Question

Chinese consumers are increasingly being influenced by video bloggers, columnists, and photobloggers on social media platforms including Instagram, WeChat and Weibo. Becky Li, with more than 7.5 million combined followers on WeChat and Weibo, is one of China’s top fashion bloggers in China. She is regarded as one of China’s influencers in the fashion world and offers good content of shopping and experience advice.

Another well-respected Chinese fashion blogger Zhang Dayi has her own clothing and beauty brand which she sells on the Alibaba Group’s Taobao e-commerce platform. Zhang Dayi allows customers to post reviews of the fashion items it sells and customers can add each other as friends, share wish list items, and recommend products to each other. In this situation, consumers form a structured set of relationships involving a particular brand online – for Zhang Dayi’s online brand. These fashion influencers have become very successful because they help Chinese consumers to choose style for self-expression

a) Name and explain the source of social influence used to describe Becky Li and Zhang Dayi. Describe the characteristics of your identified source of social influence.

b) Give TWO reasons why the source of social influence identified in (a) can bring influences on consumers. Illustrate EACH reason with ONE supporting reference from the case.

c) Name the source of social influence used in the above case of which “consumers form a structured set of relationships involving a particular brand online – for Zhang Dayi’s online brand”. Discuss the characteristics of your identified source of social influence.

Answer 1

Answer a:

Source of social influence used to describe Becky Li and Zhang Dayi:

The source of social influence used to describe Becky Li is We Chat and Weibo. We chat is a mobile payment application developed by Tencent. It acts as a multipurpose tool for messaging and social media. The users of the we chat can thus spread the brand aware of Becky Li through messaging and can also do the purchasing activities through the application. We chat account can also be used as an official account by the organisation. We chat enable its user to subscribe, push feeds to the subscribers, interact with subscribers and provide them with the services. Weibo is a micro blogging website that act as a social network for sharing, disseminating and receiving information.

The source of social influence used to describe Zhang Dayi is Alibaba Group’s Taobao e-commerce platform. Taobao e-commerce platform used by Zhang Dayi allows customers to post reviews of the fashion items it sells and customers can add each other as friends, share wish list items, and recommend products to each other. Thus over taobao e-commerce platform consumers form a structured set of relationships involving a particular brand online.

Characteristics of We chat:

1. We chat can be used as a digital social media platform for sharing the messages to the socially connected people over the digital platform.

2. Wechat has a feature of wechat pay as a digital platform service where the user can purchase the items, pay to the stores which uses wechat and transfer money to the other we chat user.

3. We chat can be used to conduct business online through the app where the businesses add the subscribers who are the users of the app and can share their product features with the prospective customers. Customers can then purchase the product by making the online payment.

Characteristics of Weibo:

1. Weibo can be used either on the website or mobile app.

2. It is used for sharing and uploading the pictures and video and enables the user to share these pictures and video to the other user who can then comment and reply with either text or picture or video.

3. In Weibo, Celebrity accounts have a orange symbol ‘V’ whereas the businesses have a blue symbol of ‘V’.

4. Weibo can also sync to other micro blogging sites and also has a search function.

Characteristics of Taobao e-commerce platform:

1. Taobao e-commerce platform is a customer to customer internet platform where Sellers open their stores on Taobao e-commerce platform and conducts the business.

2. Taobao e-commerce platform provides express delivery service to the clients.

3. On Taobao e-commerce platform, sellers can post their product either with the fixed cost or on auction where the customers bid for the products.

4. It also allows online payment to the customers through the Ali pay gateway.

Answer b:

Reasons why the source of social influence can bring influences on consumers:

1. Wechat and weibo is a social media platform where the users can share the pictures, videos and messages. If the existing customers of the business share the listing of the company than the other users who are the friends of the customer gets influenced and gains faith over the listing and the product. This increases the brand awareness and sales of the product. Taobao e-commerce platform has a feature where the customer can share his/her review for the product which is being used by them. These reviews influences the future customer for purchase.

2. Wechat , weibo and Taobao e-commerce platform allows the businesses to sell their products online where customer do not need to travel to the store and the customers gets the product at their doorstep. Moreover, customer can go through the galleries of products online and can compare the products of the competitors for various characteristics. This ease of purchasing over wechat, weibo and Taobao e-commerce platform influence the customers.

Supporting reference from the case

1. Becky Li, with more than 7.5 million combined followers on WeChat and Weibo, is one of China’s top fashion bloggers in China. She is able to connect with such a huge mass from a single platform and is able to share the products directly to the customers. She provides the content of shopping and advice to such a large mass. This ease of purchasing and the provision of advice through the top fashion blogger influence the customer.

2. Zhang Dayi has her own clothing and beauty brand which she sells on the Alibaba Group’s Taobao e-commerce platform. Zhang Dayi allows customers to post reviews of the fashion items it sells and customers can add each other as friends, share wish list items, and recommend products to each other. This influences the future customers for strengthening their belief on a particular product.

Answer c:

Source of social influence used in the above case of which “consumers form a structured set of relationships involving a particular brand online – for Zhang Dayi’s online brand” is Alibaba Group’s Taobao e-commerce platform.

Characteristics of Taobao e-commerce platform:

1. Taobao e-commerce platform is a customer to customer internet platform where Sellers open their stores on Taobao e-commerce platform and conducts the business.

2. Taobao e-commerce platform provides express delivery service to the clients.

3. On Taobao e-commerce platform, sellers can post their product either with the fixed cost or on auction where the customers bid for the products.

4. It also allows online payment to the customers through the Ali pay gateway.