AN INSIGHT INTO CHINESE CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN HOME FURNISHINGS INDUSTRY : A QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH ON HOW “MIANZI” FACTOR INFLUENCE CHINESE CONSUMERS BEHAVIOR

Abstract: With the continuous exploration of Chinese market’s potential, this promising and enormous market is becoming more and more crowded no matter in which industry. For example, in home furnishing industry, although the world leader - IKEA strived to implement its differentiation and cost leadership strategies that had brought tremendous success in the other markets worldwide, the company’s performance in this distinctive developing country had not progressed much, unlike other parts of the world. Thus, there must be some factors that foreign companies ignored, which led to this situation. That how Chinese think, what exactly trigger them to buy? There is little research on home furnishing industry regarding those questions inside Chinese market. In this article, through observation of the consumer behavior of Chinese people in the home furnishing industry, and focusing on the “mianzi” factor in Chinese consumer behavior, with a quantitative research method, to examine possible correlations with “mianzi” gaining. After a detailed linear regression through SPSS with data collected from 309 candidates both online and offline, the result shows that price and noticeability of home furnishing are key factors that let the Chinese consumer gain “mianzi”; further, lead to competitive consumption and conspicuous consumption, rather than the brand of the furniture.