E-Shopping Patterns of Chinese and US Millennials

ABSTRACT

A conceptually based taxonomy of 22 distinct forms of e-shopping vehicles is proposed. A modification of the UTAUT and UTAUT2 models is introduced to explain how vehicles are interrelated in regard to consumer reliance upon them for their e-purchasing. A survey of over 1,000 millennial university students, 697 Chinese and 306 US, revealed strong support in both samples for the hypothesized six dimensional pattern underlying consumer vehicular reliance. Further, differences between Chinese and US samples lay not in the nature of the dimensions, but rather in the strength of reliance upon each dimension. Thus, the study demonstrates the utility of the concept/measure of shopper vehicular reliance, VPR (Vehicle Purchasing Reliance) for both practitioners and scientists. In cross-national comparisons, observed differences between samples in strength of reliance supported four of five hypotheses predicated on previously established national distinctions a) in trust and b) in the cultural value of individualism-collectivism.

KEYWORDS:

• China–US millennial differences
• dimensions of shopping vehicle reliance
• E-shopping
• e-shopping vehicles
• online vehicle purchasing reliance
• technology adoption
• UTAUT
• UTAUT2

Notes

One vehicle previously listed by Blake et al. (2013), Search Engines, is not included here since its utility for many purposes beyond shopping muddies the interpretation of its association with other vehicles.

Covered within the term “e-vehicles” are (a) types of commercial websites (e.g., distributor websites); (b) software dedicated to shopping (e.g., price comparison mobile apps); (c) hardware used in shopping (e.g., credit card readers); (d) commercial applications of websites used also for non-commercial reasons (e.g., social media site goods); and (e) software consumers colloquially described as if they are goods, but are simultaneously distinct means of providing digital goods (e.g., e-mail gift cards, gift cards sent in mobile text messages, virtual goods purchased for use in virtual games).

Although long acknowledged as one phase of shopping (e.g., Frasquet, Mollá, and Ruiz 2015; Blake et al. 2017), the post-purchase stage is not included in the term, “full purchase sequence.” The construct of VPR refers to a vehicle’s contributing to purchase, so events after purchasing per se are not pertinent here.

The authors thank Wei Zhou and Chichang Xiong of Cleveland State University and Mu Wu of Pennsylvania State University for their help in the back translation process.