Comparative Study On Sino-Thai Consumer Behavior-from Culture Perspective

With the development of the economic globalization, the domestic markets have beenrelatively saturate, so companies are seeking new opportunities to expand their market. In thiscircumstance, the Chinese economy with its huge population and extensive buoyant markethas presented great opportunity for trade development between China and Thailand.In our modern and actual societies, shopping behavior is related to every single citizen.Thanks to the economic globalization and multinational corporations, people have morechoices and are able to buy what they need and what they want. The consumer behavior isaffected by a lot of different factors and culture is one of the most important one. The aim ofcompanies, whatever their products or services are, is to sell as many items as they can and inorder to do so they will try to affect their actual and potential consumers to make them wantto buy what they produce. That is to say, they should understand the consumer behavior welland provide the products and services according to people’s taste. However, this is not aseasy as before as the companies expand their business globally. One important reason is thatconsumer behavior is deeply influenced by the culture and culture varies from country tocountry. Bilateral relations have developed rapidly between China and Thailand and the twocountries have close economic relationships now. Culture of the two countries has somesimilarities but at the same time has many differences. Thus, the consumer behavior ofChinese and Thai people is different.The objective of this research is to consider the relationship between China and Thailand andanalyze the impact of national culture differences on consumer behavior, which will have anultimate impact on bilateral trade between the two nations. The thesis introduces thedefinition of culture, the Edward Hall’s high-context and low-context theory, the culturaldimension theory of Hofstede, the determinants of consumer behavior and the model ofconsumer decision making. Based on these theories, it analyzes the culture difference andconsumer behavior between the two countries. It deeply analyzes the influence of culture onconsumer behavior by using two case studies. The outcome of this research demonstrates theneed to observe and apply marketing and trading methods considering cultural differences and behavioral tendencies. Through the research, we can provide practical suggestions forChinese and Thai companies. Marketers must be aware of the importance of culture and howit can influence the consumer behavior. They should provide and promote their products andservices according to different culture. They should have their own brand and provideproducts with high quality.This thesis consists of7parts:Chapter1introduces the background, literature review, the content and structure, the methodand the innovation of the paper. Through the analysis of the economic background of the twocountries, based on the research of other scholars, we can see that the value of this thesis, thatis to provide suggestion for companies and promote the trade between the two countries.Chapter2focuses on the definition and basic theory of culture and consumer behavior. Itintroduces the Edward Hall’s high-context and low-context theory, the cultural dimensiontheory of Hofstede, the determinants of consumer behavior and the model of consumerdecision making. Thus we can provide a theory foundation for the following research.Chapter3provides an analysis of the comparison of Chinese and Thai cultural from theaspect of Hofstede’s cultural dimension, including power distance, individualism,Masculinity/Femininity, Uncertainty avoidance andLong term orientation. It also analyzesthe core value of Chinese and Thai culture and their culture difference from daily life aspects,such as color and number preference, dining and drinking habits, similarities and differencesin attitudinal behavior, lifestyle and business attitudes.Chapter4focuses on the cultural influences on consumer attitudes analysis. It uses the fivedecision-making stages to analyze the cultural influence of both China and Thailand onconsumer behavior, including need recognition, information search, pre-purchase evaluationof choices, purchase and post-purchase evaluation. The role of information technology isconsidered as well as future trend analysis of both Thai and Chinese consumers.Chapter5introduces2case studies. The first one introduces the luxury market in China andThailand and we can see that the luxury market in both countries keeps rising. Except for therapid development of the economy, the culture of “show off”, following marketing trend,“guanxi” all contribute to the expanding luxury market. Case2analyzes the impact ofinternet on the shopping behavior using Rakuten Tarad and Lekutian as example. Chapter6studies the marketing needs and implications caused by similarities and differencesand provide suggestions considering the importance of relevant marketing given theimplications of culture. Both Chinese and Thaicompanies should study and respect theforeign culture before they enter to the market; they should improve the quality of theirproducts and services; they should provide special products to satisfy the consumers’ need.Chapter7is the conclusion and limitations of the thesis. It summarize the content of thethesis and point out the limitation and the future research direction.