Analysis of consumers' willingness to purchase Baijiu online——based on the perspective of social influence

Purchasing Baijiu online is becoming more and more popular, however, there are still problems such as incomplete varieties, complicated intermediate links, and high prices. In order to promote the online sales of Baijiu, the consumers' online purchasing behavior from the perspective of social influence was analyzed. In this study, social influences were decomposed into three variables: subjective norms, visibility, and image, and assumes that they influence consumers' perceived usefulness of e-commerce platforms, respectively. Next, the study assumes that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use affect consumers' purchasing decisions, while perceived ease of use promotes perceived usefulness. Empirical analysis showed that social influence factors have a positive impact on perceived usefulness, and subjective norms and exposure presents greater impact on perceived usefulness than image. It was found that perceived ease of use was more important than perceived usefulness for consumers' online purchase of Baijiu. Finally, based on the contribution of this study to studies on online Baijiu purchasing behavior, this study provided policy recommendations for e-commerce platforms and Baijiu manufacturers.