Does Culture Matter in Online Fashion Products Purchase Behavior? Evidences from a Cross-Cultural Analysis of Alibaba Customers

E-commerce giants such as Alibaba, Amazon or Yoox have dramatically changed the ways customers are purchasing fashion products. In fact, a huge number of customers nowadays purchase fashion products online. Previous literature has pointed out how the competition among such giants is based on customers’ perceptions of easiness to use and perceived risk of these platforms (Faraoni et al., 2018). Hence, the characteristics of digital platforms are more and more important in influencing final customers’ purchase decision. Recent contributions have found out how some customers are more skeptical toward China-based Alibaba than US-based Amazon or Italy-based Yoox (Kwak et al., 2019). Customers perceive a higher risk of purchasing counterfeit products on Alibaba in particular among Western customers as opposed to Eastern ones (Valarezo et al., 2018). One of the main reasons underlying this phenomenon refers to cultural differences (Peng et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2013). This notwithstanding, scant attention has been paid to a specific exploration of this phenomenon. Specifically, how culture is related with different customers’ evaluations concerning website usability, trust, and perceived risk need to be better explored. Similarly, it is important to evaluate how all these factors influence attitude toward the use a specific online platform and customers’ online purchase intention. To do so, a conceptual model based on Geert Hofstede’s (2001) cultural dimension theory and Icek Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior (TPB) has been developed. As the focus of this research concerns the observation of cultural differences’ importance in Alibaba customers, a cross-county data collection is performed. 175 questionnaires from European Alibaba’s customers and 175 questionnaires from Asian Alibaba’s Customers are collected. The proposed model is empirically tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results show that culture influence more Asian customers’ trust than European customers. Instead, culture is more related with European customers’ perceived risk. Moving from that, implications for theory and practice are developed.