Understanding The Country-of-Origin Effect On Chinese Wine Consumers’ Purchase ——With Australian Wine As A Case Of Study

Wine,together with wine culture,is largely exotic for Chinese people.Wine consumption in China has grown significantly in the past twenty years,especially of imported wines.Baque（2016）has predicted that China would become the main consumer before the year 2030,surpassing the United States and France,and would boost world growth in the next 15 years.Existing literature has researched and discussed the factors that influence consumers’ wine purchasing decisions.Despite its central importance to marketers,the effect of influences on consumer purchase behaviour are not fully understood.This thesis is intended to investigate the major factors in affecting Chinese consumers’ wine consuming behaviour,to explore the significance of the country-of-origin（COO）as a cue for Chinese consumers’ wine purchasing compared with other factors and to understand Chinese wine consumers’ attitudes and perception of Australian wine.The research data are collected through a web-based survey via sojump platform,using a snowball sampling method.A total of 321 usable questionnaires are returned and analyzed by SPSS.The results of the thesis have confirmed that the country-of-origin is an essential factor for Chinese consumers in their wine evaluation and purchase.However,the impact of the country-of-origin as a cue is not larger than that of price and brand.The research has also revealed that Chinese consumers are primarily affected by extrinsic factors of price,brand,country-of-origin and intrinsic factors of grape variety and wine style in their wine purchase.Compared with other wine exporters,France,Italy,Australia,Spain and Chile are the most popular ones with Chinese consumers.With regard to Australian wines,most Chinese consumers consider Australian wine as of superior quality,lower price and good taste.This study also finds that Chinese consumers’ willingness to consume imported wines from Australia is influenced by the ups-and-downs of the China-Australian relationship.Two issues emerge from this research that need further attention.One is that in this research,the selected sample has homogeneous characteristics,such as young and educated.It is recommended that future studies adopt a more heterogeneous sample.The other is the limited resources prohibit a more extensive investigation involving a larger sampling size.Future studies are encouraged to employ a larger sampling size,enhancing the quality and validity of the studies.