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A qualitative study to explore
Chinese consumers’ purchasing
experience on WeChat
Master’s Thesis 15 credits
Department of Business Studies
Uppsala University
Spring Semester of 2018
Date of Submission: 2018-08-08
LINGTAO, GU
FEIYAN, MU
Supervisor: PAO KAO
Shopping on social media:
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Abstract
WeChat is a widely used multi-functional social media platform in China. The
increasing number of WeChat users provides new possibilities and challenges for
company marketing strategy. We draw literature from word-of-mouth (WOM) and
e-service quality (e-SQ). Qualitive study approach was conducted, and ten interviews
done with Chinese consumers with shopping experience on WeChat. This thesis aims to
explore the purchasing experience of Chinese consumers on WeChat, and specifically
we want to understand how do WOM/ eWOM influences Chinese consumers on their
shopping experience on WeChat, and what aspect of the e-SQ may affect Chinese
consumers’ shopping experience on WeChat. The results reveal that in the brand
awareness period, people are more likely to be influenced by WOM to notice products
or services. Furthermore, offline WOM has more influential persuading power than
online WOM. In terms of e-service quality, the professionalism and convenience of
website design is the foundation of consumer purchase. Fulfillment and security
perform quite well on WeChat according to our research findings. At the same time,
consumers on WeChat are inclined to buy products with less need of customer service.
Key words:
Word of mouth; E-service quality; Social media; WeChat; Qualitative study; China
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 What is WeChat ............................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Shopping on WeChat .................................................................................................... 4
1.3 A study to understand Chinese consumer’s shopping experience on WeChat .............. 8
1.4 Research questions ...................................................................................................... 10
1.5 Outline of the study ..................................................................................................... 10
2. Theoretical background ....................................................................................................... 11
2.1 Word of mouth (WOM) .............................................................................................. 11
2.1.1 Offline WOM .................................................................................................... 11
2.1.2 Online WOM (eWOM) ..................................................................................... 12
2.2 Dimensions of e-service quality .................................................................................. 13
2.2.1 Previous researches about e-service quality ..................................................... 13
2.2.2 Website design .................................................................................................. 16
2.2.3 Fulfilment .......................................................................................................... 17
2.2.4 Customer service ............................................................................................... 17
2.2.5 Security ............................................................................................................. 17
3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 19
3.1 Research design - Qualitative single case research ..................................................... 19
3.1.1 Research strategy-qualitative research .............................................................. 19
3.1.2 Research method-single case research .............................................................. 19
3.1.3 Reflection on single case study method ............................................................ 20
3.2 Question guide design ................................................................................................. 20
3.3 Pilot study ................................................................................................................... 22
3.4 Sampling and Data collection ..................................................................................... 23
3.4.1 Theoretical sampling ......................................................................................... 23
3.4.2 Data collection .................................................................................................. 24
3.5 Data analysis ............................................................................................................... 25
3.6 Validity and reliability ................................................................................................. 25
4. Findings................................................................................................................................ 27
4.1 WOM .......................................................................................................................... 27
4.1.1 Offline WOM .................................................................................................... 27
4.1.2 Online WOM (eWOM) ..................................................................................... 28
4.2 E-service quality ......................................................................................................... 29
4.2.1 Website design .................................................................................................. 29
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4.2.2 Fulfillment......................................................................................................... 30
4.2.3 Customer service ............................................................................................... 31
4.2.4 Security ............................................................................................................. 32
5. Analysis and discussion ....................................................................................................... 33
5.1 How WOM arouses Chinese consumer’ awareness to shop product on WeChat ....... 33
5.2 Factors influence Chinese consumer’s shopping experience on WeChat ................... 35
5.2.1 Website design .................................................................................................. 35
5.2.2 Fulfilment .......................................................................................................... 35
5.2.3 Customer service ............................................................................................... 36
5.2.4 Security ............................................................................................................. 36
6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 38
6.1 Summary of study ....................................................................................................... 38
6.2 Managerial implication for Official Account .............................................................. 38
6.3 Limitation .................................................................................................................... 40
References ................................................................................................................................ 42
Appendix 1 ............................................................................................................................... 52
Appendix 2 ............................................................................................................................... 54
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1. Introduction
In this chapter, we start with the background information of WeChat, followed by our problem
statement and purpose and ends with our framework of this study.
1.1 What is WeChat
WeChat is a free application that Tencent launched on January 21, 2011 to provide instant
messaging services. WeChat supports to quickly send free voice messages, videos, pictures,
and text, through the media. WeChat also provides other functions through service plug-ins.
For example, “Moments” allow users to share their life story and create an intimate and
private communicating circle within the users' choice of close friends. WeChat’s “Official
Accounts” provides users access to various services from service providers. For example,
users can read the latest news through a newspaper’s Official Account, and they can also
make flights and hotels booking through an online travel agent’s Official Account.
During the constant development, WeChat function has been optimized and multiplied year
by year. Below table 1 is the milestones of WeChat development. Tencent has been working
on the evolution of WeChat function. During our preparation and writing period of this paper,
WeChat new version is under progress. By June of 2018, its functions had been developed
from version of 1.0 to 6.7 since it started.
Table 1 Milestones of WeChat Development1
January, 2011 WeChat 1.0 version was released for iPhone only, voice message, video,
message and photos could be sent by WeChat.
May, 2011 2.0 version was released, Talkbox was added. (Talkbox is a function that
people can send voice message to his or her WeChat friend on WeChat.)
October, 2011
3.0 version was released, added support function for traditional Chinese
language recognition, and opened for the registered phone number from
Hongkong, Macau, Taiwan, America and Japan.
March, 2012 4.0 version was released, added function for photos sharing in moment,
like Instagram.
1 Data source: WeChat Update Blog (2018). Retrieved June 18, 2018, from
http://weixin.qq.com/cgi-bin/readtemplate?lang=zh_CN&t=weixin_faq_list
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August, 2013
5.0 version was released，added expression sticker store and game center
functions, and updated “scan” function for photos, QR codes,
translations and so on.
September,
2014
6.0 version was released, functions of video shot, card holder added.
2018 The latest version of 6.7 available for iOS and 6.6 for Android available
(By June of 2018).
Moreover, WeChat Pay was launched in 2013 to allow peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers and
in-app purchases on WeChat’s Official Accounts. The introduction of WeChat Pay allowed
users to pay goods or services directly with their phone. For example, Didi (taxi service
supplier, same as Uber) worked with WeChat. People can book taxi on WeChat and pay the
taxi fee by WeChat Pay on WeChat. Based on the convenience of such kind of payments,
Chinese consumers are increasingly relying on the use of WeChat Pay to complete the
transaction both online or offline on WeChat.
There are multiple payment methods to use WeChat Pay. The first method of WeChat
payment is quick pay (Picture 1). As long as you scan QR code of the seller to transfer money
and pay your goods, then the transaction is finished quickly.
Picture 1
The second method of WeChat payment is QR code payment (Picture 2). Sellers create
different QR codes for different goods. After users scan these codes, consumers can see
related product information and transaction guides on their phone.
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Picture 2
The third method of WeChat payment is in-app web-based payment (Picture 3). Sellers push
product messages to their followers to Official Account. With WeChat pay enabled, their
followers can purchase products on the shopping page directly.
Picture 3
The forth method of WeChat payment is in-app payment (Picture 4). Sellers can integrate
WeChat into their apps. WeChat will be authorized to process the payment. Once the
transaction is done, the page will redirect to the other app.
Picture 4
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The combination of personal account for private users, Official Accounts for enterprises, and
their convenient pay system—WeChat Pay, created the base for online shopping on WeChat
for Chinese consumers (please see table 2 below for the summary). It has taken WeChat
nearly four years that its original launch to develop an online business model for on the base
of a social media platform.
Table 2 Key Parties for WeChat Business
WeChat Key Parties (consumer and seller) Development History
Wexin/WeChat
Personal
account
Launched in January 2011
under the name of Wexin
Widely spread within friends’ loop,
normally for those are the people you
know
Renamed Wexin as WeChat in
April 2014
Changed English name to develop
international market
WeChat Official
Account (for
companies)
Launched in August 2012 Function has been updated and
diversified, had a new role of being a
platform for enterprises to sharing news
on WeChat through Official Account
WeChat Pay
(Chu M., 2016)
Launched in August 2013 Tencent’s own paying system was set
up
Available to merchants in
March 2014
Online business model started for buyer
and seller, payment can be done by
WeChat Pay
1.2 Shopping on WeChat
Because of the convenience, WeChat payment has penetrated every aspect of Chinese
consumer life. Chinese consumers use WeChat for both shopping offline and online.
According to WeChat Economic and Social Impact Report (2017) in the China Academy
of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), the usage of WeChat Pay can
be put into nine categories (Table 3). These categories include supermarkets, online
shopping, food, travel, entertainment, beauty, government service, utilities and medical
services. Except online shopping, the rest are all about offline payments.
Online shopping on WeChat has increased from 26% in 2016 to 45.2% in 2017 (Table 3).
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This shows that online shopping trends are gradually emerging through the WeChat
platform. As people become more and more dependent on WeChat, WeChat consumption
has become natural. Therefore, for consumers, through social platforms, companies can
use a more interesting and novel way to do marketing events.
Table 3
Source: CAICT, WeChat Economic and Social Impact Report 2017
Recently, it is said that WeChat had exceeded 1 billion users (Billy, 2018). Giving this
number is very close to the overall population in China, it can suggest that almost
everyone in China is using WeChat. Due of this vast base of consumers and continuing
growing active users on WeChat, more and more companies offer their Official Accounts
on WeChat as a way to get closer to Chinese consumers.
Because of the huge numbers of users on WeChat, many marketers consider WeChat as a
unique tool to promote their goods and services and engage customers to interact with
their brands. It is reported that 1.5 million registered enterprises presented on WeChat
(CAICT, 2017), and they have use Official Account to interact with users. Based on the
CAICT report (2017), WeChat’s Official Accounts have been satisfactory to these
enterprises’ operation and 34% of them mentioned that the usage of WeChat Official
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Accounts enabled them to decrease costs by more than 30%.
Official Accounts can provide information and service directly to the consumers in
WeChat. They are similar to an official web page on the internet, but they do more than
just provide information. Official Account can gather consumers, push notifications about
their updating products, and redirect them to a website or e-commerce (Thomas, 2017).
Through using Official Account on WeChat, companies can become closer to consumers
to share information with them instantly and receive direct feedback. At the same time,
for consumers, subscription to Official Accounts have become an essential means of
access to information and services.
Currently, Official Accounts support various online services. WeChat users can subscribe
different types of Official Accounts according to their preferences. In the table 4, it is
clear to see that there was a general rise in Official Accounts’ subscription in 2017.
Among them, the rate of Official Accounts in hobbies and news has approached 40
percentage, and there is an increasingly growth in personal services, which increased
from 14% to 23.9%.
Table 4
Source: CAICT, WeChat Economic and Social Impact Report 2017
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In china, mobile payment solutions have successfully conquered the market by WeChat
Pay and Alipay. According to Global Web Index (2017), 39% of Chinese users have used
Alipay to pay for an item, while 33% of Chinese users have used WeChat Pay (Table 5). It
is obvious to see that WeChat Pay as the leading social media platform in China is
catching up with Alipay and WeChat Pay has become Alipay’s biggest competitor.
Table 5 Mobile payment services in China
Source: Global Web Index, 2017.
Although WeChat Pay was late to enter the mobile payment market, it offers similar
functions to pay but totally different shopping experiences for consumers, because the
initial market position of Alipay and WeChat pay was not the same. Alipay's advantage is
the dominance of Ali e-commence, such as Taobao, Tmall, etc., which comprise the
majority of online transactions in China. Taobao and Tmall are like the Chinese version of
Amazon, and they only accept Alipay for transaction in these online shopping platforms.
In this way, it gives Alipay a great advantage for e-commerce transactions. After more
than ten years of development, Alipay becomes more like an online bank and its security
has gain consumer trust. Consumers are more willing to put large amount of money in
Alipay due to its high security, and consider it as a "wallet" and utilize it for professional
financial services.
In contrast, consumers regard the WeChat payment function as a "purse", and use it for
smaller, daily purchase due to its convenience and social advantages. In the early days,
WeChat's Pay was born as a part of the so-called "red packet" (Chinese saying is “Hong
Bao”, is a kind of popular monetary gifts on WeChat), people can send to his or her
WeChat friends whenever and wherever. For example, husband can send to wife on their
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wedding anniversary, birthday, Valentine’s Day or some other days if he thinks it is
necessary or good to have his wife feel happy. This “red packet” has gradually become a
kind of new cultural phenomenon in people’s life.
Moreover, unlike Alipay, WeChat Pay is embedded in WeChat, which means WeChat Pay
social feature is obvious and easy to be used in people’s daily life. Thanks to WeChat
constant development, WeChat Pay can be used not only to get or send red packets among
friends, but also to pay for products and services on WeChat. In fact, since more and more
people use WeChat, and spend more time on WeChat, people has more using frequency of
WeChat Pay due to its social advantages.
For example, after payment step of WeChat Pay, the “WeChat Pay Success” page allows
users to directly follow the Official Account of the company. Official Account operators
can push new products information or promotion through Official Accounts to reach users
again. The Official Account and the Mini program can realize the association jump, this
also provides the diversified marketing support for the merchant. At the same time,
forwarding these Official Account links on WeChat has become very easy, and consumers
are willing to share shopping experience and recommend their friends’ something they
may interest. Furthermore, even if you have never made a purchase, you can still follow
the Official Account to receive new products information.
In the social media age, the shopping function on WeChat becomes an even important
attraction. As consumers become more astute, active and powerful, especially in the social
media marketing, they no longer passively receive information from the companies but
have become active participants and forces. WeChat is reinventing ecommerce and brings
new opportunities and challenges to the marketing. Therefore, it is important to
understand Chinese consumers’ shopping experience on WeChat.
1.3 A study to understand Chinese consumer’s shopping experience on WeChat
WeChat has become an indispensable platform for Chinese internet users. With the
popularization of WeChat payment, Chinese consumers have accumulated some online
shopping experiences on WeChat in the past years. WeChat places strong emphasis on social
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media interactions, which allow consumers to get to know the products (goods or service).
However, consumers' shopping experiences on WeChat are not well understood. Since the
WeChat Official Account and WeChat Pay have only been launched in the last few years, the
shopping environment on WeChat are rather immature. Therefore, it is our aim in this study
to explore and learn about the shopping experiences on WeChat from the consumers’
perspectives. In order to understand Chinese consumers’ shopping experience on WeChat
better, this paper will use e-Word of Mouth (eWOM) and e-Service Quality (e-SQ) to
analysis this new phenomenon.
Word-of-mouth (WOM) is defined as “all informal communications directed at consumers
through internet-based technology related to the usage of characteristics of particular goods
and services, or their sellers” (Litvin et al, 2008, p461). Online WOM (eWOM) can plays a
more important role in online social media compared to WOM in the traditional commerce,
as the information exchange process online becomes dynamic, and it is available to a
multitude of people and companies.
Both positive and negative WOM/ eWOM will have great influence on brand awareness.
Consumers are likely to receive and spread WOM/ eWOM on the social media. The
outcomes of users’ shopping experiences may motivate them to tell others by WOM/ eWOM.
Moreover, companies may also encourage consumers to spread positive WOM/ eWOM to
influence other consumers to come to shop. As consumers are spoiled with choice of product
and channel to shop, WOM/ eWOM can play an even important role to consumer’s
awareness and perception of product on a social media platform like WeChat. As such, we
wonder how Chinese consumers are influenced by WOM when shopping on WeChat?
At the same time, the social media platform commerce is not only an extension of
e-commerce, but also an independent channel to deliver unique value to the customers and
companies. In order to measure the overall value evaluation of service on WeChat, the
e-Service quality theory considers four dimensions of website design, fulfilment, customer
service and security. The ability of e-services is to satisfy the demands of customers, which
can help businesses in reducing service costs and obtaining more benefits (Lu & Zhang,
2003). The e-service quality can not only potentially increase the attractiveness, consumer
retention and positive word of mouth, but also maximize the competitive advantages for
e-commence (Santos, 2003). But, there is few studies to analyze these four dimensions on the
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new social media commence situation from the consumers’ perspective. How e-SQ may play
a role in influencing Chinese consumers’ shopping experience on WeChat, and what are the
aspects?
1.4 Research questions
Our aim in this thesis is to understand Chinese consumers shopping experience on WeChat.
More specifically, our research questions ask:
How do WOM/ eWOM influences Chinese consumers on their shopping experience
on WeChat, and what aspect of the e-SQ may affect Chinese consumers’ shopping
experience on WeChat?
1.5 Outline of the study
In the next chapter, we introduce WOM/ eWOM and e-SQ as our theoretical frameworks. In
chapter three, we explain the reasoning behind choosing a single-case qualitative study for
this research. We also explain how we design our data collection through interviews, how we
analyze the data, and our reflections on the reliability and validity of this study. Chapter four
provides a delineation of the empirical data gathered in the research. Here, findings are
presented about the power of WOM/ eWOM and e-SQ in influencing consumer’s shopping
experience in WeChat. Chapter five includes analysis and discussion about WOM arouses
Chinese consumer’ awareness to shop product on WeChat, factors influence Chinese
consumer’s shopping experience on WeChat, challenges and opportunities to WeChat as a
purchasing platform, and innovative products and way to keep further relationship. In last
chapter we conclude this thesis, and we also include managerial implication, and limitation.
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2. Theoretical background
In this chapter, the theoretical framework is presented in two parts. First part outlines the
effects of word of mouth (WOM/ eWOM), which will help companies identify the factors
influencing potential buyers’ attention. Second part is about four dimensions of e-service
quality, which will may affect consumers’ purchasing decisions.
2.1 Word of mouth (WOM)
2.1.1 Offline WOM
Word of mouth (WOM) is a way to exchange information among people. With the rapid
development in WOM research, (Westbrook, 1987) WOM can influence what people know,
feel and do (Buttle, 1998). WOM has a distinctive ability to affect consumer decisions
because of the perceived source credibility and the flexibility of interpersonal communication
(Richins, 1983).
The effects of word of mouth have great influential to consumers’ shopping choices (Steffes
& Burgee, 2009). As Arndt (1967) defined that the word-of-mouth process may be explained
as seeking social support and as risk reduction by group action. The main flow of word of
mouth went between would-be buyers, who seemed to tell each other: If you'll buy, I will
buy.
At the same time, WOM also has both positive and negative effect. Positive WOM is defined
as product related information transmitted by satisfied customers (Holmes & Lett, 1977). In
contrast, negative WOM is defined as interpersonal communication among consumers
concerning a marketing organization or product which denigrates the object of
communication (Richins, 1984). As Richins (1983) said, consumers’ responses often minimal,
only when the dissatisfaction is serious enough, consumers will complain about these.
Furthermore, potential consumers may be easily influenced by WOM during making
purchasing decisions (Ismagilova, 2017). As a result, when the performances of the products
or services are beyond expectation, it may appear positive WOM, and when the performances
of the products or services fall short of expectation, it may appear negative WOM (Buttle,
1998). In addition to being satisfied with the product or service itself, consumer satisfaction
with the purchase process is also crucial to positive WOM (Tanner, 1996). Negative WOM is
a response after consumers get dissatisfied experience (Richins, 1983).
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2.1.2 Online WOM (eWOM)
In the past, companies build reputations by themselves (Breazeale, 2009). However,
electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has more influential power in consumers’ purchasing
decision making than the offline WOM (Steffes & Burgee, 2009). The internet provides more
opportunities for consumers to share their experiences about the goods and services, which
lay the foundation for them to engage in electronic word of mouth communication (Hennig et
al, 2004).
The primary reasons why customers publish their experiences online are based on social
benefit, economic incentives, extraversion and concerning for others (Hennig et al, 2004).
Furthermore, they thought firms needed to develop different strategies to spread the eWOM
behavior and encourage these eWOM providers, which would bring a great success to the
firms (Ibid.). However, there are at least three challenges to measure the outcomes of word of
mouth argued by Godes and Mayzlin (2004). It is hard to gather the data or measure the
conversation contents and it is an outcome from previous sales which is not exogenous
(Godes & Mayzlin, 2004).
In addition, Lang et al argued that these eWOM behaviors are tightly related to customer
satisfaction, trust and commitment (Lang & Hyde, 2013). It is found that satisfied
experiences will lead consumers to use the way of WOM to recommend products or services
to others, however, if there are some dissatisfied experiences, consumers are also inclined to
spread negative comments to others. Furthermore, the effects of negative WOM have more
influential than positive WOM (Arndt, 1967). Therefore, it is urgent for companies to build
some channels to contact consumers directly, which may have some effect to prevent the
negative WOM (Ismagilova, 2017).
Online word-of-mouth marketing can spread products information to millions of potential
consumers in a smart way (Li et al, 2010). People also infer using others’ evaluations as a
basis for judging that products are credible or not when choosing the products (Burnkrant &
Cousineau, 1975). However, people just incline to ask for help of word of mouth
communication when evaluating unfamiliar products or brands instead of familiar ones
(Chong & Chung, 2014)
What’s more, when consumers feel uncertainty about the products or services, they also want
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to reduce some risks and anxieties by asking for WOM (Buttle, 1998). To an extent, opinion
leaders are extremely important in unfamiliar products and brands when conducting
marketing campaign (Chong & Chung, 2014). Furthermore, if the messages about products
and brands can use multiple channels to expose to the consumers, it may produce synergistic
effect to achieve the better marketing outcomes (Groeger & Buttle, 2014). At the same time,
people are more easily to be influenced by WOM to make purchasing decisions in services
rather than products (Buttle, 1998).
2.2 Dimensions of e-service quality
2.2.1 Previous researches about e-service quality
Nowadays, more and more companies are beginning to find the key determinants are not only
the nice website design or low price but also the high e-service quality (Zeithaml,2002).
There are different studies to identify the key determinants and to measure online service
quality in Table 1 (Dabholkar, 1996; Cox and Dale, 2001; Jun and Cai, 2001; Yoo and Donthu,
2001; Zeithaml et al. ,2002; Madu and Madu, 2002; Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003; Surjadaja
et al., 2003; Santos, 2003; Yang et al., 2003; Yang et al., 2004; Gounaris et al., 2005;
Parasuraman et al., 2005; Loiacono et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2006; Cristobal et al., 2007; Sohn
and Tadisina, 2008; Blut et al., 2015; Blut et al., 2015).
Table 6 The development of e-service quality dimensions
NO. AUTHORS DIMENSIONS CONTEXT
1 Dabholkar
(1996)
Speed of delivery, ease of use, reliability,
enjoyment and control. E-service
2 Cox and Dale
(2001)
Web site appearance, communication,
accessibility, credibility, understanding and
availability.
Online retailing
3 Jun and Cai
(2001)
Contents, accuracy, ease of use, timelines,
aesthetics and security. Online banking
4 Yoo and Donthu
(2001)
Overall site quality, attitude toward site, online
purchase intention, site loyalty, site equity, ease
of use, design, speed and security.
E-service
5 Zeithaml et al.
(2002)
Efficiency, reliability, fulfillment, privacy,
responsiveness, compensation and contact. E-service
6 Madu and Madu
(2002)
Performance, features, structure, aesthetics,
reliability, storage capacity, serviceability, E- quality
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security and system integrity, trust,
responsiveness, service differentiation and
customization, Web store police, reputation,
assurance and empathy.
7 Wolfinbarger
and Gilly (2003)
Fulfillment/ reliability, customer service,
personalization, usability factors (experiential/
atmospheric, ease of use, informativeness,
selection and security/ privacy.)
Online shopping
sites
8 Surjadaja et al.
(2003)
Security, interaction, responsiveness,
information, reliability, delivery, and
customization.
E-service
9 Santos (2003)
Ease of use, appearance, linkage, structure,
content, efficiency, reliability, communication,
security, incentive and customer support.
E-service
10 Yang et al.
(2003)
Responsiveness, credibility, ease of use,
reliability, convenience, communication, access,
competence, courtesy, personalization,
collaboration, security and aesthetics.
Online retailing
11 Yang et al.
(2004)
Reliability, responsiveness, competence, ease of
use, security and product portfolio.
Online shopping
sites
12 Gounaris et al.
(2005)
Information, aesthetics, user friendliness, and
user adaptation. Online retailing
13 Parasuraman et
al. (2005)
Reliability, responsiveness, access, flexibility,
ease of navigation, efficiency, assurance/ trust,
security/ privacy, price knowledge, site
aesthetics and customization/ personalization.
E-service
14 Kim et al. (2006)
Efficiency, fulfillment, system availability,
privacy, responsiveness, compensation, contact,
information and graphic style.
Online retailing
15 Loiacono et al.
(2007)
Usefulness, ease of use and entertainment. Online retailing
16 Cristobal et al.
(2007)
Web site design, customer service, assurance
and order management. E-service
17 Sohn and
Tadisina (2008)
Availability, speed of delivery, customized
communication, reliability, trust, E- service
15
appropriateness of webpage content, ease of use,
multi-functional websites
18 Blut et al. (2015) Website design, fulfilment, customer service and
security E- service
19 Blut, M. (2016) Website design, fulfilment, customer service and
security E- service
Cox and Dale (2001) proposed six dimensions which were web site appearance,
communication, accessibility, credibility, understanding and availability, to illustrate online
retailing service quality. They thought these factors were important in an online environment.
However, Jun and Cai (2001) were not totally agreed with them, and identified three
categories of the Internet banking service quality, which are customer service quality, banking
service product quality, and online systems quality. Moreover, Madu and Madu (2002)
absorbed the views of multiple researchers and identified e-quality as 15 dimensions:
“Performance, features, structure, aesthetics, reliability, storage capacity, serviceability,
security and system integrity, trust, responsiveness, service differentiation and customization,
Web store police, reputation, assurance and empathy”.
Zeithaml et al. (2002) proposed seven dimensions about e-service and they were efficiency,
reliability, fulfillment, privacy, responsiveness, compensation and contact. They separated
these seven dimensions into two categories: a core service scale for measuring the customers’
perspective (efficiency, reliability, fulfilment and privacy) and a recovery service scale for
measuring e-retailers’ service recovery (responsiveness, compensation and contact).
Santos (2003) defined e-service quality as “the consumers’ overall evaluation and judgement
of the excellence and quality of e-service offerings in the virtual marketplace”. Wolfinbarger
and Gilly (2003) also defined e-service quality as “from the beginning to the end of the
transaction, including information search, website navigation, ordering, customer service
interactions, delivery and satisfaction with the ordered product”. Wolfinbarger and Gilly
(2003) used online and offline focus groups, a sorting task and an online customer survey to
develop four factors, which were web site design, reliability/ fulfillment, privacy/ security
and customer service. Parasuraman et al. (2005) agreed with them and defined e-service
quality as the extent to which a website facilitates efficient and effective shopping,
purchasing and delivery. Kim et al. (2006) extended into nine dimensions scale from
Parasuraman et al dimensions in retailing sector.
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Gounaris et al. (2005) also found that e-service is multi-dimensional, complex and nontrivial.
They identified four dimensions of the construct: information, aesthetics, user friendliness,
and user adaptation. However, Cristobal et al. (2007) focused on service management and
also proposed four-dimension e-service quality scale that were about web site design,
customer service, assurance and order management. Furthermore, Sohn and Tadisina (2008)
identified eight dimensions to analyze the impact of e-service quality on consumers’ intention
to reuse the online platform and they thought consumers’ trust is an important dimension.
However, so far, there is no universally accepted definition in academia about the dimensions
of e-Service quality’s key determinants. Johnson (1984) also concluded that consumers are
able to evaluate their experiences in terms of specific and concrete occurrences. Currently,
Blut et al. (2015) identified the main factors influencing the customer perceptions of
e-service quality in E-service. It mentioned that within the e-service setting, consumers may
evaluate their online experiences in terms of specific attributes (1) website design; (2)
fulfilment/reliability; (3) consumer service; and (4) security.
2.2.2 Website design
Web is an important platform, through which companies can deliver services or products to
the business and individual customers (Casati & Shan, 2001). Therefore, the increasing
pressure to better understand the online quality, with the increasing expectations of online
business for the consumers (Yoo & Donthu, 2001).
As Holloway and Beatty (2008) concluded the website design dimension included consumers’
entire experience with the website, which were about navigation, information search, order
processing, shipment tracking, product availability, product and price offerings, customized
service and system availability. It related to the useful information in an easy-to-use format
(Ibid). The website design is the most important factor to influence consumers’ satisfaction
which accounts for 59.4%, and it have two categories to dominate in satisfaction which is
about ease of use and price of offerings (Ibid).
In addition, Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Malhotra (2005) summarized the Web Site features
at the perceptual attribute level and categorized them into 11 e-SQ dimensions: reliability,
responsiveness, access, flexibility, ease of navigation, efficiency, assurance, security, price
knowledge, site aesthetics and customization.
17
Overall, the website design is an important factor in determining the customers-perceived
e-service quality and it has positive impacts on the customers’ perceived e-service quality
(Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2003)
2.2.3 Fulfilment
Kim and Lee (2002) thought the reliability represented the ability of a website to fulfill orders
correctly, deliver products in time and keep consumers’ private information. According to
Holloway and Beatty (2008), the fulfilment is a kind of reliability, which means that
customers can receive what they ordered based on descriptions displayed on the website. The
fulfilment factors are included four items, which are accurate online transactions, accurate
records, correct performances and fulfillments of promise (Yang et al, 2004). Whether the
reliability can be generated by consumers or not depends on how accurate the information
provided on website is operationalized. Accurate websites provide potential consumers with
the information in both useful and reliable way, which is helpful to occur efficiency for the
company (Semeijn et al, 2005).
2.2.4 Customer service
The definition of customer service is that company can provide helpful and responsive
service when customers ask for help and returns/ complains during or after sales (Holloway
& Beatty, 2008). The responsiveness describes how often the online stores can provide
services for the customers during or after sales (Kim & Lee, 2002). Actually, responsiveness
helps companies reach consumers directly and provide the appropriate information to the
consumers. According to Yang et al. (2004), the responsiveness is the foremost critical factor
in determining the customer service quality. Furthermore, Surjadjaja et al. (2003) regard the
responsiveness as a leading determinant in e-service operations.
2.2.5 Security
Security is also very essential factor to the consumers during or after the sale, for example,
consumers are concerned that their private information is being exposed on the internet,
resulting in a lot of harassing calls and emails (Holloway & Beatty, 2008). Compared with
traditional commerce, online trust is much more important in e-commerce, because online
services and products typically are not immediately verifiable (Gefen & Straub, 2004). In
addition, the trust is important in developing a sustainable relationship among a company, its
customers, and its business partners. Therefore, trust is one of the substantial dimensions of
18
the e-service quality and the trust has positive impacts on the online buyers’ perceived service
quality (Madu & Madu, 2002).
19
3. Methodology
Our research method is introduced in this chapter. In order to find out “How do WOM/
eWOM influences Chinese consumers on their shopping experience on WeChat, and what
aspect of the e-SQ may affect Chinese consumers’ shopping experience on WeChat?”, we
present research design, data collection method, sampling and data collection, data analysis,
validity and reliability in this chapter.
3.1 Research design - Qualitative single case research
Qualitative research is an inductive approach to examine the relationship between theory and
research (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Main steps are: general research questions, selecting
relevant subjects, collection of relevant data, interpretation of the collected data, conceptual
and theoretical work and finally writing up findings. This paper will follow those steps and
analyze the findings accordingly. Our research design used qualitative research strategy by
doing a single case study.
3.1.1 Research strategy-qualitative research
Quantitative research and quantitative research are the two frequently used research strategies.
Bryman and Bell (2011:386) hold the opinion that qualitative research mainly focuses on
“words rather than quantification” in the operationalization of the research in the data
collection and analysis. Compared with quantitative research, qualitative research focuses
more on the participants’ expression and opinions, and the process of getting as much data
collection as possible to get better understanding of the reaction and ideas sharing from
research objects (Bryman & Bell, 2011). As we intend to understand Chinese consumers
shopping experience on WeChat in this paper, we consider qualitative research is a suitable
research strategy.
3.1.2 Research method-single case research
Case studies is widely used in social science (Yin, 2009). If researchers want to get a rich
understanding of the research context and process, case study strategy will be of marvelous
way for it (Morris & Wood, 1991), Robson (2002:178) defines case study as “a strategy for
doing research which involves an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary
phenomenon within its real-life context using multiple sources of evidence”. Case study used
in this paper focuses on contemporary events for our how and what research in this
dissertation.
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A single case may be chosen to use due to its typical features or because the case can offer
researchers an opportunity to find out and analyze a phenomenon that few have been
considered before (Saunders et al, 2007; Siggelkow, 2007). Single cases may be selected
“straightforwardly” (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007:27), because they are very important in
testing an already existed theory.
Our research questions focus on how and what aspect in Chinese consumers shopping
experience on WeChat. Therefore, we consider single case study research design is suitable,
and WeChat is the single case. As we put our focus on WeChat, a single case research design
can offer a valuable opportunity to reveal and understand Chinese consumers shopping
experience on a social media platform.
3.1.3 Reflection on single case study method
The adoption of a single-case study is concerned when it’s taken to use, because biases would
be caused to affect the final outcome in terms of reliability, validity, and generalizability.
However, as its proposed by Erickson (1986), the general lies in the particular and, as argued
by Silverman and Marvasti (2008:171) “generalizability is present in a single case”, and
what’s more, “Flyvbjerg (2006) regarded that the strength of a single example is
underestimated in its contribution to scientific progress” (Leoni, 2015:610). Accordingly,
adopting a single-case study research design in this paper may hinder the generalization
ability for this research. As the aim of the thesis is not to generalize our findings, but instead
to understand the specific experience Chinese consumers have on WeChat; we consider the
issue of generalization is a less concern.
3.2 Question guide design
Theory is our important guideline for our preparation of interview questions. As our above
chapter introduced, WOM plays quite important roles in brand image including both the
products and services from offline and online. There are two dimensions of WOM, good
WOM and bad WOM, those two dimensions influence consumers’ choice greatly. And,
besides of this, four quality dimensions of e-SQ from the points of the website design,
fulfillment, customer service and security also give conceptual framework for e-commerce
(Blut et al., 2015).
We design our question guide and there are eighteen questions in total. Our interview
21
questions are designed and prepared according to the two theories from their separate
dimensions. For the WOM part, we ask our interviewers how they know the product, and
whether they will share their opinion of the product once they use, for example. For the e-SQ
part, we ask our interviewees about the web design, service quality, and security etc.
Moreover, we added two other questions regarding the price perception and willingness to
buy to understand what price level that our interviewees would like to buy and how to keep
further relationship with them. Details are listed below in table 7.
Table 7 Interview Questions
Interview Questions
Background
information
Frequency
1. Besides the payment of daily necessary expense like
phone top up, water and electricity, how often do you buy
products on WeChat?
Type of
products 2. What kind of products do you often buy on WeChat?
Word of mouth
(WOM)
Offline/onlin
e WOM;
3. How do you know the products and start your first
purchase on WeChat?
4. How do you find out the products you would like to
purchase on WeChat generally?
5. Will you share with your friends if you found something
interesting and cost-effective? If yes, how will you share
it?
6. Do you think WOM may affect your choice on buying
product? And is it affects your choice of using WeChat to
buy product? Why?
E-Service
Quality
Website
design
7. Do you think is the website design affects your purchasing
willingness on WeChat? Why and how?
8. Have you ever met any case that very poor online
searching experience hindered your shopping on WeChat?
Such as of information searching, order processing or
shipment tracking, product availability. If yes, can you
share with us what happened when you surfing online?
And will this turn down your further purchasing on the
22
same website?
9. How is your general feeling of the purchasing experience
on WeChat?
10. Do you have any suggestions for WeChat to improve their
website design based on your purchasing experience?
Fulfilment
11. Could the products meet the introduction as displayed on
webpage? If not, what will you do then?
12. Could the products be received on time as you and the
seller agreed? If not, what would you do to solve and
would you do repurchase from this seller?
13. How is the delivery condition of the products you’ve
bought on WeChat? Any bad or good experience that
impressed you? If yes, what happened?
14. How is your overall impression about the fulfilment on
WeChat shopping?
Customer
Service
15. Do you have any experience of returning products on
WeChat? How is your feeling about it? If never happened
to you, why?
16. Do you require extra services besides of the process of
placing order and payment? If yes, what are they?
Security
17. Do you think is safe to share your personal information to
the company (seller) and Tencent on WeChat? Why?
18. Have you received any harassment call or message that
you think probably leaked by the seller or Tencent on
WeChat?
3.3 Pilot study
In order to find out if the prepared interview questions were easy to understand, if those
questions were logically organized, and if they were good to explore as much contribution as
possible from our interviewees, we did a pilot interview before our official interviews. This
pilot interview was done in Sweden at the preparation stage of this paper, around January of
2018.
We had two Chinese interviewees in this pilot study. One is female, she is an exchange
student in Uppsala University. Her surname is Ms. Zheng, who has two years shopping
23
experience on WeChat. She has been buying online English courses named Shanbay (a quite
popular on-line English training course) and fresh flowers on WeChat. She stopped buying
flowers after she came to Sweden, but still buying some English training courses from
Shanbay to improve her spoken English. The other one is male, named Mr. Gong, at the age
of 33. He is also an exchange student in Uppsala University. He often bought electric games
and books on WeChat. And he also shared with us that his wife had much more frequent
shopping record than him, such as fruits, clothes, flowers, kitchen tools and so on during the
time when they were in China.
After this pilot interview, we discovered that the interview questions had some problems.
Firstly, plenty of structured questions that could not explore more in-depth feedbacks to our
questions, the answer of yes or no could not stimulate further information that we expect.
Secondly, some questions were not specific enough, for example, one of our first draft
questions was: how often do you buy product on WeChat? This question was a good one but
it’s not specific enough for the authors to figure out the right interviewee for our research
questions. Because many people may pay their utilities, such as home use electricity, water
and gas three times per month, and those kind of shopping experiences on WeChat is not
what we aim to do research on. Last but not least, some professional terms such as Mini
program (a new built-in program especially for B2B and B2C business model on WeChat
developed by Tencent in January of 2017) are not well known by every of our interviewees
on WeChat, so under such kind of condition, we regarded it’s better for us to give a widely
known program or products in a commonly expressed wording or statement as an example
for them to understand. After this pilot interview, our interview questions were revised and
provided in the attached file (see above table 7 in English or appendix 1&2).
3.4 Sampling and Data collection
3.4.1 Theoretical sampling
Theoretical sampling was adopted in this single case research. Eisenhardt (1991) suggests
researchers to adopt theoretical sampling in case selection and considers opinion that
carefully choose cases based on the extent to which they may anticipate support or conflict
with existing theories. Piekkari and Welch (2011:178) also in favor of theoretical sampling
since “it enables the identification and investigation of emerging concepts in the literature;
enhances the quality of the case study evidence; and facilitates the applicability of findings to
other industry contexts”. Our research chosen interviewees who have at least two or more
years of online shopping experience (preferably on WeChat). These interviewees fit into our
24
research context, and their experiences will also enable us to analyze against the theoretical
framework.
3.4.2 Data collection
To conduct interviews, we chose to make video call to interview these interviewees, because
our interviewees are in China when during the interview. Excluding the two interviews for
the pilot study, we make another ten interviews as our official interviewees, their contribution
is recorded, transcribed, and later analyzed.
The majority of these interviewees are female (nine out of ten interviewees). This is due to
Chinese women are the main drive of online shopping in China. Below table 8 is the list of
our interviewees’ simple information. Their surnames, ages, professions and marital status are
listed and showed here after their approval.
Table 8 List of interviewees
S/N Surname Gender Age Profession Marital status
1 Huang F 27 Bank clerk Single
2 Wang F 27 Administrator in school Single
3 Yao F 30 Vice brand manager Single
4 Zhang F 27 HR staff Single
5 Zhao F 28 Bank Data analyzer Single
6 Gao F 36 Private company owner
for jewel Married, has two children
7 Ning M 32 Student Single
8 Chen F 35 middle school English
teacher Married, has two children
9 Cui F 36 Automobile brand
manager Married, has one child
10 Fang F 34 Financial Product
manager Married, has one child
Our research process was organized with two interviewers and one interviewee. One
interviewer monitored the whole interview process, and the other interviewer observed the
interviewee’s reactions and made key points of the interview. We recorded the whole
interview process after obtaining permission from each interviewee. As we told our
25
interviewees, all the records are kept confidentially, only available to the interviewers (the
two authors). The recorded would be destroyed after our transcription. The longest interview
took about seventy minutes, and the shortest interview was thirty-five minutes, average time
was fifty-five minutes.
Secondly, we transcribed the interview feedback. Since all interviews are recorded, for any
unclear part we could double confirmed with recording. All interviews were conducted in
Chinese, and transcribed into Chinese, too. For the quotations we used, we translated them
into English.
3.5 Data analysis
Data analysis is important for this research that we aimed to find out the answer to our “how”
and “what” research questions. So, it is quite important to do correct and precise analysis of
the collected data that can explain how consumers know the products and what they concern
for this research.
We used an excel file to record our interviewees’ contribution, and the same answers from
them were marked in special color or all in bold which is easier for us to find out the most
typical features based on the interview questions. After the record of this data, we transcribed
them. We conducted the transcription in several steps. Firstly, we classify the WOM influence
on how people affected, and any common and same reaction on shopping on WeChat because
of WOM, in another way, we categorize the reason why those kinds of products been chosen,
and what reasons for this. Secondly, we figure out how e-SQ works on consumers’
purchasing willingness, and what is the comment from our research. Thirdly, we review all
the other questions that not precisely followed the theories model, but also offers new ideas
from consumers that can help us to find out new proposition for this research.
3.6 Validity and reliability
LeCompte and Goetz (1982) analyzed reliability and validity from internal and external
respectively. Internal reliability in qualitative researches, for example, in this paper, we have
more than one observer in the interview and agree on what we had heard, and the content
were recorded. Any questions in understanding the interviewees’ replies, we reconfirmed
with them. While external reliability means the degree to which this study can be replicated.
In this aspect, social setting and circumstances are quite important, this paper introduces
related background information as much clear and detailed as possible for all of the different
26
interviewees.
As to the validity, there are two aspects from internal and external respectively. Internal
validity, by which they mean whether or not there is a good match between researcher’s
observations and the theoretical ideas they develop, and if the research result can be
reasonably and precisely explain the research question. Based on this, we take theoretical
sampling method to collect related data to increase our research validity.
External validity refers to degree to which findings can be generalized across social settings.
(Bryman & Bell, 2011). LeCompte and Goetz (1982) argue that external validity represents a
problem for qualitative researchers because of taking employ case studies and small samples.
External validity can be regarded as transferability of research result. In this thesis, our
research questions are defined under the social setting that people use WeChat frequently in
daily life, and this social media is started and wildly spread in China, this social media
penetrates into people’s lives by connecting people from buying and selling and sharing
information from bad to good. Our interview and research background are exactly under this
kind of circumstance.
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4. Findings
The findings are presented in this chapter, all the quotations are structured according to our
theoretical framework mentioned in above chapter.
4.1 WOM
Based on our interviews, our interviewees indicated that they learned about the products or
services on WeChat from the recommendations of the people they knew. Product or service
has been selected and shopping completed on WeChat are because of a good WOM/ eWOM,
this good WOM/ eWOM is from both offline and online, it comes from family members,
friends on WeChat, or any community or club they join on WeChat (like new moms, and fans
of a certain group: stars, cartoons, animals, etc.). At the same time, consumers would avoid
buying any products or services from this seller if they know bad WOM/ eWOM from people
they know and trust.
4.1.1 Offline WOM
Offline WOM was found very important from our interview. Our interviewees told us that
they normally have two main recommendation channels when purchasing products on
WeChat, one is from the internet and the other is from offline information sharing of their
acquaintance circle. For example, students get information from classmates or roommates,
working staffs talk with colleagues, baby moms share information with neighbors, or some
other kinds of WOM sharing. When people meet with friends, they would probably share
some interesting shopping experience, or a cost-effective product recently bought, or a very
good shopping experience from very good seller. Of course, their bad experiences normally
shared at the same time. Consumers always give up purchasing intention if any bad comment
from the people he or she trust. People often take active search for the product they have
willingness to buy after they got good WOM from friends or even they saw the products in
person.
Mr. Ning has had the experience of buying books on the WeChat recommended by his
classmate. The books he bought were needed for him to prepare for the exam of a finance
course. "This course is very difficult for me. One day, I met a very good friend who studied in
the same university as me. I told her about my troubles. Since she knows finance very well,
she recommended a relatively easy book. I then searched the book bought it on WeChat".
28
Another purchasing experience is from Ms. Gao, and it is also based on good WOM. She said
“When celebrating my daughter’s birthday with my neighbors and their kids, I praise their
daughter and her beautiful dresses. It is the very one that I would like to buy for my kid. My
neighbor later shared me with the link of that dresses on WeChat, I then bought for my
daughter, she was very happy. I also feel happy to buy the dress, it has very good quality and
good design, and the price is quite reasonable. I would like to share with my friends if they
want.”
Good WOM can lead to more purchases, while bad WOM can also lead consumers to decide
not to buy. Ms. Yao told us that she had participated in an alumni activity and met many
classmates. When she stayed with the girls, they talked about a very popular online store for
clothes, shoes, and cosmetics. “One of my classmates told us not to buy a brand of shoes from
that store. She happened to have bought a fake one, and it is totally different from one found
in a real (physical) store. I actually had the plan to buy one myself, but after hearing my
classmate’s experience, I stopped the decision and not to buy that brand of shoes."
4.1.2 Online WOM (eWOM)
In addition to the offline WOM, our interviewees also shared experience on eWOM. Some of
them have access to eWOM when they read news from Official Account of a particular
company, or see comments of these product or services shared by friends in “Moments”, or
receive directly chat messages from communicating with friends on WeChat.
Ms. Zhang told us that: “I do not have much trust in a new product if no one I know that
could give any good recommendation, I prefer to buy the one that is widely known even price
is higher, I do not care if it is in a physical store or on WeChat. But if on WeChat, I need to
confirm it is from an official channel and make sure it is true. My first shopped product is
Shanbay course, it is an online English training course, and it is recommended by my
university classmate. She had bought many phases of the courses from Shanbay, and now she
had improved a lot. She told me the content was quite interesting in a WeChat message, and
mentioned it always updated with most recent films, news and topics globally. Later I
registered an account on Shangbay and found out there are many different kinds of courses
for users to practice spoken English, written English or to increase vocabulary……It is a
very good product that I need at that moment”.
Another experience is from a mother with two children, Ms. Gao. She told us “I have a stable
29
supplier of trousers for my family. This company is known to me because of the
recommendation from a WeChat message send by my sister-in-law. The trousers I bought fit
me well and I think the price and product quality are good match. So, I kept on buying from
this seller. I also buy trousers for my husband and my children”.
More identical cases from other interviewees. Ms. Chen shared her experience: “I started my
purchasing course on WeChat after receiving a recommendation from one of my colleagues
on WeChat. As you see, I am an English teacher, and I need to find out more and more
interesting content for my students, and of course, I also need to improve myself. I spent much
time on figuring out how to get my students to get more knowledge in the shortest time.
On-line English course is quite convenient for me, and the content is very new, and it’s very
interesting. I also recommend this to my students in the WeChat group created for the class. I
hope Bohe Reading (a popular English online course on WeChat) can share more interesting
knowledge with us”.
Mr. Ning told us that “I have read some interesting information about cats, which was shared
in my friends’ Moments on WeChat. My friend’s Moments contained many cute cat pictures
and they attracted me a lot. I later followed a link in my friend’s Moments and connected to
an Official Account of “cat store” on WeChat. I bought a cat toy from this Official Account, it
looked good, as it was shown in the Official Account. I also joined their online community
(more than 1000 people) on WeChat, and found many interesting things I liked! "
4.2 E-service quality
E-SQ is found very important in the consuming process in our interviews. The feedbacks and
comments from them about the full process related with e-commerce are introduced in this
part.
4.2.1 Website design
Shopping on WeChat can be done through computer, laptop or phone, user-friendly interface
is strongly required according to our interviewees. Simple and elegant design, and convenient
payment access are the basic terms that makes people are willing to buy through WeChat. All
the ten interviewees think the interface and the convenience affects very much on their
purchasing plan.
Ms. Huang argued that “a good website design is the presentation of the company if they are
30
capable of doing marketing and business correctly. If the website is very bad, I would give up
buying anything here, as I do not think this seller can offer any good product if they failed to
provide a good online selling environment. But luckily, I haven’t met any kind of this situation
on WeChat so far”.
Similarly, a comment from Ms. Zhang shared same opinion. She told us “The design of the
log in, the display of the products and the smoothness of the surfing on line can tell if this
company is good enough. If they are good enough, they should capable of presenting the best
of their image and take most consideration about their consumers. Since it can be good
enough to win our trust, we are more willing to buy and to have further purchasing schedule
sustainably.”
The rest of the interviewees holds similar opinions. However, when consumers give up
shopping on a particular Official Account because of the bad web design, they may not
necessary give up shopping from this company all together. Ms. Gao told us that “I would
give up this particularly purchasing channel on WeChat, but I would still buy products from
other channels, may be from other online platforms, or offline real stores if their website is
very poor”.
4.2.2 Fulfillment
We found that the respondents’ comments about fulfillment on Shopping on WeChat were
very good. All respondents believe that the products purchased from WeChat have basically
met their expectations. Ms. Zhao shared with us one of her experiences buying a book on
WeChat, “the book was packaged in an extremely elegant paper and ribbons, since I had told
the seller what I bought was a gift for my friend. What’s made me feeling touching was they
sent a greeting message to me on my birthday After that shopping experience! Sometimes
they sent me voucher, and sometimes they sent me a birthday gift. They always gave me
surprise, and I felt extremely appreciated by them. I would like to keep a long relationship
with this book store.”
Moreover, our interviewees also expressed that companies can attract their attention after
sales, if they are continuing promote new and innovated products and services. Ms. Zhang
said “I spent lots time on WeChat and received information of new product from the company
that I have shopped before and followed. I would feel excited if they have new products
promoted on WeChat, I would keep on following them if they can offer new ideas or new
31
products periodically”. Similarly, Ms. Fang told us that “New products would be quite
interesting and attractive to me. I understand that it’s would be quite hard for company to
update products quite often, but innovative products and innovative marketing activities is an
amazing way to keep my attention permanently”.
4.2.3 Customer service
According to our interview, customer service was concerned before shopping started,
consumer would balance if the product demands much customer service. For buying eBooks,
online tickets, and online courses, there is little need for after sale service, such as returning
the product. As Ms. Wang told us, “I usually buy online courses, books and some food on
WeChat because you don’t need to worry about returning issue. They are commended by
friends. Those products don’t like clothes, they may have size problems and may need to be
replaced. I think if you have to return or replace the product, it is very troublesome - you need
to find the courier company, follow the delivery and confirm with the seller…… I don't like to
do this, so I prefer to buy things that require less customer service".
Others interviewees seem to hold the same opinions. Even those who have bought products
that could potentially need replacement, they felt it was fortunate that they did not need to
contact customer service. It also seems that customer service on WeChat, such as finding a
purchasing record, or contact after sale service is problematic for some consumers. Ms. Cui
said that she used to buy dresses for her daughter on WeChat, but was dissatisfied with her
purchase. Because she could not even find that purchase record on WeChat when she needed
to contact the after-sale service. In comparison, she thought that customer service on WeChat
was not as good as Taobao, which was matured in e-commerce and had much experience in
serving customers. Ms. Cui further comments that “if customer service is poor, I think most
of people would give up shopping here. Luckily, other stores on WeChat are much better than
this one.”
Perceived customer service (or the lack of it) on WeChat seems to influence the type of the
products and service consumers are interested in purchase in WeChat. According to our ten
interviewees, on-line training courses and books are the top two categories of products or
services they shop on WeChat (see Table 9). Those products seem have less concern in
relating to their delivery and return, and therefore less chance to contact customer service.
32
Table 9 Types of purchased product on WeChat
Source: Data classified by authors according to the interview
4.2.4 Security
Security about people’s private information and monetary account safety is also a focus by
our interviewees. Their phone numbers, home addresses, and bank card information are
exposed to the sellers and WeChat. All the ten interviewees think the security on WeChat is
well, and none of them had any harassment or financial loss after their shopping on WeChat.
Though, consumers still actively secure their personal information due to other concerns. Ms.
Yao mentioned: “I used to use my nickname or WeChat name (not her true name) when I buy
products, I think in this way I can greatly avoid any harassed call or message. Luckily, I
haven’t received any calls to ask to me buy books or snacks since I bought quite often of
those things on WeChat. And I haven’t lost any money though I registered my credit card
information on it, so, I think my account is secure on WeChat so far”.
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5. Analysis and discussion
In this chapter, we found out the answer to our research questions: How do WOM/
eWOM influences Chinese consumers on their shopping experience on WeChat, and
what aspect of the e-SQ may affect Chinese consumers’ shopping experience on
WeChat, which are analyzed based on our collected data.
5.1 How WOM arouses Chinese consumer’ awareness to shop product on
After interviews, we have found that both offline and online WOM play an important
role in influencing consumers’ shopping on WeChat. People are easily influenced by
the recommendations of family members and friends on social networks, so that they
will probably buy something that they never think about. Do offline and online WOM
have the same effect? The fact is not true.
Offline WOM has more influential persuading power than online WOM. Because
when people face-to-face recommend products to their friends, recommended
products are often on their hand. People can see and touch these products directly,
which can awaken their desire to buy. Sometimes, even if there is no product beside
them, people will be combined with the recommender's description, voice and facial
expression to judge whether it is worth to buy, and all these comprehensive feeling
will create a sense of trust and then make a purchase decision. What’s more, people
tend to trust their recommendations because there is no economic benefit between
their recommender and the company. After offline WOM, people can get more details
and feedbacks about the products, and they often can’t help but ask for the product
link as an end to conversation.
Furthermore, Online WOM is also not bad at all. For example, people often join a
34
special group or many groups on WeChat for those that he or she interested in. Like
new moms may organize a group to discuss new born baby’s milk powder, clothes,
shoes, toys… all things that the baby may be involved. Moms share their opinions
about the shopping and using experiences in the group on WeChat, this comment is
WOM on WeChat and can affects many other moms’ shopping choices. On the one
hand, people would like to use WOM to understand the brand and product
information and be good at catching the latest shopping trend on the social media. On
the other hand, they are very happy to share their related knowledge and experiences
to friends and netizens and are the faithful originators of WOM.
Another example, when family or friends share a good shopping experience about
some products or services they have experienced in the friends’ cycle on WeChat,
even if they don't recommend it on their mouth, people may also arouse their interests
and take the initiative to search for these products or services. As a counterexample,
when someone shares some negative information on a social platform, people will be
keen to trace their roots and understand the specific products or services to avoid
being deceived in the future.
People behave more intellectually on the Internet because there is more space to think,
rather than just being influenced by emotions. As a result, consumers are increasingly
no longer believing in advertising, but paying more attention to other consumers'
comments. At the same time, more and more consumers have developed a habit that,
when attracted by certain products or services, they are not in a hurry to buy, but to
search for comments from social media to get a comparatively objective reflect of the
product or service.
Therefore, social media like WeChat provides a more concentrated channel to
discover consumers' real experience and even some suggestions for products or
services. Through listening, companies can observe their products or services which
35
consumers like and how the price is considered. Companies can collect real feedbacks
from many living consumers through niche social media in a short period of time,
which is of great value for enterprises to understand users, improve and optimize
products or services.
5.2 Factors influence Chinese consumer’s shopping experience on WeChat
The four dimensions of website design, fulfillment, customer service and security are
all consumers' concerns when purchasing WeChat. According to our interview, these
four aspects of good experiences would assist the completing of “buying” action on
WeChat greatly, on the contrary, bad experience will seriously affect their choice of
sellers and platforms, and if any of these four factors failed to perform well,
consumers will stop buying.
5.2.1 Website design
Website design includes many aspects, such as website speed, introduction
information, purchase and payment process, information search (Blut et al., 2015),
etc., all of which are dedicated to the impression of the consumers, any bad or
unpleasant experiences may result in stopping the purchase immediately or even
permanently. This can be seen in the feedback of our interviewees. Our respondents
hold the opinion that good website design gave them trust when they selected a
product or a seller on WeChat. The trust came from the professional image that
company presented to consumers. This is easier to for us to accept and understand,
because only those professional suppliers that would concern what does customer care
and they would do and try to offer to its customer accordingly. In this way, consumers
would like to put their trust on the professional supplier. So, website design is a very
important tool for company (seller) to build trust for its customers.
5.2.2 Fulfilment
Fulfilment is an important part in the four dimensions of e-SQ. According to our
36
interviewees, they were quite satisfied about the current fulfilment status based on
their past shopping experiences on WeChat. And they expressed especially the
“unexpected surprise” and “innovative” products or ideas gave them very good
impression of fulfilment on WeChat.
The reason why the comment about fulfilment is quite high may be because of the
e-commerce business model already matured in China, company sells products from
offline and different online stores. Feedbacks from customers, good examples from
competitors or the markets stimulates them to improve their strength to attract and
maintain as many targeted customers as possible.
5.2.3 Customer service
How customer service is delivered on WeChat is important for consumers, and it
influence how they are willing to shop on WeChat, and what they are interested in
shopping. From the interview, the overall comments of customer service on WeChat is
good, except one interviewee has had a poor experience on return service of an
unsatisfying product.
However, we can find that consumers are quite cautious when selecting products on
WeChat. Firstly, they prefer to take advice from the people they trust, they know what
are good and what are their right choice, simply, they analyzed the product from the
comments of people they trust before issuing the order to seller. Secondly, some of
them prefer to choose products which does not have lots of customer service involved.
Like books, online courses, do not like cloths have size problem and so on, this is part
of the reason that why the general comment of service on WeChat is good.
5.2.4 Security
Security is important for conducting online transaction. Our interviewees seem to
show generally confident about their personal information and financial data security
37
when making purchases on WeChat. Maybe because there is a relatively long history
for them to use WeChat for paying other utilities, and consider the platform and
system WeChat has is trustworthy.
We do find consumers also take security issue on their hand and using tricks, for
example, hiding personal information, to avoid unforeseen issues that may come from
online shopping. Although these worries may not be based on actual personal
experience, but it shows consumers do feel concern about the potential security
breach, and not entirely convince how their data will be used.
38
6. Conclusion
This chapter is to summarize our study, provide managerial implication, and outline
the potential limitation of our research.
6.1 Summary of study
In recent years, WeChat shopping has become a popular shopping platform in China.
We use WOM and e-SQ theories to guide our study, and conduct a qualitative
single-case study to understand our research questions. We collect primary data
through interviews 10 people who have experience shopping on WeChat. Our findings
show consumers use WeChat to shop from receiving recommendation and from
friends, both through offline discussion, or online messages. In addition, based on
e-service quality’s four dimensions of website design, fulfilment, customer service
and security, WeChat shopping seems to deliver much satisfaction to the consumers.
At the same time, it still has areas for improvement.
6.2 Managerial implication for Official Account
WeChat has definitely become a trend in Chinese daily life. We send messages to
family and friends on WeChat instead of calling. We read news on WeChat and search
for professional information on WeChat. We pay attention to school news on WeChat
and check government policy On WeChat, we use WeChat to play and shop. Tencent
has been committed to the diversification of WeChat functions, and its function has
penetrated into every corner of our lives. It seems that we are living in WeChat world.
This means that the company has many opportunities to reach potential customers.
Therefore, how to use WeChat to strengthen the company's marketing efforts, such as
good WOM and e-SQ, and how to accurately and innovatively target the market,
should be considered by the company's management level.
First of all, as we mentioned above, WeChat faces many challenges and opportunities
39
at the same time. The challenges shared by our interviewees, such as the lack of
procurement records, limited information sharing, less matured compared with
Taobao and Jingdong, and other APPs... These points may become obstacles for
consumers to further repurchase. As mentioned in the interview, the interface and
design of the web page may prohibit those consumers from re-purchasing activities,
thus affecting the long-term relationship that the company expects. In addition, word
of mouth for these shortcomings may spread and damage trust. Therefore, from a
company perspective, how to improve website design, for example, a good
appearance and a smooth web browsing experience are necessary steps for them to
use WeChat. As online competition in China becomes more intense, it is more
important to allocate professional resources in technical work.
Secondly, through interviews, we also found that due to WOM and e-SQ, WeChat
marketing has made consumers have a huge impact on brand trust. In the rapid
changes of the media environment, the company's new marketing activities on
WeChat continue to emerge. If the company still follows past methods, such as
offering discounts, gifts and other forms to attract the attention of WeChat users,
consumers can subscribe in the short term. But in the long run, if companies don't let
consumers recognize the value of their products or services, they will lose consumers'
attention. Once the company loses their fans and fans, they lose their loyal customers.
Therefore, companies can explore new WeChat marketing strategies to meet
consumer psychological expectations. Conduct market research on WeChat, collect
marketing data, analyze consumer's personalized needs, optimize company marketing
strategy, enhance e-SQ, win more satisfaction, and maintain long-term cooperative
relationship with target customers. These are all things the company has to do.
Consumers can comment on any good or bad buying experience on WeChat and share
it with friends who might affect a group of people. Enterprises should realize the
power of WOM and try their best to make full use of good WOM through WeChat.
40
Last but not the least, Tencent itself should optimize and enrich WeChat function.
Only when the platform is favored by its large users (including consumers and
companies) can it be widely used in the business world. Therefore, in this way,
WeChat is not only a social media where people keep in touch with family, friends
and any community, but also a good platform for companies to find and maintain their
targeted customers. In this way, Tencent can expand the total number of users, from
people to companies, Tencent can charge more advertising fees as its revenue. For
companies, they can find and retain targeted customers by spending less money by
exploring marketing efforts in a more cost-effective manner. Offline advertising costs
and other online forms, such as advertisements on TV or Youku (media like YouTube
in Europe) and their own APP facilities, all costs and maintenance costs are much
higher than on WeChat. Another aspect for consumers is that by searching the
company's Official Account, they get the most reliable information and share it with
friends, making it easier for them to find the product or brand they want. This
situation is not only a win-win situation, but also a win-win-win situation for three
parties: WeChat developers – Tencent, enterprises users -sellers, and individual users -
consumers, this seems to be a fairly modern and ecological business system.
6.3 Limitation
This research is done based on Chinese consumers on WeChat in Chinese market, its
background is Chinese business environment where the social media - WeChat
originated and most widely used. All the factors we considered are focused on China,
so, in this way, the limitation can be easily seen that our research and findings only
limited to China, may not be suitable for other countries. With more market
development of WeChat in more and more countries globally, further research on the
factors of consumer behavior in other countries can be developed and explored to
supplement the limitation of this research. Different cultures may raise different
demands and consuming habits under different economy and technology development.
41
China is a typical business world in current global business environment, but it does
not represent the local characteristics of other countries.
42
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Appendix 1
Interview Question (English Version)
Interview Questions
Background
information
Frequency
1. Besides the payment of daily necessary expense like phone
top up, water and electricity, how often do you buy
products on WeChat?
Type of
products 2. What kind of products do you often buy on WeChat?
Word-of-m
outh
(WoM)
Offline/online
WoM;
3. How do you know the products and start your first
purchase on WeChat?
4. How do you find out the products you would like to
purchase on WeChat generally?
5. Will you share with your friends if you found something
interesting and cost-effective? If yes, how will you share
it?
6. Do you think WoM may affect your choice on buying
product? And is it affects your choice of using WeChat to
buy product? Why?
E-Service
Quality
Website
design
7. Do you think is the website design affects your purchasing
willingness on WeChat? Why and how?
8. Have you ever met any case that very poor online
searching experience hindered your shopping on WeChat?
Such as of information searching, order processing or
shipment tracking, product availability. If yes, can you
share with us what happened when you surfing online?
And will this turn down your further purchasing on the
same website?
53
9. How is your general feeling of the purchasing experience
on WeChat?
10. Do you have any suggestions for WeChat to improve their
website design based on your purchasing experience?
Fulfilment
11. Could the products meet the introduction as displayed on
webpage? If not, What will you do then?
12. Could the products be received on time as you and the
seller agreed? If not, what would you do to solve it and
would you do repurchase from this seller?
13. How is the delivery condition of the products you’ve
bought on WeChat? Any bad or good experience that
impressed you? If yes, what happened?
14. How is your overall impression about the fulfilment on
WeChat shopping?
Customer
Service
15. Do you have any experience of returning products on
WeChat? How is your feeling about it? If never happened
to you, why?
16. Do you require extra services besides of the process of
placing order and payment? If yes, what are they?
Security
17. Do you think is safe to share your personal information to
the company (seller) and Tencent on WeChat? Why?
18. Have you received any harassment call or message that you
think probably leaked by the seller or Tencent on WeChat?
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Appendix 2
采访问题 (Interview questions in Chinese Version, used for the interview)
采访问题
背景介绍
购买频率
1. 除了日常的电话充费、水电煤还款之外，你一般大概
多久使用微信购物一次？
产品类别 2. 你在微信上通常都会买什么样的产品？
口碑 线上线下口碑
3. 你是怎么知道你在微信上购买的产品的？又是如何
开始在微信上开始购物的？
4. 在微信上，你通常是如何寻找你打算购买的产品的？
5. 如果你在微信上发现一些很有趣的产品或者是性格
比不错的东西，你是否会与你的家人或者朋友来分
享？如果会，你会通过什么方式来分享？
6. 你认为口碑会影响你对产品品牌的选择吗？会影响
你在微信上的购物吗？为什么？
电商服务
质量
网站设计
7. 你认为网站设计会影响到你的购物意愿吗？为什
么？会如何影响你？
8. 你是否遇到过很难在网上找到你想要的的产品购买
信息，比如产品信息、订单处理、运输跟踪信息、产
品是否有货，这些不好的情况是否会使你放弃在微信
上购物？为什么？
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9. 针对网页设计这方面，你对微信平台购物总体感受如
何？
10. 根据你的购物经验，针对网页设计方面，你对微信上
的企业公众号有什么建议？
订单执行和完
成
11. 根据你在微信上的购物经验，你所购买的产品是否符
合你在网上看的照片和内容介绍？如果不符合，你通
常会怎么做？
12. 你在微信上购物通常都能根据你与卖家约定的时间
准时到货吗？如果不能，你一般都怎么处理？你后续
还会继续在这家购买吗？
13. 你在微信上的购物的运输情况怎么样？有没有什么
比较好或者比较差的经历让你记忆深刻？如果有，能
否与我们分享一下你的故事？
14. 你对微信购物方面总体的订单执行和完成情况有什
么感受？
客户服务
15. 你在微信上是否有过退换货的经历？如果有，你有什
么感受？如果你从未经历过，请问是为什么？
16. 在微信上购物，除了处理订单和付款外，你对微信客
户服务是否还有其他要求，是哪些？
安全性
17. 你认为在微信上购物，需要提供姓名、住址、电话以
及信用卡是否安全给腾讯以及卖家，这样是否安全？
为什么？
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18. 你是否在微信上购物后收到过骚扰信息和电话？如
果有，你是否觉得是腾讯或者你所购买的企业泄漏了
你的信息？
