网络零售中的新客户与老客户购买行为差异:基于淘宝网的实证对比研究

The Initial Buyers and Repeat Buyers in Online Retailing: an Empirical Study based on TaoBao.com

网络零售中新客户与老客户的行为差异性,与传统零售相比更为显著也更有规律。基于"锚定与调整"的理论架构,本文结合网络零售的特征,对网络零售中的新客户与老客户购买行为的服务需求进行了分析,并基于淘宝网的数据进行了实证对比研究。研究结果表明,商家的信息获取服务、商品比较服务、信用保障服务、售后支持服务都对新客户和老客户的购买行为造成了显著区别。其中,新客户对商家的信息获取服务、信用保障服务、售后支持服务的需求较老客户的大;而老客户则对商家的商品比较服务有着更大的需求。本研究对更好地认识网络零售中新客户与老客户购买行为差异的差异,进而指导网络商家更有效地运营有着重要意义。

With the rapid growth of online businesstocustomer （ B2C ） ecommerce, many researchers are in terested in the service quality of online retailers. Some researchers suggested that service quality is one of the signif icant determinants of online retailers＇ success. There are two reasons ： 1 ） online retailers＇ service quality direcflyin fluences buyers＇ purchase and repurchase intention in key determinant to attract potential buyers. In this online retailing. 2）Online retailers＇ service quality is also the regard , understanding the buyers＇ expectation of service quality is critical for online retailers for to attract potential buyers and retain repeat buyers. In the traditional retailing market, understanding the differences between initial buyers and repeat buyers is very important for the retailers to take differentiated marketing and management activities. Although most of the knowledge about this difference between initial buyers and repeat buyers can be transferred to online marketing to guide the operation of online retailer, we have to agree that online markets are significantly different with traditional markets in terms of shopping environment, transaction process, consumer decision making process et al. It is rea sonable to doubt if we can simply copy the method of traditional market to manage the initial buyers and repeat buy ers to online. As the best of our knowledge, there is very few research differentiates the initial buyer and repeat buyers in the online retailing customer relationship management. With the rapid development and maturing of the online retailing market in China, it is necessary to study the differenceservice requirements between initial buyers and repeat buyers in the online retailing context. In the prior researches, many researchers studied online service quality focused on the perceptions of all cus tomers. Furthermore, some researchers focused on the different needs of the online retailers＇ service quality between the loyal customers and information searchers from Internet users＇ perceptions. Unfortunately, the role of customers experience is always not been taken seriously in online retailing. In this paper, we focus on the perspective of on line retailers to investigate the influence of customers＇ direct experience in online purchase intention, which is help ful for online retailers to promote differently when they try to retain repeat customers or attract initial customers. Based on the theoretical framework of ＂anchoring and adjustment＂, this paper analyzes the different services re quirements between initial buyers and repeat buyer by combining the characteristics of online shopping. The serv ices we examined in this paper include information retrieval services, product comparison services, reputation sys tems services and postpurchase services obtained according to buyers＇ purchase process. Four pairs of hypothesis are put forward based on the theoretical analysis and comprehensive literature review. Our empirical test is followed with the data from Taobao. com. We collect 2384 online retailers＇ information from Nov, 2010 to Sep, 2011, totally 27562 observations are involved. The panel regression results indicate most of the hypotheses are supported. In more detail, there are significant different service needs between initial buyers and repeat buyers. Online retailers＇ information retrieval services, reputation system services and postpurchase services have bigger impacts on initial buyers＇ purchase behavior than repeat buyers＇. Meanwhile, online retailers＇ product comparison services have more influence on repeat buyers＇ purchase behavior than initial buyers＇. These findings have some contributions on expanding the application of the ＂anchoring and adjustment＂ frame work and guide online retailers＇customer relationship management activities. With limited resources, when there are more initial buyers than repeat buyers in an online retailer, the retailer should pay more attention to build solid rep utation records and postpurchase services to buyers. When there are more repeat buyers than initial buyers, the re tailer may need to offer more information retrieval services and product comparison services to buyers. Furthermore, the adjustments should be dynamically changed with the retailers＇ customer relationship management in the different stages of retailers＇ development.