A Comparison of Consumer Behaviors in China and Taiwan

The purpose of this research is mainly to make an analysis and comparison of the purchasing behaviors of consumers in Mainland China and Taiwan. We precede this research with a questionnaire survey. In Mainland China, we targeted consumers of 10 department stores of the Parkson Plaza Co., Ltd. that are located in 10 different cities. In Taiwan, we selected 3 department stores of the Far Eastern Department Stores in 3 cities. The results of this analysis indicate the importance of quality attributes to the consumers for both Mainland China and Taiwan, albeit with some differentiations. The consumers in China are more focused on the merchandise for example as well as imitation, quality and price. Contrarily, the consumers in Taiwan are more attentive to service quality and parking Issues. On the level of evaluation of satisfaction, the differences are not so obvious for both sides. For example, the quality attributes of “No imitation products” and “Friendly servers” are ranked as the most satisfactory items for both sides. Generally speaking, the service quality of Taiwan's department stores is very outstanding. There are also some differences in the areas of lesser satisfaction between consumers of China and Taiwan. The consumers in China identified the quality attribute “the designs of merchandising, display and the usage of each floor” as the most dissatisfactory item, while the performance on this quality attribute is well accepted by the consumers of Taiwan's department stores. Another contradiction is that Taiwan's consumers are more concerned about “Parking”; this quality attribute obtained much less attention from the consumers in Mainland China. From the analysis of determinants that will have impacts on the willingness of customers to buy again, we found that the viewpoints of consumers from both sides are quite similar. The two main factors are “quality of merchandise” and “service quality”. However, the consumers in Mainland China care more about “the price of merchandise”; this is less important to the consumers in Taiwan. We may conclude from the importance and satisfaction level of the quality attributes and determinants for return customers that differences are caused mainly by the different management of the department stores and the different living circumstances of people across the straights.