A Study of the Moderate Growth of Online Retailing (Ecommerce) In the UAE

E-commerce is now one of the most significant activities carried out over the Internet .The research question and problem centred around as to what are the determinants of moderate growth of online retailing in UAE. The key determinants as variables addressed are transaction cost, lack of trust, lack of awareness, culture and local regulation. The last variable – local regulation – was identified by the respondents and experts during the pre-testing of the questionnaire. Both primary and secondary data were collected. Primary Initially a pilot survey was conducted with 35 respondents and subsequently 10 respondents were interviewed face to face to obtain feedback on the questionnaire and their suggestions for improvement data was collected from industrial exerts and customers of supermarkets, and on lines stores in UAE. . Smartpls3.0 is used to analyse the data collected by building a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM). The SmartPLS3.0 tool was used to build and test the research framework and hypothesis. The relationships between the variables were obtained by performing partial least squares (PLS). To develop the trust among customers, the e commerce companies must improve the quality of their website and ensure they have genuine ratings to back them. Transaction costs include the policing costs and search costs which can be addressed by creating more awareness and by holding a wide variety of products. Regulations in favor of ecommerce retailers will motivate them to enter the market. It was also observed that the prevalence of mall culture is also one reason why there is no rapid growth in online retailing. The observations of this study will be of benefit to all stakeholders in e-commerce firms in UAE particularly consumers who intend to use online stores which would increase the growth rate of online retailing in the region. Companies providing payment solutions can leverage the finding of this research. The primary implications of this study would boost the moderate growth to speedier growth rate of online industry in the region.