Empirical analysis of customer behaviors in Chinese e-commerce

With the burgeoning e-Business websites, E-Commerce in China has been developing rapidly in recent years. From the analysis of Chinese E-Commerce market, it is possible to discover customer purchasing patterns or behavior characteristics, which are indispensable knowledge for the expansion of Chinese E-Commerce market. This paper presents an empirical analysis on the sale transactions from the 360buy website based on the analysis of time interval distributions in perspectives of customers. Results reveal that in most situations the time intervals approximately obey the power-law distribution over two orders of magnitudes. Additionally, time interval on customer’s successive purchase can reflect how loyal a customer is to a specific product category. Moreover, we also find an interesting phenomenon about human behaviors that could be related to psychology of customers. In general, customers’ requirements in different product categories are similar. The investigation into individual behaviors may help researchers understand how customers’ group behaviors generated

The Emotional Impact of Casino Servicescape

This study investigates the emotional impact of casino servicescape among Chinese table games gambling participants, and its impact on their approach/avoidance behavior. Data on casino servicescape, pleasure, arousal and dominance emotion (PAD) and approach/avoidance responses were obtained from 158 Chinese gamblers in Macau and analyzed using path analysis. The results of this study suggest that aesthetic factors within servicescape significantly influence the customers\u27 perception of the overall servicescape quality. While gambling facilitating factors within servicescape have significant impact on PAD emotions, they are not significant components of the perceived overall servicescape quality. Both overall servicescape quality and PAD emotions have significant positive influence on approach responses. The current study shows that besides inducing pleasure (satisfaction) emotion in customers, a successful strategy would include arousal and dominance emotions when designing and managing the casino servicescape. Casino operators could benefit from designing facilities that can make a customer feel satisfied, excited, and in control

The influence of national culture on the attitude towards mobile recommender systems

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.This study aimed to identify factors that influence user attitudes towards mobile recommender systems and to examine how these factors interact with cultural values to affect attitudes towards this technology. Based on the theory of reasoned action, belief factors for mobile recommender systems are identified in three dimensions: functional, contextual, and social. Hypotheses explaining different impacts of cultural values on the factors affecting attitudes were also proposed. The research model was tested based on data collected in China, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Findings indicate that functional and social factors have significant impacts on user attitudes towards mobile recommender systems. The relationships between belief factors and attitudes are moderated by two cultural values: collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. The theoretical and practical implications of applying theory of reasoned action and innovation diffusion theory to explain the adoption of new technologies in societies with different cultures are also discussed.National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean governmen

Understanding Consumer Churning Behaviors in Mobile Telecommunication Service Industry : Cross-national Comparison between Korea and China

It is crucial for telecom operators to shift from a subsidy-centered to a service-centered marketing strategy. As the market reaches its saturation point, the effectiveness of customer acquisition through the traditional subsidy decreases and offering differentiated services for existing customer retention is critical. This study aims at finding out factors affecting consumer churning intention based on PPM (Push-Pull-Mooring) theory in order to exactly understand consumer behaviors in the mobile telecommunication service industry (MTSI). This study also analyzes the difference between Korea (saturation market) and China (growth market) in terms of the causality between the intention to switch and the affecting factors. The research findings will encourage telecom operators to establish the effective service strategy that corresponds to their level of market maturity

An Empirical Study of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty on Health Websites

Numerous health websites are developing rapidly in China and the competition is fierce between these websites. In order to win the competition, the websites operators need to satisfy their customers to attain more market shares. But few attention has been paid to factors affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty on these websites. As a result, the paper aims to empirically explore the factors affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty on health websites based on perceived service quality (responsiveness, empathy and reliability), perceived risk (financial risk and time risk) and trust, and then to propose some targeted measures. A survey was conducted to collect data by means of questionnaires, and a total of 231 usable responses were gathered. Then the hypothesis model was tested using the Structural Equation Modeling(SEM). Results revealed that responsiveness, empathy, time risk and trust had significant impacts on customer satisfaction, whereas reliability and financial risk showed no effects on customer satisfaction. In addition, customer satisfaction and trust significantly influenced customer loyalty. The implications and limitations were discussed

What attracts vehicle consumers’ buying:A Saaty scale-based VIKOR (SSC-VIKOR) approach from after-sales textual perspective?

Purpose: The increasingly booming e-commerce development has stimulated vehicle consumers to express individual reviews through online forum. The purpose of this paper is to probe into the vehicle consumer consumption behavior and make recommendations for potential consumers from textual comments viewpoint. Design/methodology/approach: A big data analytic-based approach is designed to discover vehicle consumer consumption behavior from online perspective. To reduce subjectivity of expert-based approaches, a parallel Naïve Bayes approach is designed to analyze the sentiment analysis, and the Saaty scale-based (SSC) scoring rule is employed to obtain specific sentimental value of attribute class, contributing to the multi-grade sentiment classification. To achieve the intelligent recommendation for potential vehicle customers, a novel SSC-VIKOR approach is developed to prioritize vehicle brand candidates from a big data analytical viewpoint. Findings: The big data analytics argue that “cost-effectiveness” characteristic is the most important factor that vehicle consumers care, and the data mining results enable automakers to better understand consumer consumption behavior. Research limitations/implications: The case study illustrates the effectiveness of the integrated method, contributing to much more precise operations management on marketing strategy, quality improvement and intelligent recommendation. Originality/value: Researches of consumer consumption behavior are usually based on survey-based methods, and mostly previous studies about comments analysis focus on binary analysis. The hybrid SSC-VIKOR approach is developed to fill the gap from the big data perspective

Understanding the effect of smart retail brand - consumer communications via mobile instant messaging (MIM) - an empirical study in the Chinese context

Faced with competitive forces, retailers are innovating by adopting ‘smart’ technologies such as contactless, omni-channel, ubiquitous computing, social networking and mobile apps. This paper examines consumer behavior responses during the use of a mobile instant messaging (MIM) application channel adopted by a Chinese pure-play retailer. MIM is text-based, real-time, mobile computer-mediated communication technology accomplishing real-time interaction with other users regardless of location. WeChat, a full service MIM application, contains functional and social features including SMS, MMS, LBS, photo sharing, voice message, video calls and “Moments” sharing, which is its social propagating feature. There is a paucity of literature on the role of MIM in building relationships and especially, the relevance of emotion and WOM for consumers engaging in MIM human-computer interactions. The model tested was derived from prior research on trust and also Stimuli-Organism-Response (SOR) that depicts the effects of environmental/informational stimuli on consumers’ responses. Specific research objectives included investigating the prediction that environmental stimuli comprising socialness perception, media richness, and involvement induce a positive emotional state, which results in positive WOM. The study employed a quantitative approach using a questionnaire posted on a WeChat (MIM) channel. The sample comprised Chinese WeChat users, typically young consumers (n=486). SEM was used to analyze the data. Prior research has indicated that building relationships with consumers is more difficult when the relationships are consumer-computer as compared to consumer-person (face-to-face). The findings of this study suggest that such a negative effect can be alleviated by the use of MIM, which is associated with socialness perception, media richness, consumer involvement, emotional connections and positive WOM. To the authors’ knowledge, this study is original in integrating socialness perception, media richness and WOM into the SOR framework. The implications for practitioners are discussed, relating in particular to retailers’ need to be aware of the extent to which consumers are willing to engage with MIM applications