An Investigation About Chinese Car Purchasing Based On Four P’s Marketing

This study focuses on the four P’s Marketing mix on car purchasing behavior ofChinese consumers. The investigation of Chinese consumer’ purchasing decision incar purchasing issue in Beijing, China was conducted.China, with the highest world population for a single country that contributes to20%of the world’s total population, has a consumer base of around1.37billionpeople. With predicted further growth in the country’s population in the near future,the car industry is also expected to grow to surpass the car purchasing levels of theUnited States and the trend seems to predict that further strong growth is expectedfrom this large economy. This trend can be seen in the number of cars in Beijing,China (ranked4th in automobile consumption), which has doubled in the past fiveyears. At present, China is recognized as one of the world’s fastest growingautomobile market; the annual growth rate from2000to2006was more than twentypercent.From this further growth of Chinese automotive industry, we found out that itwould be interesting to investigate on the dynamics that play an important role on carpurchasing behavior. So the literature reviews are researched based on consumerbehavior, marketing strategy and automotive industry issues. The four Ps Marketingmix which comprised of product, price, place and promotion, is a must-do strategy.Besides, product positioning is also considered as an important strategy to make theproduct becomes unique, because company doesn’t want consumer to have a sameimage as other brands so they to establish the product categorization that candifferentiate from other present brands. Chinese government is supportive for Chinesedomestic cars, they want to increase the amount of exported vehicles, but thedomestic car’s players are still lack of technologies and R&D process and the issue ofpatent should be concerned. The objectives of this study are; to have an understanding about Chineseconsumer’s attitude in purchasing an automobile, at the same time could be able tofind the differences among Chinese, European and American consumer’s attitude incar purchasing intentions; to test whether or not those consumers tend to havedifferent attitude in car purchasing decisions based on different consumersdemographic (gender, age) and socio-economic factors (income, education, maritalstatus); and finally to determine whether or not the four Ps of Marketing mix (whichconsist of product factor, price factor, place fact and distribution factor) play animportant role in influence car purchasing decision.In this research, questionnaire is chosen as the tool to understand the objectivesand to test if hypothesis is true. The closed-ended question are adopted due to therespondent’s time constraints and for convenience in data analysis. The questionnairewas designed and developed in order to be able to investigate about the respondents’attitude on car purchasing intentions. The questionnaire was divided into2majorsections: section1is to investigate about the different attitudes toward the carpurchasing intentions and section2is to investigate about the demographic and socio-economic of Chinese consumers that have an influence on four Ps Marketing mixfactors and car features.The total amount of respondent is450people (150Chinese respondents,150European respondents,150American respondents). The survey was conducted inTsinghua University, department stores in Beijing and at the Beijing internationalairport.The SPSS program was used to analyze the statistical data, by using one wayANOVA and T-test method. After interpreting data was done, we could obtain thegeneral information about attitude toward the existing car and the intention for nextcar purchasing.The results showed the significant difference on consumers within differentcountries tend to have the different satisfaction toward the existing product. Chineseconsumers have lower satisfaction on the strength of the car body and environmentally friendly car’s attribute, and the result also showed the significantdifference on the different country’ attitudes toward the next car purchasing based onprice place and promotion factors, But there is no significant difference on theproduct attribute, which the cause might be from the reason that the respondent ineach countries rated the similar degree for the product attribute. Anyway, the productattribute are considered as very influential for the next car purchase. Analysis for eachfactors are done in order to compare each attribute in product, price, place andpromotion factors. Surprisingly, Chinese respondents rated lowest on price factorwhile comparing to European and American respondents.Moreover, the demographic and socio-economic factors showed the significantdifference on4Ps Marketing mix based on the different demographic of Chineserespondents and also the relationship between the different demographic to thedifferent specification of car’s features such as fuel type, size of engine. Especiallyage and income factors had significantly affected on purchasing decision.The segmentation for automobile market should be analyzed. The segmentationstrategy should be done to match with the specific segment of consumers for exampleFor example; the target group for hybrid and electric vehicle group should be targetedfor high income consumers.As the further growth of economics and the industry has moved from the massproduction to mass customization process, consumers tend to have various desires. Ifthe company could be able to apply the right strategy to the right segment ofconsumer, this possible results in generating more sales volume and be able to meetthe consumer’s expectation which can lead to the good image of the company’s brand.