Online shopping in China, particularly among young people, is a vast enterprise. Online retail sales amounted to about 16 trillion yuan in 2024, approximately 2 trillion US dollars. Indeed, online shopping has transformed the way youngsters approach buying everything from clothing to gadgets, especially in the post-pandemic era where old shopping habits have been abandoned by many people.
Much of the research into online consumer behaviour has focused on the after-sales experience. Now, a study in the International Journal of Data Science, turns the research lens to look more closely at the pre-purchase stage. In so doing, Nanhua Duan and Jingwen Zhang of Northwestern Polytechnical University in Shaanxi, China, hoped to understand how young Chinese consumers perceive value before they hit the all-important “buy now” button when shopping online.
The team explains that the concept of Customer Perceived Value (CPV) is at the core of their research. CPV refers to the overall worth a consumer assigns to a product based on the benefits they expect in relation to the cost. For experiential products, this perception is even more complex because the product’s value is influenced by a variety of factors that may not be immediately obvious. The same is true for clothing when one cannot touch or try on an item before making a buying decision.
To home in on the factors involved, the team has proposed a new framework, which identifies six key dimensions that influence CPV when young Chinese consumers shop online for clothing and similar items. These are: word-of-mouth value, service value, aesthetic value, cost value, quality value, and brand value. Each of these, they found, plays a critical role in shaping the consumer’s expectations prior to purchase.
The findings are particularly relevant to China’s booming apparel market, which has seen rapid growth among digitally consumers. The research emphasizes that young buyers are not just concerned with the price tag or material quality alone. Indeed, they also consider factors like the reputation of the brand, the service experience, and how well a product aligns with their personal style or social status. This is where the online shopping environment differs from traditional brick-and-mortar shops, where the tactile nature of the shopping experience provides more immediate and obvious feedback and the potential for impulse buys or purchases prompted by an enthusiastic sales assistant.
For retailers and brands looking to tap into the ever-growing online market, understanding the six dimensions of CPV could offer insight into how to develop a more compelling online experience. It is, the research suggests, no longer sufficient to highlight the physical attributes of a product, companies must also now showcase the brand and its reputation as well as the quality of service.
In practical terms, the findings could mean that companies could benefit from focusing on positive reviews, clear and appealing product images, and smooth, customer-friendly websites. There might even be potential for developing innovative ways to display the products that might involve interactive elements, such as changing viewing angles, product colours and styles, and perhaps even offering options to see different models wearing the items. There is huge potential for the marketers that learn how to persuade people to click that “buy now” button.
Duan, N. and Zhang, J. (2025) ‘The development of a product-layer perceived value scale for the online experience products of young Chinese consumers: take online apparel as an example’, Int. J. Data Science, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp.1–21.