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The Chinese Little Emperors: marketing to Chinese young consumers
Edited by Cheng Lu Wang
Introduction
A corollary development accompanying the penetration of internet worldwide has been the growth of internet-based retailing. Several scholars have observed that online retailing is emerging as a relatively important mode of retailing ([5] Childers et al. , 2001; [20] Parasuraman et al. , 2005). Since the success drivers of online retailing evolve over time ([20] Parasuraman et al. , 2005), it is imperative that the retailers pay attention to the needs and concerns of the consumers in developing their strategies. According to [20] Parasuraman et al. (2005), "even though low price and web presence were initially thought to be the drivers of success, service quality issues soon became pivotal". While the incidence of online shopping remains lower in China compared to the USA, the rate of growth has been rapid ([6] CNNIC, 2007), especially among young consumers, signaling increasing consumer concerns about service quality.
While service quality measurement in the online environment has been deficient in the past, handicapped by the lack of validated instruments, the situation has been remedied in recent years with the systematic development of instruments measuring the service quality offered by retailer web sites. The EC-SERVQUAL instrument developed by [21] Wang and Tang (2003) and the E-S-QUAL and E-RecS-QUAL developed by [20] Parasuraman et al. (2005) provide a framework for conducting research on online service quality. While online shopping has been growing at an "astonishing" rate in China ([4] Chen and Ning, 2002), to our knowledge, systematic studies focusing on consumer perceptions of online service quality have been lacking. The present study is aimed at filling this gap. The specific objectives of the study are to segment young Chinese consumers on the basis of their internet skill and comfort levels and then to compare the online purchase behaviors and service quality perceptions of the members across the segments.
The plan for the rest of the paper is as follows. First, the penetration of internet in China and the present status of e-commerce are described to provide a basis for insights into likely consumer concerns at this stage of internet evolution. Prior research on the effects of internet skills and experience on consumer's attitudes toward online shopping...