How Group Leaders Build Stable Community Buying Groups:A Perspective Based on the Differential Mode of Association

Since 2016,community group buying has grown significantly in China,largely driven by its efficient logistics,supply chains,low prices,and convenience.This model has been further popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic due to its effectiveness in meeting daily needs while minimizing human-to-human contact.A key component of this business model is the“group leaders”-influential individuals within a community responsible for managing group buying activities,which include order collection,supplier liaison,and goods distribution.Their primary task is to form and sustain a reliable community group buying consortium,a task that demands excellent organizational and interpersonal skills.This paper examines this phenomenon using the lens of the differential mode of association,a theoretical model explaining interpersonal relationships in traditional Chinese society.The research indicates that group leaders,through regular interaction with consumers,are able to alter their social network position,increase their influence,understand consumer needs,provide satisfying services,and enhance trust,thereby transforming consumers into loyal group buying participants.This transformation not only brings stability to group buying activities but also reinforces the community influence of group leaders,thus fostering the growth of community group buying.

Determinants of Online Buying Behaviour of Social Media Users in Cameroon

Online shopping in Cameroon is growing rapidly and gaining considerable ground.The phenomenon is relatively new as compared to the traditional brick-and-mortar store(serving customers face-to-face in a building rather than online).As the world faces digital transformations,businesses in Cameroon are seeking new ways to reach their customers and create favourable environments to effectively carryout online purchase.This study examines the factors that affect consumer online buying behaviour in Cameroon.Three theories guided this investigation:the Technology Acceptance Model(Davis,1989),Diffusion of Innovations Theory(Rogers,1995),and Uses and Gratifications Theory(Katz&Blumler,1974).The study focuses on students of the University of Buea who carry out online shopping.Purposive sampling is used,and data are collected from 365 respondents through a questionnaire with open and closed ended questions.Analysis of data is done with the use of the Statistical Package for Social Scientists(SPSS)Version 21 to determine the types of products consumers buy online;the degree to which consumer trust and satisfaction affect consumer loyalty;and the specific social,economic,and market factors that affect online buying behaviour.Findings indicate that:Consumers mostly buy fashion items(74.3%),electronics(44.7%),cosmetics(37.3%),and house equipment(34%)online.Consumers will repeat purchase from a marketer if they trust and are satisfied with the product and service quality(81.1%);hence,they will also encourage others to buy.If they are dissatisfied,they will not repeat purchase from the online store.Advertisement(76.1%),attractive pricing/discount(71.7%),product quality(71%),service quality(64.1%),convenience(72.3%),available income/money(49.6%),word of mouth recommendation(41.9%),and personal motivation(62.7%)constitute the major factors that affect consumer online buying behaviour.Results of the hypotheses testing show that:H1=Consumers buy more of fashion items online(X^(2)=9.950;df=16;p=0.869);H2=There is a significant relationship between trust and satisfaction and consumers online buying behaviour(X^(2)=270.765;df=16;p=0.000);and H3=Social,economic,and market factors significantly affect consumer online buying behaviour(X^(2)=106.328;df=16;p=0.000).The study recommends online marketers to develop their marketing strategies towards customer orientation and focus on the ease of use of their online shopping services.

Panic buying? Food hoarding during the pandemic period with city lockdown

Food hoarding is prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic.To investigate the mechanism of urban consumers’food hoarding behaviors,we categorize hoarding motives into rational and irrational ones.Using random online survey samples from three cities in China,we employ the multivariate probit model to investigate the rational and irrational motives on food hoarding behavior.Our results confirmed the existence of both rational and irrational food hoarding,and also found factors attributing to the different buying behaviors.The amount of food at hand and the expectation on the infection possibility of COVID-19 are two major factors affecting rational hoarding.Bad mood and herd psychology are factors contributing to panic buying.This study provides an empirical evidence to support intervention policies aiming at mitigating panic buying behavior.

Buying Behavior Under Coronavirus Disease(COVID-19)Pandemic Situation:A Online Perspective Case in Bangladeshi Shoppers

Coronavirus disease(COVID-19)is an highly infectious respiratory disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus.Most people infected by the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment;a portion of infected people may die.Under coronavirous disease pandemic situation,human normal life,movement and business has been disturbed due to lockdown and closing of shopping malls and business centers in the city.Nowadays,e-commerce is a vigorous tool for diminishing streaming business processes,cycle time,organizational costs,stay at home,maintain social distancing,protect from virus,and enlightening associations with both shoppers and business partners.The research investigated the buying behavior of Bangladeshi shoppers under coronavirus disease(COVID-19)pandemic situation in case of online perspective.The research reconnoitered the impact of five aspects:health aspect,price aspect,product aspect,trust aspect,and place aspect on online buying behavior under coronavirus disease(COVID-19)pandemic situation in Bangladesh.Data were collected through a structured questionnaire by online survey method from 155 samples which encompass online shoppers in country.Simple random sampling technique were used.Data were analyzed using factor analysis,reliability analysis,and multiple regression analysis.Findings revealed that four out of five aspects:health aspect,price aspect,product aspect,and place aspect had a positive and significant influence on online buying behavior under coronavirus disease(COVID-19)pandemic situation in the perspective of Bangladesh.The assessment generates responsiveness among online practicing companies,researchers,managers,shoppers,and prospects online buyers.Online functioning businesses could be a successful leading aspects for explaining online buying behavior under coronavirus disease(COVID-19)pandemic situation in the context of Bangladesh.

Mindfulness: Helps Curb Impulsive Buying Through Improving Self Control

“People spend 46.9%of their waking hours thinking about something else other than what they are doing and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy”(Killingsworth&Gilbert,2010).An antidote to this mind-wandering is“Mindfulness”;derived from ancient Buddhist tradition it refers to an open and non-judgmental form of awareness that is centered on present moment experiences considering both internal and external environment(Kabat-Zinn,2003).Existing research suggests mindfulness increases self-regulation of attention and self-control(Razza et al.,2015;Panek,Bayer,Cin,&Campbell,2015).Past research has also suggested mindfulness as a long-term solution to obesity and over-eating(Herpel et al.,2015;Bahl,Milne,Ross,&Chan,2013).This research suggests mindfulness as a way of improving self-control among consumers and contributes to making a more discerning customer.In my research,I suggest mindfulness as a way to improve self-control and reduce the susceptibility of a consumer to advertising effects,promotion price effects,and impulse buying behavior.We also suggest mindfulness as an intervention to reduce the over-spending problem in consumers.Elaboration likelihood model of persuasion(ELM)forms the theoretical basis of our research.ELM suggests two ways of information processing,central route,and peripheral route.In central route processing,customer evaluates communication by the logic of the argument presented.In peripheral processing,customer relies on peripherals like the attractiveness of source of information and other such peripherals to process information(Petty&Cacioppo,1984).The mindful customer is more likely to use central route than the peripheral route of information processing(Schramm&Hu,2014;Dong&Brunel,2006;Panek et al.,2015).Due to the difference in information processing,the mindful customer may not be influenced by peripheral cues of marketing like advertising and price promotions.We examine the differential effects of mindfulness vs.non-mindful consumers’response to marketing messages,through a series of experiments.This research also suggests mindfulness as a way to protect consumers against marketing enticements and improve their self-control against the harmful behavior of impulsive buying and overspending.The research also has implications for improving general happiness in the consumer.Since past research suggests,mind wandering leads to unhappiness in people(Mathew et al.,2010).

Study of Influencing Factors on ConsumerOnline Impulse Buying

The convenience and anonymity of online shopping have stimulated people＇s impulse buying tendency. Impulse buying is notonly a competitive method for businesses, but also a crucial factor influencing sales of e-commerce. Based on a systematic reviewof literatures, this paper explores factors affecting the online impulse buying. Moreover, by using the S-O-R model, this paperdescribes the formation mechanism of the online impulse buying behavior. At Last, it points out issues worthy of future studies.For example, this paper suggests to take into consideration of sociocultural impact and to put more emphasis on empirical studies.

How far has panic buying been studied?

BACKGROUND Although panic buying(PB)is a ubiquitous behavior,it became prominent during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.However,studies are inadequate to explore the different aspects of it,even though it covers several perspectives of life and academic domains.AIM To assess the research that have been conducted on PB.METHODS A search was conducted to identify the articles in PubMed,PubMed Central,Scopus,and Google Scholar using the search term“panic buying”on November 15,2020.A total of 104 articles was extracted from the initial search.After removing duplicates and initial and full-text screening,42 articles were included in the study.We only considered peer-reviewed published articles that can be downloaded in a full portable document format.Articles published in other languages and preprints were excluded.RESULTS Among the 42 articles,27 were original contributions,6 were correspondences,3 were commentaries,3 were review articles,and there was one each for editorial,opinion,and discussion type of articles.Several domains have been researched such as psychology,responsible factors,supply chain,management,disaster preparedness,e-commerce,consumer behavior,marketing,prevention strategies,media,social network,economics,personality,and engineering.Authors from several disciplines,such as psychiatry,management,economics,business,sales and marketing,consumer behavior,public health,communication,information management,sociology,engineering,business administration,psychology,nursing,health economics,food policy,epidemiology,and community health,have been studied it.Definition,causative model,econometric model,controlling strategy,and measuring instrument have been reported.A total of 18 papers had cross-country collaboration,and ten were funded projects.Most of the authors were affiliated with the institutions of Australia,Bangladesh,China,India,Singapore,and the United States.CONCLUSION PB is a relatively newer concept to get the attention of the research community.Further robust studies with replication of the findings are warranted to explore,predict,and control during crises.

Evaluation of the mood repair hypothesis of compulsive buying

Compulsive buying (CB) is a proposed disorder of dysregulated buying behaviour that is associated with high rates of Axis I comorbidity, particularly depression and anxiety. It has been proposed that purchasing behaviours may serve as a maladaptive means of alleviating negative affect in vulnerable individuals. The aim of the current study was to experimentally manipulate affect to test this mood repair hypothesis. Compulsive buyers (n = 26) and pathological gamblers (n = 23) diagnosed using structured clinical interviews (SCID) and healthy controls (n = 24) were randomly assigned to either a negative or positive mood-induction procedure (MIP) and participated in an experimental buying task. Results revealed that, irrespective of mood induction condition, compulsive buyers reported a greater urge to acquire items, purchased more items, and spent a greater total amount of money during the buying task when compared to the healthy control group. Compulsive buyers were also faster than pathological gamblers in making decisions to purchase, even after controlling for motor impulsivity (BIS). There was, however, no main effect of mood-induction condition or group by condition interaction. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Marketing Factors Affecting Middle Class Consumer’s Buying Decision in Housing Market in Nanning City

It is important to study the relationship between marketing factors and purchase decisions of middle-class consumers in Nanning housing market.This study will investigate the factors influencing people decision to purchase houses in Nanning City.The extrinsic housing attributes at this study consist of environmental attributes and location attributes.I have a limited understanding of the purchase behavior of Nanning home buyers in Nanning City.This study adopts the data collection methods of e-mail and field survey.Based on 509 questionnaires,the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics analysis and logistic regression.The results show that location attributes,such as school districts,positively influence housing purchase decisions in Nanning City.This study contributes to an improved understanding of home buyers’decision making in Nanning City.The beneficiaries of this study include home buyers and marketers and academic institutions.To better meet home buyers’needs and achieve a competitive advantage,marketers can use the research outcomes to focus more on those housing purchase factors that significantly influence house buyers’purchase decision making.

Lesson 12:Buying a Train Ticket

I.Dialogue琳达:请问去广州坐哪趟车合适?Linda:Qingwen,qu Guangzhou zuo na tang cheheshi?Linda:Excuse me,which passenger train go toGuangzhou?

On the Criminal Responsibility of Buying Abducted Women or Children: The Human Dignity Perspective

Buying and selling abducted women or children are symmetrical crimes, but the “the same punishment for the same crime” is not applied. The focus of the criminal punishment for buying abducted women or children is not about increasing the statutory sentence, but strengthening judicial and law enforcement, to increase the prosecution rate and impose combined punishment for several crimes including the buying of abducted women or children and other subsequent crimes, so as to demonstrate the inevitability of criminal punishment. Human dignity is the core legal interest violated by the crime of buying abducted women or children. The specific legal interest is that humans are not for sale, which should be valued and protected independently in criminal law. This crime is a type of behavioral offense rather than a crime of circumstances. Under normal circumstances,neither the consent of the victim nor the goodwill of the purchaser excludes conviction of the crime. Compared with the crime of abducting and trafficking women or children, buying abducted women or children is not necessarily a serious crime, and the basic statutory punishment of less than three years is reasonable. However, it is possible to appropriately raise the sentence to less than five years in legislation.Where subsequent behaviors do not constitute a crime, they can be used as aggravating circumstances for the crime, and an aggravated statutory sentence can be configured to connect with the statutory punishments for the crime of abducting and trafficking women or children.

Research on the Development Status of Community Group Buying in Sinking Market

Community group buying is a brand-new retail model,and this retail model is not limited to the first-and second-tier cities in China,and has gradually penetrated into the sinking market.The sinking consumer market is changing with each passing day,and community group buying will surely usher in more help in the promotion and application of sinking market areas.The network platform of community group buying also gives full play to the resource advantages of"internet plus",expands the sales of fresh agricultural products,and constantly improves logistics problems to meet the consumer demand of sinking market.This paper introduces the development status of community group buying in China's sinking market,analyzes the existing problems and puts forward corresponding suggestions,and then looks forward to the future development of the industry.Finally,the future development of community group buying platform in the sinking market is prospected.

Buying With Confidence

Chinese women revel in their new spending power NOT long after the Spring Festival comes the first holiday of the Year of the Rabbit -International Women’s Day on March 8. Established about a century ago to honor working women,the holiday is now an im-

Buying into Change

Chinese spread their wings and open their wallets during the Spring Festival

Provoking Buying Behaviors Amid Crises:Unfolding the Underlying Mechanisms of Psychological Impairments

Crises in the past have caused devastating,long-lasting impacts on the global economy.The after-effects always bring some dynamic and rigorous challenges for businesses and governments.Such challenges have always been a point of discussion for scholars.The recent COVID-19 pandemic emaciated the global economy,leaving everyone mired in uncertainty,fear,and psychological impairments.One of the headwind features utilized by consumers during pandemic was panic buying(PB),which must be explored in various contexts for policymakers and practitioners.To address this gap,this study deployed a moderated mediation mechanism,integrating the health belief model(HBM)and competitive arousal theory(CAT)to excavate the notions underlying PB with the intrusion of evolved real-time psychological disorders:intolerance of uncertainty(IU)and cyberchondria(CYC).The study was conducted as a natural experiment in a South Asian developing economy using online surveys.It found that health beliefs—perceived severity(PSV)and perceived susceptibility(PSC)—positively impact perceived arousal(PA),which causes PB,and that PA has a sturdy mediator role.Moreover,in the relationship between health beliefs and arousal,the different psychological disorders were found to have significant moderating roles The study findings can help mitigate risk uncertainties and panic situations and thus contribute to consumers’wellbeing.

Group Buying of Competing Retailers with Fairness Concerns

The fairness concern behavior is particularly common among members in supply chain framework.The downstream retailers often compare their profits with those of the other members in the supply chain,especially that of the supplier,and do not like the unfavorable distribution of the total profits.This work considers a supply chain consisting of a supplier and two competing retailers with fairness concerns.The supplier offers a wholesale contract with quantity discount,and the two competing retailers have the options of individual purchasing and group buying.Through a Stackelberg game model,the optimal decisions for the players are obtained for the group buying and the individual purchasing strategies.The results indicate that the supplier benefits more than the retailers from the group buying strategy.In particular,the group buying strategy gives the supplier a higher profit if the operational cost of group buying is below a threshold.Furthermore,the fairness concern behavior of the retailers does not always hurt the profit of the supplier.Specifically,the supplier will benefit from the fairness concern behavior of the retailers in individual purchasing when the retailers operates in a relatively poor environment.Finally,market competition between the two fairness concerned retailers does not always benefit the supplier.Fierce competition between the fairness concerned retailers reduces the supplier's profit if the group buying strategy is used when the retailers operates in a relatively poor environment.

CONSUMER-DRIVEN GROUP BUYING： TRICK OR TREAT TO RETAIL STORES？

Group buying （GB） has emerged and evolved into various forms over the past decade. We investigate a distinct form of GB, namely consumer-driven group buying, whereby some consumers form purchase groups to visit stores together and negotiate for discounts. We refer to these consumers as GB consumers that differ from regular consumers who visit stores individually and pay regular prices. Visited by a purchase group, a store has to make an immediate decision to serve their demand in its entirety. Turned down by the first store it visits, the purchase group continues to visit the other store. After accommodating GB demand, the stores use remaining stocks to serve regular consumers. We demonstrate that GB can be a treat to stores that adopt proper policies to utilize it as an instrument to reach consumers. The stores are able to accommodate group demand at a price lower than regular price in most circumstances but still manage to earn stable profits. The presence of regular consumers has a subtle effect on equilibrium formation, by strengthening the stores＇ power in negotiating with GB consumers to make group price weakly increase with group size. Moreover, competing stores are able to manipulate the interactions between purchase groups and collectively earn a higher total profit than a monopolist store when GB consumers account for a small fraction of market base and competition is intense.

Relationship mapping of consumer buying behavior antecedents of secondhand clothing with fuzzy DEMATEL

This paper aims to identify the antecedents of buying behavior for secondhand clothing among millennials,as well as to determine their underlying causal relationships.Upon a comprehensive literature search,a total of 18 antecedents were found,and these are categorized into three motives,namely,economic,hedonic and recreational,and critical.As a case study in the Philippines,a focus group discussion among experts who are active millennial secondhand clothing users and buyers were tasked to identify the antecedents they have experienced and further confirm those extracted from the literature.To establish the causal relationships of these antecedents,categorize them into net causes or net effects,and address the vagueness associated with the decision-making process,a fuzzy DEMATEL method is used.Results reveal that avoidance of conventional channels proves to be the antecedent providing the highest impact among all other antecedents.Uniqueness,high quality,and fashion trend found to be the antecedents with the highest impacts received,making them the major net effects.Findings from this work hope to provide a framework among practitioners that would lead to a better understanding of millennials’buying behavior for secondhand clothing.

Should the Buying of Cars Be Limited?

Traffic conditions in Beijing are deterio-rating badly as time goes by, and severe traffic congestion occurs not only in rush hours but at any time of the day.