely honoured to receive the Best Presentation Award (Bronze). It gives us a great opportunity to increase the exposure of our research area and receive invaluable feedback from our peers in the field.” She added, “This conference was recommended to us by our Final Year Project (FYP) supervisor, Mr Loh Xiu Ming. He encouraged us to participate in this conference while supervising us through our FYP. From all that we have learned from our degree programme and Final Year Project, we were well equipped to apply our skills and knowledge in this conference.”

When asked what she learned from the conference, she explained, “I have never participated in an international conference before, but my degree studies have improved my analytical abilities and understanding which enabled me to do well. This is in addition to the collaboration among group members and previous experiences from UTAR which helped us to achieve this award. As a result, I felt incredibly blessed and delighted to win the award which would not have been possible without Mr Loh's guidance. On a final note, this triumph is not the end of the road as we will continue to develop ourselves.”

Adding to her note, her supervisor Loh praised, “It is excellent that our department has talented students and we are very proud of them as they are helping us to raise the international profile of UTAR.

BLM2-ICAM4: An International Joint e-Conference is a continuation of Business, Law, and Management (BLM 2020): An International e-Conference on Advanced Marketing (ICAM 2020) organised by Centre for Industrial Revolution and Innovation (#CIRI, http://www.gociri.com), Taylor’s University, Malaysia and University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. The theme of this joint conference is ‘Broadening the Horizons of Business: Going beyond Normal’ and it aims to be a premier platform for researchers and industry practitioners to share new ideas, research results and develop experiences in various fields.

Learn more about the team’s project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eIOkFveyco