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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) inthe 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
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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-serviceand 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.
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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
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the e-service quality and the trust has positive impacts on the online buyers’ perceived service quality (Madu & Madu, 2002).
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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".
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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
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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
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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
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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.
