Chinese Cross-Border Online Shopping through Agents from Sweden –An Exploratory Study of the Determinants of

Abstract

This study focuses first on identifying the main characteristics of the seldom researched particular type of Chinese cross-border online shopping, Daigou, in which Chinese consumers purchase foreign products through commercial-oriented agents living abroad (Sweden in our study). Such findings came from a series of pre-studies including interviews with two agents in Sweden and two customers in China, non-participant observations of the two agents’ WeChat1 accounts, and netnographical investigation of customer feedbacks on one agent's Taobao2 online shop. They show the central role of the agent and the direct person-to-person interaction between agent and customers. Further, they uncover a favorable image of Sweden among Chinese consumers who shop Swedish products through Daigou. Based on the findings from the pre-studies and literature review, two models were developed which examine how satisfaction respectively repurchase intention are influenced in the context of Chinese cross-border online shopping through agent in Sweden. A web survey was carried out in order to test the two models. Results show that although trust in the agent, country image and perceived social value were found to be all positively and significantly influencing both satisfaction and repurchase intention, their importance emerged to be different. For satisfaction, trust in the agent is the most important and country image the least important determinant; while for repurchase intention, country image was found to be the most important and trust in the agent the least important determinant. From a theoretical perspective, our research fills up the research gap of this ever-growing consumption behavior among Chinese consumers, which has not yet been paid attention to and develops the definition of retail agent. From a practical perspective, the results from the quantitative study could be useful for Swedish retailers/producers who seek to extend their customer base in China but doesn’t want to take risks and high investments of a traditional market entry.