Study on the mechanism of synergistic influence factors on consumers' online shopping willingness in China's prefabricated dishes industry

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyse the online shopping willingness of consumers in the Chinese prefabricated dishes industry from the perspective of synergistic influence based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model(ELM), the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology(UTAUT), and the diffusion of innovations theory(DIO); and the moderating role of consumers' intrinsic innovativeness among the three influencing factors of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence, and the consumer's willingness to shop online. In this study, the statistical tool SPSS 22.0 was used to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire data respectively, and structural equation modelling and AMOS 24.0 were used to analyse the theoretical model and verify the research hypotheses. This time, 534 questionnaires were returned, and by eliminating 32 questionnaires that had many questions that were not answered, and obviously invalid questionnaires (e.g., choosing the same for all the questions, and logical contradictions between the previous and subsequent answers), 502 valid questionnaires were formed, and the validity rate reached 94.01%. The results show that consumers’ willingness to shop prefabricated dishes online is significantly positively influenced by performance expectations, effort expectations, e-commerce platform quality, product quality, logistics service quality, and brand image; willingness to shop online significantly and positively influences consumers’ online shopping behaviours; whereas social influences, and consumers‘ intrinsic innovativeness do not have a significant positive influence on prefabricated dishes consumers’ willingness to shop online; consumers' intrinsic innovativeness has no significant positive influence in the range between effort expectations to online shopping willingness and Performance Expectation to Online shopping willingness. The results of this study provide useful information for enterprise management and marketing personnel, which helps them to target consumer groups, understand the real needs of consumers, adjust enterprise marketing strategies in a timely manner, and continuously adapt to the changing market demand, which in turn improves the willingness to buy, increases the sales of prefabricated dishes, and enables the development and growth of prefabricated dishes enterprises. In addition, the results of this study can also help government departments to more accurately formulate supportive policies to promote the development of the prefabricated dishes industry and point out the direction for prefabricated dishes enterprises to improve their products and upgrade their services. The results of this study suggest that the prefabricated dishes industry and e-commerce platforms should improve consumers’ willingness to shop online through the following ways: firstly, optimise the platform's online shopping system to raise consumers’ expectations of effort; secondly, improve logistics services to raise consumers' expectations of performance; thirdly, ensure the quality of prefabricated dishes products and focus on the standardisation and branding of prefabricated dishes; and lastly, ensure that the price of the products is reasonable and that the prefabricated dishes is full of colour and flavour. By summarizing the deficiencies and limitations in the research process, this study finds that the directions of research that can be deepened in the future are as follows: (1) When constructing the model of factors influencing consumers’ online shopping willingness, try to carry out exhaustive analyses of the factors that may be influential in light of the characteristics of the industry, and not only need to analyze the relationship of the influence of the independent variable factors on consumers’ online shopping willingness, but also need to comprehensively analyze the potential relationship between the independent variables; (2) Distributed through social media and online methods such as wenjuanxing platform, the way to obtain samples is limited, which may lead to some e-commerce platform consumers can not be reached, and the age of the survey respondents and other aspects and the real situation of the deviation.