Understanding of Chinese Consumer Behavior at Community Stores: The Case of Wal-Mart

Chan ZHANG, Yuerong ZHOU

Abstract


As living standards and consumption power increase, consumers’ purchasing power grows, becomes more diverse and complex, causing the community stores to react creating value for communities facing massive challenges. This paper is based on quantitative and qualitative methods, using both questionnaires and grounded theory. The objective of the research was to discover the rationale of Chinese consumers consumption patterns at Wal-Mart, and to map the influencing factors conditioning consumer behavior at Wal-Mart. Our study identifies five influencing factors, including pragmatic awareness, personalization, online store, word of mouth as well as engagement and experience. The study also targets the problems existing in consumer behavior (such as low engagement for its membership and fraud issues) to offer managerial recommendations for community stores to enhance consumer engagement, enhance customer’s satisfaction and consolidate their loyalty.


Keywords


Wal-Mart; Consumer purchasing behavior; Membership system improvement; Community store

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/13229

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