Who cares about Country of Origin product image? : a study of Chinese consumers' perception of Swedish furniture & home-decoration products

Abstract: Background: The sociodemographic characteristics of consumers, as important determinants of consumer behavior, has not received much attention in research on Country of Origin (COO) effect. In practical, the rapid progress of urbanization in China has brought great demand in the furniture and home-decoration market. Sweden has variety of world-famous furniture and home-decoration brands and most of these have established business in China. There has rarely been research on Chinese consumers’ perceptions of Swedish furniture and home-decoration brands. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Chinese consumers’ sociodemographic characteristics on COO product image in terms of Swedish furniture and home-decoration products and how this affects and influences purchase intentions. Methods: Quantitative research is used in this study through a survey based on an online questionnaire. We test our research model with seven hypotheses based on the survey consisting of 269 valid questionnaires from Chinese consumers. Findings: This empirical study investigates Chinese consumers’ perceptions of Country of Origin image in their evaluation of Swedish furniture and home-decoration products and examines how these are affected by consumers’ sociodemographic characteristics. Taking into account the distinct situation of the Chinese market, we disentangle sociodemographic aspects: age, gender, education and individual income, especially in terms of overseas experience and the scale of city in which the consumer lives. We posit that Chinese consumers’ perceptions of Swedish furniture and home-decoration products vary across distinct facets of sociodemographics. Our finding is that age, education, overseas experience and scale of city do have a significant effect on COO product image, but that age and individual income do not significant influence COO product image.