Chinese Rural Consumers’ Online Shopping

This study attempts to investigate Chinese rural consumer online expenditures and factors explaining their purchasing decisions. Through a survey of rural consumers in China, we investigate their perceptions and attitudes on online shopping, such as the most often purchased items, reasons of shopping online, the most favorite online store, the most often used payment method, online expenditures, online shopping frequencies, and daily online viewing activities. Our results show that if consumer incomes are mainly from migrant labors or local non-agriculture related small businesses, they will shop online more frequently. If consumers’ main monthly expenditures are medical expenses and clothing, they will spend 74 and 57 yuan less per month, respectively, to shop online. The more time consumers spend on online activities, the more frequently they will purchase online, and the more money they will spend on online shopping