Consumer behavior in coffee drinking : Comparison between Chinese and Swedish university students

The aim of this study is to analyze factors that affecting consumers to drink coffee, based on two case studies in University of Gävle in Sweden and Zhuhai College of Jilin University in China.The study was conducted with mixed research methods. A questionnaire survey was designed as a pre-study to get a general idea and the interviews were designed based on the result of survey in order to gain more detailed information and explanations from the respondents. All the data are shown by tables or diagrams or histograms. University students in two different culture participated in survey and interviews, a comparison perspective for cross culture was mentioned in this study. As for Result & Conclusions, both external factors (culture, price and people around) as well as internal factors (personality, psychological influence, learning and knowledge) impact the consumer‟s behaviors that are shown in different consumption characteristics. Take all in account, these factors could have an effect on university students to drink (or not drink) coffee in Jilin University and University of Gävle. And Contribution & implication, the comparison of coffee drink between Chinese culture and Swedish culture is the most attractive contributions, supplementing the related study. Price issue was considered as the important factor that affecting the consumer to choose coffee, thus suggesting the managers to focus on the coffee price. In addition, the effective way to explore coffee market in China or Sweden is to know better of the consumers. Suggestions for future research, other consumer groups are missing given the study only focus on the university students. Also tested with more sample sizes of survey andIIinterviews are recommended in the future research so as to make it even valid and reliable