Are Malaysians buying from overseas EC sites?

The majority of academic research papers on the state of EC in Malaysia claims that EC has been slow to take off.  Of course, all that is suspect because many of those studies did not factor in  blogshops.

Here is another finding that says Malaysians do shop online and that they buy from overseas EC sites.  While I agree this is the case, I do not think that the conventional EC scene in Malaysia is developed at all.  Reconciling this finding with others I have read, I would venture to guess that those people with credit card and/paypal shop overseas as indicated here.  A bigger chunk with no access to credit cards and/or paypal shop on local online boutiques and blogshops.

From: http://techcentral.my/news/story.aspx?file=%2F2011%2F3%2F23%2Fit_news%2F20110323161307&sec=it_news

Many Malaysians buying from overseas sites

KUALA LUMPUR: Many Malaysians on the Internet are shopping overseas. A consumer survey shows that one in three websurfers here are patronising international retail sites.
And the reason they prefer to buy from overseas merchants? It's because they get a wider selection of items, the products or services they want are not available locally, prices are lower, and/or they get better discounts from the foreign vendors.
The 2010 Visa eCommerce Consumer Monitor surveyed 558 Malaysian websurfers from August to September last year. It found that 36% of the respondents had shopped at an overseas website in the past 12 months.
Websites in the United States were the most popular for these shoppers; 31% of the respondents who shopped overseas said they had bought from these sites at least once in that period.
Most of the shoppers bought clothing and shoes (23%) while the others bought airline tickets (21%) and books (20%).
According to Visa Malaysia country manager Stuart Tomlinson, the increased Internet penetration in the country is fuelling the growing popularity of online shopping among Malaysians.
"An Internet-savvy nation will see more of its people, especially those keeping up with the latest fashion trends, turn to shopping at overseas retail websites," he said.
The survey also revealed that three quarters of the respondents were confident that their payments online were secure.
"We know that online shoppers consider payment security an important factor when transacting over the Web," Tomlinson said.
"Visa provides its cardholders an added layer of security with its Verified by Visa online authentication platform."