Study On Online Buyers' Brand Loyalty Based On Consumer Psychology Analysis

With the accelerating economic globalization, the information technology such as internet has changed the communication and commercial mode for ever as well as the consumers'shopping pattern. Internet not only offers the channel for communication between enterprises and their customers and business partners, but also builds up a platform for establishing their reputation and brand. Meanwhile, the geographical distance between any enterprises and their customers has been overlooked with the click of mouse. Customers can easily approach or leave your venue marked of .com and can also influence more buyers get to or get rid of you quickly. With this background, the brand loyalty in the age of internet economy seems to be especially significant and precious.From the theoretical point of view, the study of online shoppers'behavior has gradually become the hot spot in the field of consumer behavior study, mostly focusing on the study of the factors influencing online shoppers'behavior, the study of the risk and trust of online shopping, the formation mechanism of online shopping behavior, etc. All the studies have laid the solid theoretical foundation of consumer behavior for the study on online brand loyalty. However, as the brand theory in a key marketing study field, the quantity of the study on online shopping brand loyalty is seriously in sufficient, although the sort of the study has been booming in off-line environment. This dissertation focuses on the three psychological stages in the formation of online brand loyalty, studying the influence of various online shopping sectors on the three psychological stages, analyzing and demonstrating empirical data with the Structural Equation Model under the real circumstance of our country, and finally searching for some strategic proposals with the empirical foundation for enterprises. The major efforts and conclusions are as follows:1. The dissertation defines the online brand loyalty and compares it with the brand loyalty involved in traditional channels. It indicates that the online brand loyalty consists of two main parts including online shoppers'pure loyalty to brand E and their online shopping loyalty to traditional brands. The dissertation focuses on the online shopping loyalty to traditional brands.2. Combined with the online consumers'characteristic analysis, the dissertation studies various psychological stages involved in the formation of online brand loyalty and indicates that the selection of the online brands and the satisfaction of the online brands are two essential stages in the formation. The psychology mechanism during the selection stage covers the whole process from the acquisition of the online brand information and the test of the product. Before this stage, the online consumers are filled with the mental status of doubt and comparison which leads to the series of actions before the brand decision-making, so the first step with some realistic significance is with the determination on the brand selection. The psychology mechanism during the online brand satisfaction stage covers the process from the test of the products to the establishment of the brand reputation. Online consumers are involved in the mental status of comparing their actual consumption with the expected consumption during the whole process. Once the satisfactory impression has been formed, they will not hesitate to openly show their attitudes and therefore preliminarily establish the online brand loyalty. The brand loyalty during this stage mainly displays the characteristic of attitude loyalty. Finally comes the affirmative stage of the online brand loyalty. The online consumers will repeatedly purchase the products of the brand according to the real circumstance, consolidating the brand loyalty from the attitude to behavior.3. On the basis of model assumption and the previous theoretical analysis and empirical scales, the questionnaire has been designed for this dissertation,and distributed and collected online through the online sales service. The dissertation mainly applies SPSS for inspection and LISREL for the model analysis on the structural equation. Through the comparison of the five competitive models, the dissertation works out the result of the full model analysis based on the influence of the online-shopping sectors on the psychological stages of the online brand loyalty formation. The dissertation discovers that the acquisition of the online brand information, the willingness of undertakeing the online brand risks, the selection of online brands as well as the online brand satisfaction have remarkable direct impact on the online brand loyalty. Additionally, the online brand consumption experience and the online brand communication have the indirect impact.4. According to the final corrected result, this dissertation conducts the tracking interview with some participants answering the questionnaire and, based on the results of the interview, analyze the assumption demonstrated by the empirical study. We also work out some proposals for the concerned sales stuff of the enterprises. If the enterprise hopes the consumers select their products online, they'd better first built up the virtual space such as the online community, BBS, Blog for their brand, providing the consumers'with the channels for online brand communication. Second, they'd better set up online shops to display the products of the brand and to vividly show the shopping flow. If they sell digital products, the online test is an essential. Then they should track and record the consumers'online order information such as frequency, amount and combination. And next, taking advantage of the online shoppers'individual information, the sales may regularly deliver the updating information of the brand products, for example, the promotion information of their target products, the new release of the similar products or the introduction to the upgrading products, the member activities and the recommending products combinations, according to the consumers'purchase habits. All the regular information will accurately seize the online shopper's purchase opportunity and therefore avoid the decrease of the consumers'brand loyalty resulted from over-acceptance of the other brand's information when they want to purchase some products.In conclusion, centering the three psychological stages of the online brand loyalty formation, the dissertation studies the influence of various consumption sectors on the three stages of the online brand selection, satisfaction and loyalty. It also demonstrates the all-round model analysis of the structural equation based on the empirical data. And finally it works out the specific proposals for the sales person in enterprises.The dissertation boasts the following innovations:1. It defines the online brand loyalty in an all-round manner and, from a psychological point of view, analyzes the various mental stages involved in the formation of the online brand loyalty. It elaborates the stage of acquiring the online brand choice from preliminary information to memorization, the stage of the online brand satisfaction from experience to attitude and the stage of the online brand loyalty from reputation to recognition.2. It puts forward the hypothesis model for the influence of the online consumption sectors on the psychological formation stage of the online brand loyalty. It also explores the corresponding questionnaire based on the model and corrects it according to the results of the inspection on validity and reliability.3. It designs models for various psychological stages involved in the formation of online brand loyalty which is affected by the online consumption flow, providing the future related study on online shopping behavior with an explored route. It conducts modeling on the series of routes and accomplishes deduction of the models, partially demonstrating the channel changes of the influencing route under traditional consumption environment which is now put in the internet environment. Meanwhile, it proves partially the migration effects and the otherness of the overseas online brand consumption characteristics in the current Chinese online consumption environment. With such a conclusion of the characteristics, it may lead to a number of variability studies with different time and space backgrounds.4. The dissertation conducts the structural equation model analysis based on the empirical data and launches a through investigation with the consumer tracing. It concludes and analyzes the results of the model study, grounding the constructive proposals for the marketing practitioners.