A study of the impacts of the online shopping services on property management in Hong Kong

Abstract

Online shopping has become a new trend in the society, not only affect consumer’s mode of shopping but also bring impacts to the property management field. Past studies on the impacts of online shopping have focus on the management of shopping mall. However, in fact online shopping has also changed the landscape of the operations of residential property management in Hong Kong. Because of the increasing aspiration of the occupants and keen competition between the property management in Hong Kong, the companies strive to find ways to increase their edge in the market. Several leading companies in the industries have introduced online shopping services to their occupants as one of the most important value-added services. In addition, Yet while e-shopping has become more and more popular in Hong Kong nowadays, little research on online shopping services has been conducted inside Asia and Hong Kong. Previous researches identify the factors affecting consumer’s intention on online shopping and show that there is a positive correlation between service quality, customer satisfactory and success of business. In this connection, this study looks into the context of Hong Kong and attempts to fill the gap with a view to explore the factors which affecting consumer’s intention to adopt online shopping services provided by property management company and to understand the impacts of online shopping services on property management field in Hong Kong. An integrative conceptual framework was proposed as a research model in the study based on the literature reviews. Also, as a test of this model, 100 questionnaires were collected from two residential estates and two in-depth interviews were conducted. The research findings support the previous studies and literatures on the positive relationship on service quality and customer satisfaction towards the company. The provision of online shopping services can enhance the satisfaction of the occupants and hence increase the competiveness of the property management company. Also, the findings show that privacy and security are the most significant factors in influencing occupants’ intention to use online shopping services. Specifically, security and financial management are the most important elements in property management in the view point of the occupants, but value-added services are not.