The Consumer Behavior Of Wine In China

During recent years, Chinese wine industry has got a great development. In China, thereexist rapid increases in wine production, consumption and importation. But the wineconsumption in China is still very low, for example, according to the annual report of TradeData and Analysis (TDA), Chinese wine consumption per capita each year was1.15literswhile the average consumption per capita all over the world reached3.47liters in2009.Combined with the huge population of1.35billion, China is becoming the largest potentialwine market in the world. However, as an emerging and new wine market, wine consumerbehavior research in China has been extremely rare to date.Based on an extensive literature review of wine consumer behavior research, the currentresearch aims to make a systematical analysis of Chinese consumers’ wine purchase behaviorand its influencing factors. Also, this paper gives a descriptive analysis and an influencingfactors analysis to three key antecedent factors of wine purchase behavior, including wineknowledge, purchase motives, and purchase intentions. According to the results, marketerscan get a better understanding to Chinese wine consumers’ behavior, and make marketingstrategies more accurate.Through theoretical and empirical study, some conclusions were reached:(1) The majority of Chinese consumers have a low level of subjective and objective wineknowledge. The Chinese young and middle-aged adults between26to45years have the toplevel of subjective wine knowledge (SK). Consumers with higher level of education orpersonal income get a higher level of SK. Staffs in foreign or private companies have a higherlevel of SK followed by state companies’ staff, public servants and institutional staff. Farmers,retired people and students have the lowest level of SK. Listed in the level of influence, thesignificant influencing factors of SWK are purchase frequency (PF), quantity of winepurchased (PQ) each time, objective wine knowledge (OK), level of education, age andpersonal monthly income respectively. Among these factors, age affects the SK in negativedirection, while PF, PQ, OK, education level and personal monthly income in positivedirections. The Chinese consumers are always getting wine information through television,magazines, newspaper, and internet. But the channels consumers expect to use to get wineknowledge are free tasting, wine tourism, and wine culture training course. (2) In China, people buy wine mainly for social communication (33.4%), matching food(30.6%), and keeping healthy (20.1%). The sex, age, education level, income and occupationsare affecting consumers’ wine purchase motives significantly. There not exits a significantdifference in wine purchase motivations between the eastern, middle and western regions inChina. The study also shows that purchase motivation make a significant effect on winepurchase intention. Different people have different wine purchase motivations. The femalesand elders are more concerned about the health function of wine products. The males andyoung adults pay more attention to wine’s social communication function and wine collection.People with higher level of education always attach importance to wine in matching food. Theresults show that consumer’s knowledge of viticulture and grape variety are guidingconsumers to investment motivation. Wine tasting knowledge always guides consumers totouch health concern and food pairing. Meanwhile, wine tasting knowledge plays an negativerole in consumers’ social communication.(3) Chinese consumers have a strong willingness in wine purchase with81.5percentexpressing this intention when they need alcoholic products. In China, the males have thesame intention basically with the females. As the increase of age, wine purchase intention ofconsumers showed increasing at first and decrease in the end. Consumers with higher level ofeducation are more willing to purchase wine. With the improvement of personal income level,consumer shows a positive wine of purchase intention on the whole. Compared to regions,consumers in eastern area have more intention in wine purchasing than those in the westernarea, and the same condition of the western area to the central region. Staffs in foreign orprivate companies, state companies or institutions have a higher level of wine purchaseintention followed by the public servants, freelancers and students. Retired people andfarmers have the lowest level of wine purchase intention. Listed in the level of influence, thesignificant influencing factors of wine purchase intention are education level, personalmonthly income, knowledge of wine matching food, grape variety knowledge, wine tastingknowledge, foreign wine region knowledge, viticulture knowledge, purchasing motivation,and winemaking knowledge respectively.(4) Frequencies of purchasing wine of Chinese consumers are very low. About20percentof the sample hasn’t purchased wine products during the last twelve month. A large proportionof Chinese consumers purchase wine once in a year (40.9%), while21.8%buying wine oncein a half year,12.3%monthly,3.8%biweekly, and1.7%weekly. Significant factors impactingconsumers’ wine purchasing frequency, ordering by the influencing degree from high to low,are personal income, knowledge of grape variety, wine flavor or knowledge of matching wine with food (equal), resident area, wine purchase intention or knowledge of foreign wineregions (equal), knowledge of viticulture, prize, advertisement, wine brand, and level ofeducation respectively. The amount of wine purchased each time of Chinese consumer is alsovery low.63.3%of Chinese consumers buy one or two bottles wine each time, while13.1%with three to six bottles each time and just4.1%of the consumers purchase more than sevenbottles wine each time. To consumers’ wine purchasing quantity each time, significant factorsordering by the influencing degree from high to low are personal income, knowledge ofviticulture or wine purchase motivation (equal), country of origin, knowledge of Chinese wineregions, advertisement or wine purchase intention (equal), wine label, wine price, and agerespectively.(5) Results of mean analysis show that the middle-aged consumers,26to45years old,have the top level of frequency and quantity of wine purchased each time than other cohorts.Consumers with higher level of education or income also have higher levels of wine purchasefrequency and the amount of wine purchased each time. Compared to regions, consumers ineastern area purchase wine more times than central area and the central area with more timesthan the western area in the same period, meanwhile, consumers in central area purchase winemore wines than eastern area and the eastern area with more wines than the western area eachtime. Chinese consumers have preferences for dry red or sweet red, clear taste and deep aroma,lower or medium alcohol content wines. They intend to purchase cork-sealing classicpackaging wines than those packaged in a new method, e.g., screw cover sealing, pop-top can,bag-in-box, or Tetra Pak. To imported wine, Chinese consumers prefer to purchase the oldworld wine, e.g., from France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. They also tend to purchase wine inboutique wine shop, supermarket, and shopping mall with relative high mention rate of46.7%,45.8%and34%respectively. The results also show that the wine prices that consumers arewilling to pay under different occasions, from the highest price to the lowest price, are fromcollection, investment, gifts, business dinner, party to self-drinking respectively.(6) Comprehensive comparison of influencing factors of wine purchase intention andpurchasing behavior, some conclusions can be found. Firstly, consumers’ personalcharacteristics have the important influence on both wine purchase intention and purchasebehavior, but there exit some differences: to wine purchase intention, the highest degreeinfluence is education level followed by income, but to wine purchasing behavior, the mostimportant factor is the personal income. That means income is the key factor restricting winepurchase intention into purchasing behavior. Secondly, product quality factor have significantimpacts on wine purchase intention and purchasing behavior. Among these factors, influencers on wine purchase intention are intrinsic cues of wine product (such as wine taste),but influencers on wine purchasing behavior are both intrinsic (such as wine taste andcountry-of-origin) cues and extrinsic cues (such as wine brand, label, and price). Thirdly,marketing activities and reference group opinions have significant influences on wineconsumers’ purchasing behavior, but they do not affect wine purchase intention significantly.Advertisement and award information of wine products have significant effects onconsumer’s wine purchasing behavior while salesperson’s guide and recommendations not.Fourthly, consumer knowledge and buying motivations toward wine have significant impactson wine purchase intention and purchasing behavior.According to the results of this study, some suggestions to promote wine consumption areput forward:(1) Wine companies, industry associations, and governments should constructwine knowledge transmission platform jointly to improve consumer’s wine knowledge level.(2) Wine enterprises should pay attention to build wine tourism resources and develop winetourism projects to promote wine consumption.(3) Wine enterprises should carry out in-depthinvestigation on wine consumers’ preferences, and according to these, develop and producemarketable wine products for selling.