Consumers' Search for Information on the Internet: How and Why China Differs from Western Europe Alexander Vuylsteke, a,b, ⁎ Zhong Wen, c Bart Baesens, b,d & Jonas Poelmans b a Bain & Company, Avenue Louise 326, 1050 Brussels, Belgium b Faculty of Business and Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium c School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China d School of Management, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK Abstract Internet adoption in China is booming and purchasing power is growing steadily. Increasing numbers of Chinese turn to the Internet to search for information prior to a purchase. Based on 32 h of interviews with students and business professionals in China, and a questionnaire completed by a sample of 1140 students in Beijing and Belgium, our explorative study demonstrates that fundamental cultural, behavioral, economic, technical, and other characteristics of China cause significant differences between Chinese and Western Europeans in their online search process for information prior to a purchase. The differences occur in frequency, goal, types of information sought, types of websites used, search engine usage patterns, and contribution of user opinions. This has important implications for marketing practitioners in China, especially for multinational corporations that enter China and that are not familiar yet with the Chinese environment. Suggestions for future research are also provided. © 2010 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Online marketing; Search behavior; Cross-cultural; Internet; Consumer; Information Introduction A common assumption in the literature on consumer search behavior is that all markets and their participants take a common approach in using the Internet in general and search engines, consumer websites or online forums in particular. However, since most of the published research has come from Western researchers, little is known about approaches adopted in other cultures. As one of the first cross-cultural studies on online search behavior, this paper attempts to compensate for the cultural bias in the study of online media usage. With China's rapid economic expansion during the last 30 years, purchasing power has increased significantly (Cui and Liu 2001; Gavin 1994; Piturro 1994). China is becoming a key market for many types of businesses and this has increased the number of available products to consumers (Fan and Xiao 1998). Consequently, consumer information needs have grown substantially as well. The Internet is one source of information that consumers consult and has recently experienced a boost in China. The number of Chinese Internet users now surpasses that of any other country in the world, having soared from 162 million in June 2007 (CNNIC 2007a) to 298 million in January 2009 (CNNIC 2009 1 ). The Internet penetration 2 is now 22.6%, which is still much below that of Europe (43.7%) and the U.S. (72.5%) at the end of 2007 (ITU 2008a) but above that of most other developing countries and is expected to continue growing. Not Journal of Interactive Marketing 24 (2010) 309 – 331 www.elsevier.com/locate/intmar ⁎ Corresponding author. Hulstsestraat 1, 8860 Lendelede, Belgium. E-mail address: alexander.vuylsteke@gmail.com (A. Vuylsteke). 1 China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) is the administrative agency responsible for Internet affairs under the Ministry of Information Industry of the People's Republic of China. 2 Internet penetration is commonly defined as the percentage of the total population that is an Internet user. Definitions of an Internet user vary slightly between countries. CNNIC defines it as any Chinese citizen aged six and above that has used the Internet in the past half year (CNNIC 2009). ITU statistics are based on nationally reported data (ITU 2008b). 1094-9968/$ - see front matter © 2010 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.intmar.2010.02.010