United We Shop! Chinese Consumers’ Online Group Buying

This study aims to understand the underlying mechanism of Chinese consumers’ online group buying intention to gain strategic consumer insights and advance the theoretical understanding of online consumer behavior. Recognizing the social connotation of consumers’ online group buying behavior, this study pays special attention to the factors pertaining to social relationships – susceptibility to normative influence, need for uniqueness, and perceived homophily as key antecedents driving online group purchase. An online survey was conducted with nonstudent adult respondents. Hierarchical regression results show that two counterintuitive factors – consumer need for uniqueness and perceived homophily significantly and positively influenced online group buying intention, while susceptibility to normative influence did not. Based on the Beta coefficients in the regression, consumer need for uniqueness emerged as a more powerful antecedent than perceived homophily. Additional statistical analysis suggests that consumer need for uniqueness appeared to be a possible mediator between normative influence and online group buying intention, thereby dramatically diminishing the effect of normative influence on online group buying intention. Results indicate that participating in the popular yet innovative trend of online group buying constitutes an important means for consumers to seek uniqueness in a socially approved manner. Although collectivist Chinese societies emphasize the need to be part of the mass, being too similar to others may lead to countervailing pressures for distinctiveness. In fact, the findings may reveal a cultural paradox that when Chinese consumers engage in online group buying which already meets the expectation of collectivism, their need to feel unique may be stronger.