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Article history: With the development of the internet, customers are able to purchase medical equipment not only at the
Received 29 December 2016 pharmacy but through the internet; notwithstanding, the studies for analyzing the effects of purchasing
Received in revised form intention on acquiring medical equipment are deficient. The purpose of the study aims to investigate the
5 June 2017
effects among product attributes, product involvement, word-of-mouth, and purchase intention toward
Accepted 20 July 2017
Available online 8 August 2017
online shopping of medical equipment within both of the markets in Taiwan and Mainland China. The
present study utilized content validity testing, one-way analysis of variance, independent-sample t-test,
and regression analysis to analyze the statistics. The findings demonstrate that all of the factors had
Keywords:
Online shopping
positive benefits to customers’ purchase intent except product quality. Additionally, the results show that
Product attribute word-of-mouth from the internet do not significantly positively influence purchase intention owing to
Product involvement the excessive commercialization nowadays. The recommendation will be given for the small and medium
Online reputation enterprises to expand the online business.
Purchase intention © 2017 College of Management, National Cheng Kung University. Production and hosting by Elsevier
Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction nowadays. The small and medium enterprises, especially, use the
internet to strengthen the power of the brand and the market of the
According to the prediction made by Battle in 2003, a research products.
and development institute in the United State, medical equipment On the basis of the legislation of medical equipment, there are
is one of the ten industries with the massive growth potentials. The the amount of differences for acquiring the license between Taiwan
national health expenditure accounts released by the Ministry of and Mainland China; nevertheless, the main purpose, corre-
Health and Welfare of Taiwan in 2010 revealed that the percentage spondingly, is to strictly control the enterprise performance and
of the expenditure that households used to purchase medical quality. Due to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law of Taiwan and the
equipment increased from 10.2% in 1996 to 14.1% in 2012, which specification of the medical product in Mainland China, the current
showed that this sort of products has become more popular in the study aims to seek the distinction between both of the market in
daily life gradually. Taiwan and Mainland China to obtain the in-depth information
Owing to the products being related to the body health and life about the factors of influencing the purchase intention. The find-
safety, the more complicated and stricter requirements to medical ings will be provided for the related experts or scholars for refer-
equipment will be expected than those to general product. There ence purposes.
are myriad products which were sold through the internet As the multiple applications of the internet are developed,
purchasing commodities through the network has become more
popular currently. Nowadays, customers are able to purchase
medical equipment not only at the pharmacy but through the
* Corresponding author. Fax: þ886 07 601 1043. internet. Thence, the way using the internet to create the additional
E-mail addresses: wilee@nkfust.edu.tw (W.-I. Lee), lukas189484@gmail.com
profits and even solve the problems that the traditional store has is
(S.-Y. Cheng), carven3@gmail.com (Y.-T. Shih).
Peer review under responsibility of College of Management, National Cheng the emphasis that most of the enterprises have concerned for a
Kung University. while.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2017.07.007
1029-3132/© 2017 College of Management, National Cheng Kung University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.
224 W.-I. Lee et al. / Asia Pacific Management Review 22 (2017) 223e229
The preceding researches in Taiwan referring to online shop- associated with the enterprise or the product through the internet
ping are primarily to interrogate the influences of consumer platform; this faster and more convenient medium may soon access
behavior on purchase intention of online shopping. Lian (2001) target purchasers to facilitate the recognition of products that
aimed to discuss the consumer behavior and the experience of resonated. Moreover, a precedent research (Kuan, Yang, & Cheng,
shopping on the internet; identically, another study (Siao & Jiang, 2005) corroborated that online word-of-mouth would be either
2005) also took purchase willingness, enterprise characteristic, increase or weaken by services and quality of products that cus-
purchasing environment, and consumer conduct into consider- tomers found veritably commendable or egregious.
ation as research purposes. Notwithstanding, different influential From the definition Schiffman and Kanuk (2005) had provided,
factors have been aroused by other scholars within the decade. purchase intention was the possibility that determined the
Chen (2016) proposed that the most salient factors for affecting strength of the customers’ willingness to purchase the commodity;
purchase intent of online shopping can refer to product quality, the higher the possibility was, the stronger purchase intention
product price, product feature, etc. Also, the diverse research would be.
topics or directions, such as, for instance, medical equipment, are
insufficient and lack adequate attention. Accordingly, the purpose 3. Methodology
of the study is to investigate the effects among product attri-
butes, product involvement, word-of-mouth, and purchase The research framework of the present study aims to investigate
intention of medical equipment in online shopping within both the effects among product attributes, product involvement, word-
of the market in Taiwan and Mainland China by the quantitative of-mouth, and purchase intention towards medical equipment.
questionnaire inquiry. Taking the purposes into consideration, the five research hypoth-
eses would be addressed as Table 1 indicates.
2. Literature review
3.1. Participants
Concerning the management for medical equipment, the related
units and legislations regarded the quality of products and the risk A total of 411 respondents, including 220 participants in Taiwan
management as being significantly important. The Regulations of and 191 of those in Mainland China, were involved in the quanti-
Governing the Management of Medical Device promulgated by the tative inquiry. The sample of the study consisted of the population
Ministry of Health and Welfare of Taiwan in 2014 stated that who had had the experience of purchasing the commodity from the
medical equipment was categorized into three classifications ac- network ever or were about to conduct. The demographic infor-
cording to the level of risks of that, including class I (low risk), class mation revealed that most of the participants had an undergrad-
II (medium risk), and class III (high risk). uate degree; also, of 411 participants, 87% of those were female. The
Kotler and Keller (2012) used different product's characteristics age range was 16e29. In addition, 35% of the participants in Taiwan
including product design, quality, packaging design, and features to whose monthly income was about 30,000 to 50,000 NT$ were the
build a research model. The results cleared that product attributes majority; on the other hand, 70% of the participators in Mainland
including product information, quality, and prices had positive ef- China had a monthly income of 5000 CN¥.
fects on purchase intention. Moreau, Markman, and Lehmann
(2001) elucidated product information was the objective product 3.2. Measurement indicator of variables
knowledge engendering consumers' interests and being employed
the most. Besides, a former research (Blackwell, Miniard, & Engel, The current research aims to discover if purchase intention, a
2001) suggested that product price was a connection or process dependent variable, would be influenced by the five independent
between consumer and corporation to pursue and accomplish a variables, including product information, product quality, product
communication within each other. price, product involvement, and word-of-mouth. The definition of
Blackwell et al. (2001) also claimed that product involvement product information from a previous study (Brucks, 1985) was
was able to determine the customers’ product selection during the utilized in the present study and cleared that product information
purchasing process. In addition, Schiffman and Kanuk (2005) may have both subjective and objective segments in consumer's
considered that a high-involvement purchase existed when the consciousness; the objective segment related to the customer's
product was important to the consumer, and, therefore, the own knowledge or concepts about the product, and the subjective
customer may have more wills to search more information about segment referred to the cognition of product that retrieved from
the product or look for other alternative selections. Otherwise, the the external information. Dodds, Monroe, and Grewal (1991)
product merely holding the slight importance to the consumer was expressed a systematic figure or impression of product quality
less likely to encourage customers to discover further information would significantly boost the purchase willingness and value of
and the alternatives. commodity. Additionally, a prior research (Sinha & Batra, 1999;
A precedent study (Bickart & Schindler, 2001) demonstrated the Sproles & Kendall, 1986) narrated that purchasers were inclined
trustworthy sources from the internet would positively impact to spontaneously reason the higher price of product may have the
consumers’ purchase intention; this finding substantiated that relatively low risk to acquire the valueless merchandise, and vice
online word-of-mouth would have a degree of persuasion to in- versa.
crease the willingness of purchasing. Gelb and Sundaram (2002) Laurent and Kapferee (1985) implied the degree of customer's
defined network word-of-mouth as an unofficial communication involving in product would be altered in accordance with the scope
channel for delivering the particular products or services through of searching other information and the process of decision making.
the internet. Equivalently, Tanimoto and Fujii (2003) reasoned that A definition presented by Zaichkowsky (1985) considered that
online word-of-mouth was an important resource for customers consumer's instinctive impression towards certain commodities or
and potential purchasers to convey the experience of employing services was corresponding to the individual demands or the sys-
commodities, and another study (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, tem of values. The study adopts the above definition provided by
& Gremler, 2004) stated that online word-of-mouth was an expo- the previous literatures (Laurent & Kapferee, 1985; Zaichkowsky,
sition to partake the affirmative or negative point of views 1985) as the measurement correlations of product involvement.
W.-I. Lee et al. / Asia Pacific Management Review 22 (2017) 223e229 225
Table 1
Research framework.
Moreover, a beneficial perspective from a former study (Gilly, 4. Results and discussions
Graham, Wolfinbarger, & Yale, 1998) asserted that network word-
of-mouth, as an internet channel, could deliver the original and 4.1. Relevance amongst demographic variables and major factors
influential opinions to have consumer's product selection changed.
A one-way analysis of variance was utilized to find the effects of
the demographic variables such as age range, educational back-
3.3. Instrumentation ground, and monthly income on the major factors including
product attributes, product involvement, word-of-mouth, and
The current research adopted the questionnaire survey as the purchase intention. As Table 2-1 indicates, the effect of age range on
method of the quantitative inquiry. Fundamentally, all of the product information in Mainland China was significant, F ¼ 2.814,
research questions were based on the research framework and the p ¼ 0.041. Correspondingly, Table 2-2 also revealed that there were
review from the previous literatures. A questionnaire involved the significant differences (F ¼ 4.300, p ¼ 0.006) between age range
letter of transmittal mentioning that the individual information and product price in Mainland China. Both of educational back-
would be private for the reason of the participants' protection. A 5- ground and monthly income from two populations, however, had
point Likert scale was applied to determine the strength of the no evident relation to the major factors. The further detailed in-
participants’ perspective towards each question. formation could be found in Appendix.
Table 3
The results of difference between Taiwan and Mainland China.
F p-value p-value
(continued )
Demographics Number Mean Standard Deviation F p-value Demographics Number Mean Standard F p-value
(Taiwan) (Mainland China) Deviation
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Monthly Income
(CN¥)
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5001-10000 46 3.87 0.59
10001-15000 6 3.93 0.71
15001-20000 2 4.20 0.84
Over 20001 3 3.93 1.22