Perception Level of Visitors towards Shopping’s Motivation Factors at the Cross-border Informal Market of Serikin, Sarawak

Perception level of the visitors towards shopping motivation factors at the informal cross-border market of Serikin, Sarawak will be examined by using descriptive analysis. There are nine items that are quality of the products, variety of the products, preferences of the products, cheaper price, price and quality of product is consistent, cheaper price due to the cheaper in labor force, bargain hunting, closer, and condition of road. Majority of the visitor’s perception towards shopping motivation factors at the informal cross-border market of Serikin, Sarawak are at the neutral level. This is attested by the higher frequency of respondents that give neutral level towards shopping motivation factors. This finding shows that Serikin needs more improvement and development in terms of products, sale’s services and environment of shopping to encourage visitors to shop.


Introduction
Border is a kind of political boundary which is set to separate different regions (Timothy, 2005). National boundaries are lines that mark distinct differences in political and ideological system, economics and social structures, and quite simply, ways of life (Ju, 2011). Thus, the function of an international border can significantly affect the economic growth of a country with the presence of tourist from neighbor countries. A border-crossing trip may be concentrated on one activity or a trip may be a multipurpose trip (Kuncharin & Mohamed, 2013). There are many cross-border activities such as enjoying unique landscape, visiting heritage sites, gambling, sex tourism and one of the important activities is cross-border shopping (Timothy, 2005). Cross-border shopping is of interest because of its significant impact on retail sales of shops on both sides of the border. For example, Piron (2002) finds that there are about 900,000 day trippers from Singapore crossing the border to Johor Bahru (southern peninsula Malaysia) for shopping, recreation and food for every month and this huge drainage of retail sales is a serious concern for the Singaporean government. Meanwhile in Brunei, the decline in retail sales is significantly obvious during festive seasons when Bruneians flock to the border towns of Limbang and Miri, Sarawak (Anaman & Ismail, 2002;The Brunei Times, 2007). Cross-border shopping, therefore, has implications for a country's revenue (Espland et al., 2005;Lau et al., 2005) and generated income, employment and some local economic linkages (Hampton, 2009). Purchases that made by foreigners indicates an export of goods and services in the destination country which might lead to an improvement in the balance of payments and growth. Generally, the cross-border informal market is one of the mechanisms used to develop the economy of a local community (Titeca, 2010). However, very little attention has been paid on it. As Ibrahim (2010) mentioned, rural border community developments based on the entrepreneurship in Malaysia have received relatively little attention and are not being explored sufficiently. Zinser and Brunswick (2014) also reported relatively scarce academic research on international cross-border activity. In this regard, this study is conducted in Sarawak (Malaysia) -Kalimantan (Indonesia) to enhance more information regarding the informal cross-border market of Serikin, Sarawak. The cross-border activity at Serikin, a small village of Sarawak on the border with Indonesia, is one of the most famous markets and well organized. This market is known as the Weekend Market and very busy during weekends (Saturday and Sunday) because the traders from across the border and nearby areas come to offer their wares and produces. They hawk a variety of authentic Indonesian sarongs, household items and food ranging from farm produce (e.g. vegetables and fruits) to dried seafood and meats. Most of the shops are wooden structured and zinc as a roof built on the right and left side of the 200 meter crossborder road. Every week, the Royal Malaysian Customs at the border of Serikin collects the rental payment from the hawkers. According to the Senior Custom Officer, Jeritish Ak Goneck, the payment depends on the volume of the new goods carried by the traders from Indonesia. Every time traders bring new goods from Indonesia, they will be charged by the custom.
The trading activity at the cross-border informal market between Sarawak (Malaysia) -Kalimantan (Indonesia) seemed slightly declined (Awang et al., 2013). For example, the value of imports from Indonesia to Sarawak (Malaysia) was slightly reduce to RM456.1 million in 2010 compared RM474.0 in 2009(Department of Statistic, Malaysia 2010, 2011. Does this figure imply that Indonesian products do not have high quality? Or could it be that most of the visitors prefer more to Malaysia products compared to Indonesia products? Based on the above mentioned issues, the general objective of this study is to identify the purchasing pattern of visitors at the cross-border informal market of serikin, Sarawak. Specifically, this study attempts to identify the perception level of visitors towards shopping's motivation factors at the cross-border informal market of Serikin, Sarawak. Conducting this research will be a significant contribution to the literature on informal cross-border market. This study would add to the existing literature on cross-border shopping as well as contribute to the development of predictive model building and possible theory development. The results also provide valuable information to the marketing planners, media companies and others to better target and attract cross-border visitors. Section 2 presents the literature review on theoretical and empirical studies. Section 3 discusses the data and methodology that is used in the empirical analysis. Section 4 presents a discussion of the results followed by the conclusion in Section 5.

Literature Review
The quality of product is one of the most important factors that motivates tourist to enjoy their crossborder shopping. According to Michalko (2004), one of the factors that motivate people to enjoy their cross-border shopping is buying high quality goods or products of famous international brands. Her study was supported by previous study that conducted by Papadopoulos (1980) shows that crossborder shoppers also tend to purchase products having higher status and specialty products. This could be attributed by the fact that high quality of goods is long lasting rather than the low quality of goods. Wider range of product is another factor that could have important effect on cross-border shopping. According to Zinser and Brunswick (2014), a study conducted by Hermann and Beik (1968) is the first academics to study 'out-of-town' shopping and coined the terms out-shopping and outshoppers. This study represents that the desire for larger and more varied selections of soft goods was the principal factor motivating out-of-town shopping. In this regard, they also point out that cross-border shopper decisions to shop outside their local area influenced by their desire for a greater assortment of merchandise. In the domain of vacation, a tourist can experience local culture through cross-border shopping. In addition, as mentioned by Guo, Vasquea-Parraga and Wang (2006), the perception of using foreign products would improve their self-confidence in the social system. Statistic shows that U.S and China goods are the most popular overall representing 26 percent and 18 percent of all cross-border purchases respectively. Nevertheless, regional preferences are varying. Latin America, North America, the Nordics and the Middle East all prefer American goods, meanwhile Western European cross-border shopping is dominated by German merchandise and Central and Eastern European consumers most often purchase from China (PayPal Information Centre, 2014). This is show that preferences in choosing products from which country can contribute to the cross-border shopping. There is study that attempt to verify the influence of relationships between cross-border shopping and the prices of the good. A study conducted by Subramaniam, Devadason and Sundararaja (2008) claims that the major reasons that Bruneians cross-border to shop in Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia is because the goods are cheaper and reliable. According to Timothy (2005), one of the primary factors stand out most clearly as the driving forces behind shopping for travel is the price advantages. This price advantages comprises bargain hunting and high prices at home and low prices in destination. Survey such as conducted by Leimgruber (1988) have shown that enough contrast on opposite sides of the border for example price is necessary for cross-border shopping to develop. In another major study, Rohwedder (1994) found that cross-border shopping in Europe involves the movement of Germans and Belgians to Luxembourg and Netherlands for lower priced consumer goods and the quality of the goods. This could be attributed by the facts that lower prices at destinations are more enjoyable and give satisfaction for shoppers to grab the goods that might expensive at home.
According to Asplund et al., (2007), price is indeed an important reason in order to trigger crossborder shopping since consumers in high tax countries would make use of price differentials and make their purchases elsewhere. Consumers are prone to low price compared to the higher price in making their shopping. Another study highlighted by Wang (2004) list out several reasons that peoples from Hong Kong cross border to Shenzen for shopping. The list includes opportunities for bargain hunting. In this regard, cross-border shoppers can take the opportunity of bargain hunting to trade-off travel costs. This could be attributed by the facts that peoples travel to other countries for shopping in order to get a very low prices of goods compared to their home prices. In order to get the lower prices, bargain plays a vital role in the making of their shopping activity. Bargain hunting is important because it is one of the ways to decrease the cost of travel.
Di Matteo and Di Matteo (1996) points out that exchange rate is one of the most significant push and pulls factors for cross-border shoppers. This fact could be attributed by study conducted by Subramaniam, Devadason and Sundararaja (2008) which found that in the south of peninsula, the higher value of the Singapore dollar and higher purchasing power of Singaporeans caused a massive influx of tourists during weekends and festive seasons to Johor Bahru. This study also was supported by the similar study at Limbang, Sarawak whereby the proximity of Limbang to Brunei Darussalam also allows tourists and excursionists from Brunei to take advantage of the lower value of Ringgit Malaysia. According to Hardi (2001), there are tendency among Hungarians to organize shopping trips to neighboring countries at the beginning of 1990s due to the favorable exchange rates. A study conducted by Chadee and Mieczkowski (1987) shows that the low numbers in the early 1980s has been attributed to the low value of the Canadian dollar, which made travelling in this neighboring country expensive. Similar study was conducted by Waters (1990) shows that as the value of the dollar began to increase and as Canadians were attracted to the United States for economic and recreational purposes, the number of departures increased dramatically especially at the beginning of the 1990s and at the end of the 1980s. Shopping has become the most common activity of leisure and has changed its initial part as a need to survive to a want to enjoy. As mentioned by Michalko (2004), leisure shopping is the second category of shopping tourism in addition to the primary motivation of the trip and it serves as gathering experience and spending leisure time in an enjoyable manner. Michalko (2004) also claims that trips might be motivated by the unique services provided by the traders. Timothy and Butler (1995) reveals that shopping provides a form of relaxation, an escape from normal routine, and an element of challenge but it is obviously not the laborious activity it used to be. Apart from the relaxed, easy going atmosphere in the context of leisure time, the wider context of the purchase also can be factors of motivating cross-border shopping in terms of shopping environment. The cross-border tourism shopper with higher levels of tourism and shopping enjoyment refers to the consumers who simultaneously value both hedonic and utilitarian characteristics of a retail outlet (Boedeker, 1995). This segment engages in leisure time shopping (Lumpkin, Hawes & Darden, 1986;Papadoplos, 1980). In terms of leisure activity such as recreational, is classify as the traditional tourists who involved in selection of destinations, transportation modes, and travel routes (Woodside & Dubelaar, 2002). For recreational shoppers shopping refer to the leisure-time activity and take it as a pleasure even apart from purchasing goods. They like to spend their shopping time with full-of-fun and surprising places. In terms of leisure time activity also shopping is regarded as an adventure for one group of people, for another it may be a habitat that they called as home (Boedeker, 1997).
While the study on cross-border shopping is quite scarce, there are numbers of literature stream with regard to the phenomenon of out-shopping. As presented by Bar-Kolelis and Wiskulski (2012), shopping tourism does not always focus strictly on the purchase of the goods, yet also take into consideration the entertainment given by the selection of the goods and the enjoyment of the trip.
In this regard, sometimes people travel to shop not only was motivated by products availability and price differences of other location but also from the need of entertainment they benefit from. The study shows that a geography factor has influence cross-border shopping and tourism. Leisure activities and shopping environment can be categorized as geographical factors since most of the travelers cross the border to other countries particularly due to the nice landscape of the destinations. Nice landscape and nice environment can give relaxes mode for holiday to the tourists. Different weather can stimulate cross-border shopping and tourism in order to experience the differences. Retailers should focus on the fun of shopping in an 'exotic' location i.e. atmospheric stimulus that some retailers attempt to generate in their own stores, and the excitement of being in a foreign environment (Kim & Sullivan, 2003). As highlighted by the European Community (2013), language is another factors motivating crossborder shopping. It was reveals that peoples who do not speak other languages and do not travel much, the lack of possible communication is a restrictive factor, whilst other mention the possibility of 'getting by' or using English even when this is not perfect in order to understand the basics. This could be attributed by the facts that language is important role in order to evade the communication breakdown between the traders and the consumers. By using an easy language that can be understood by both parties can build a good relationship and at the same time consumers can put their trust on traders and encourage them to buy the goods. When the both parties can understand language used, it is easier the traders to tell the advantages of their goods to consumers. Dmitrovic and Vida (2007) find out that one of the main motivations for cross-border shopping is services provided by the sales person. The major reason that Bruneians cross-border to shop in Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia, is because of the competent service providers (Kuncharin & Mohamed, 2013). Service providers are including services that provided by the traders to the consumers for example goods sold are allowed to be returned, knowledge of traders pertaining of the goods and trader's manner towards peoples.

Methodology and Data
Perception level of the visitors towards shopping motivation factors at the informal cross-border market of Serikin, Sarawak will be examined by using descriptive analysis. There are three shopping's motivation factors with nine items that are quality of the products, variety of the products, preferences of the products, cheaper price, price and quality of product is consistent, cheaper price due to the cheaper in labor force, bargain hunting, closer, and condition of road. Based on the literature above, this study classified the shopping's motivation factors into three groups namely products, price, and distance. Table 1 shows the factors with their items:

Factors Items Products
Quality of the products, variety of the products, preferences of the products Price Cheaper price, price and quality of product is consistent, cheaper price due to the cheaper in labor force, bargain hunting Distance Closer, condition of road Likert scale is used to measure the visitor's perception towards three shopping motivations factors with score ranging from 1 to 5. The level of satisfaction based on the score is stated in Table 2: Agree 5 Strongly Agree The population of interests consists of visitors at the informal cross-border market of Serikin, Sarawak. Unfortunately, the Immigration Department of Sarawak did not have data on visitor's arrival into rural area such as Serikin. Therefore, in this study, in order to determine the sample size, we followed rules of thumbs provided by Sekaran (2003) and Roscoe (1975) which stated that sample sizes larger than 30 and less than 500 are appropriate for most research. Additionally, according to Najib (1998), 30 persons of respondent are sufficient to represent the population. According to this rule, a sample of 300 respondents, surveyed in Serikin, was randomly selected. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed randomly at Serikin in October, 2014 during weekends. Data were collected by using questionnaires. The questionnaire is a well-established tool for acquiring information on participant's social characteristics, present and past behavior, standards of behavior or attitudes and their beliefs, and reasons for action with respect to the topic under investigation, within social science research (Bulmer, 2004). Prior to the survey, a pilot test was conducted with 20 respondents who were randomly selected at Serikin. Most of the respondents could understand and answer the questions. Thus, only few minor changes were made to the questionnaire for clarity. The pilot test was performed in order to ensure that the questions were clear and easily understood by the respondents. Generally, it was observed that the selected respondents had no major difficulties in filling out the questionnaires. The 20 survey was initially conducted at Serikin, on first weekend of October, 2014 to identify the weakness of the questionnaires. The data is analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21.0. According to Najib (2003), the reliability of the questionnaire should be proved by using statistical test. The reliability for this study with Cronbach's Alpha is 0.882. Therefore, the reliability of the questionnaire is high and strong. The data collected from the questionnaires are analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) Version 21.0 software. Based on the nature and the objectives of this study, descriptive analysis is used to analyze all the data. Descriptive analysis is a mathematical computation to summarize the important characteristics of the data sample (Heiman, 1996). Descriptive analyses for this research are frequency to identify visitor's perception towards shopping motivation factors at the informal cross-border market of Serikin Sarawak. Apart of that, descriptive analyses can be useful to provide basic information about variables in a dataset and to highlight potential relationships between variables. Finally, by having these analyses, the main objective of this study will be addressed.

Empirical Results
This part of study will present the perception level of the visitors towards the shopping motivation factors at the informal cross-border market of Serikin, Sarawak. There are nine items of shopping motivations factors that will be examined. of them are strongly agreeing that they were motivated to shop at Serikin due to the prices of Indonesia products are applicable with the quality of products. Only 57 of them disagree and 17 of them strongly disagree that they were motivated to shop at Serikin due to the prices of Indonesia products are applicable with the quality of products.

Products
Cheaper price due to the cheaper in labor force Figure 6: Price of Indonesia product is cheaper due to the cheaper in labor force Figure 6 shows the finding of the visitor's perception towards the shopping motivation factors at the cross-border informal market of Serikin, Sarawak regarding the price of Indonesia products that influenced by the labor force. There are 104 of the visitors are agreeing and 23 of them are strongly agree that price of Indonesia product is cheaper due to the cheaper in labor force, thus motivates them to shop at Serikin. Only 44 of them disagree and 15 of them strongly disagree that they were motivated to shop at Serikin because of the Indonesia product is cheaper due to the cheaper in labor force. About 114 of the visitors show their perception is neutral. Figure 7 shows the finding of the visitor's perception towards the shopping motivation factors at the cross-border informal market of Serikin, Sarawak regarding the bargain activity. There are 102 of them are agreeing and 37 of them are strongly agreeing that goods in Serikin is easy to bargain, thus motivate them to shop at Serikin. Only 42 of the visitors are disagreeing and 9 of them strongly disagreeing that goods in Serikin is easy to bargain, thus motivates them to shop at Serikin. And 110 of the visitors are neutral. Figure 8 shows the finding of the visitor's perception towards the shopping motivation factors at the cross-border informal market of Serikin, Sarawak regarding the distance. Majority of the visitor's perception are agreeing (95) and 40 of them are strongly agreeing that this factor can motivate them to shop at Serikin. There are 50 of the visitors are disagree and 32 of them are strongly disagree that Serikin is closer compared to other stalls in Indonesia and motivate them to shop at Serikin. Meanwhile 83 of them show their perception as neutral. Figure 9: The condition of road to Serikin is better than the others Figure 9 shows the finding of the visitor's perception towards the shopping motivation factors at the cross-border informal market of Serikin, Sarawak regarding the condition of road. Majority of the visitor's perception are neutral (126) towards this factor. There are 79 of the visitors are disagree and 31 of them are strongly disagree that the condition of road to Serikin is better than the others that will motivate them to shop at Serikin. Meanwhile 53 of them agree and 11 of them strongly agree that condition of road to Serikin is better than the others, thus motivates them to shop at Serikin.

Conclusions
Out of nine shopping motivation factors, there are only two factors that highly motivate visitors to shop at the informal cross-border market of Serikin, Sarawak that are cheaper prices and distance. Cheaper price encourages visitors to shop at Serikin. Some of the reasons for cross-border shopping obviously included the price benefits that are expected (European Commision, 2004;Piron, 2002). This is previously attested by the consumption pattern of Hong Kong cross-border shoppers who choose shopping at the border for lower price (Ju, 2011). Cheaper price in destination become the major reason influencing the shopping behavior (Subramaniam, Devadason & Sundararaja, 2008). In terms of distance, visitors are motivating to shop at the cross-border may be affected by accessibility factors to retail shopping areas, such as distance travelled (Piron, 2002). This is in line with study conducted by Ju (2011) which stated that distance of the destination would affect the decision of the visitors to cross the border.
Majority of the visitor's perception towards shopping motivation factors at the informal cross-border market of Serikin, Sarawak are at the neutral level. This is attested by the higher frequency of respondent that give neutral level towards shopping motivation factors. These factors are included quality of the products, variety of the products, preferences of the products, price and quality of product is consistent, cheaper price due to the cheaper in labor force, bargain hunting. This finding shows that Serikin needs more improvement and development in terms of products, sale's services and environment of shopping to encourage visitors to shop.