Buying Imported Products Online : A quantitative study about Chinese Online consumer behavior towards imported products

Abstract: With the fast growing Chinese online marketplace and the increasing popularity of shopping imported products online in China, more and more practitioners and researchers are interested in understanding the cues that Chinese consumers use to evaluate imported products consumption online. Our quantitative study aims to identify what factors affect the behavior of Chinese online consumers towards imported products and the relationships between the identified factors and purchase intention, and thereafter help companies to understand how to increase Chinese online consumers’ purchase intention of imported products. The research model is developed based on The Theory of Planned Behavior. Data were collected through web-based survey in China. Subsequently, the logistic regression in SPSS was used for testing the 12 hypotheses. Results reveal that the purchase intention of Chinese online consumers to imported products is closely associated with Perceived Behavioral Control, Subjective Norms, Perceived Risks, Service Quality, Country of Origin and Price. However, Product Variety and graphically well-designed websites are not relevant to purchase intention when Chinese consumers evaluate online imported products. The findings of our study serve as a link between consumers and online retailers or companies. The information from this study can add knowledge to limited studies on the behavior of Chinese online consumer.