Applying a cultural perspective to promote cross border e-commerce product sales for Chinese consumers

Abstract

The development of cross-border e-commerce platforms has greatly facilitated cross-border purchasing and selling. However, in today's highly information-saturated market environment, the key to any enterprise's success lies in deeply understanding and interpreting consumers, especially when dealing with consumers from different countries. Different countries have their own unique cultures and values, which profoundly influence local people's purchasing behavior. Cultural value differences present numerous challenges and limitations for enterprises engaging in cross-border e-commerce activities. For example, varying cultural values can affect consumers' expectations regarding product quality, brand trust, and shopping experience, thereby influencing their purchasing decisions. Additionally, these cultural differences may lead to failures in market promotion and communication strategies, thus impacting the success rate of market entry. Previous research has primarily focused on the impact of objective factors on purchasing behavior, such as service quality and product performance, while neglecting the influence of subjective factors like cultural values. However, cultural values are equally crucial in determining whether a product can gain consumer favor. Therefore, to truly penetrate the Chinese market with Thai products, Thai enterprises must analyze the cultural factors of Chinese consumers to develop products and marketing strategies that meet their needs. This study aims to explore the key cultural factors influencing Chinese consumers' purchase of Thai products, revealing the importance of these factors in the cross-border e-commerce environment, and providing effective market entry strategies and marketing recommendations for Thai enterprises. This study used Thai latex pillows as a case study, and collected online review data from the Tmall Global platform using Python software. Applying the grounded theory methodology and encoding data with Nvivo11.0, combined with Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, this study explored the cultural factors influencing Chinese consumers' purchasing behaviors. The research focused on Hofstede's five cultural dimensions: Power Distance, Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Femininity, and Long-term Orientation, to reveal how they shape the purchasing decision process of Chinese consumers. Furthermore, by employing a combination of expert scoring and keyword analysis methods, this study identified and quantified the specific impact of these cultural factors and their sub-factors on consumer purchasing decisions, thereby providing precise market entry and marketing strategy recommendations for Thai enterprises. The results of the study show that the key cultural factors that influence Chinese consumers to buy Thai products are long-term orientation, collectivism and power distance. Long-term orientation highlights consumers' emphasis on long-term interests; the conformity factor in collectivism emphasizes the importance of group norms; power distance reflects the influence of brand and authority on purchasing decisions.The findings not only reinforce the application value of Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory in analyzing consumer behavior in specific markets but also provide important insights for cross-cultural marketing strategies. This is especially valuable in helping Thai enterprises develop e-commerce marketing strategies based on cultural understanding. Keywords: Cultural perspective, Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, 4C theory, Chinese consumer, Cross-border e-commerce