Chinese Consumer Behaviour Case Study

Culture as defined by Hofstede is not merely one of the environmental factors that influence consumer behaviour, rather, culture is a critical programming process that shapes individuals ' values, sets the social norm, differentiates the consumers in one group from those in another, and also influences consumer behaviour in profound ways. The influence of culture involves all three groups of factors that influence consumer behaviour suggested by Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard (1995), that is, culture may impact not only on the environmental factors (eg social class, family and situation, etc.) and individual factors (e.g. motivation, attitudes, values, lifestyle, etc), but also an psychological processes (e.g. information processing, learning,

Thrift is highly valued in Chinese culture. If that is true, then Chinese consumers are like those "actual state style" consumers described by Bruner and Gordon (1988). Modesty and collectivistic values shape Chinese consumer behaviour so that the Chinese often feel uncomfortable in novel, unknown, and surprising situations that are different from the usual, and therefore try to avoid them. Chinese consumers are reluctant to try or accept new products and have few desires. It would be relatively harder to trigger Chinese consumers ' need recognition for new products. However, Chinese culture is also a familial collectivistic culture (Yang, 1988) with hierarchy (Large Power Distance) and emphasizes the harmony relationship between

Besides of country of origin, price is also an important factor that consumers use in their evaluation process. The analysis of Chinese cultural factors and their influence on Chinese consumers ' decision process may provide some insight into understanding the Chinese evaluation process. In 1994, Gallup China Ltd. conducted the first national consumer survey by a foreign research company in China. Based on a sample of 3.400 people aged between 18-60, the survey reported that Chinese consumers are pragmatic, price and quality conscious, patriotic and careful planners (Li, Gallup and Alec,