Impact of Digital Marketing on Consumer Behaviour in China and India

This literature review evaluates the impact of digital marketing on consumer behaviour in China and India. It discusses the changes in consumer behaviour due to the penetration of digital technology and increase in disposable income. The findings suggest that consumers in these countries have become more reliant on digital media for their needs and wants. The research also highlights the potential for further growth in the future.

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review
Name of the student
Name of the university
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1LITERATURE REVIEW
Abstract
Purpose: This report executed a systematic literature review to evaluate the influence of
digital on consumer behaviour in China and India. Globalisation had significantly affected
the penetration of digital technology in developing where the penetration has increased
significantly. On the other hand, there had been increase in the disposable income of the
consumers in developing countries, which resulted in change in purchasing behaviour of the
consumers.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The research had evaluated 15 peer reviewed journals and
articles to examine the past researches. The report had explained the concept of digital
marketing and different types of platforms used to engage consumers. Consumer behaviour
and the overall purchase processes along with the changes had been described in detail to
highlight the changes in behaviour in China and India.
Findings: The findings showed that consumer behaviour has changed significantly in
developing countries like China and India due to increase in penetration of web 2.0 and
increase in the disposable income of the population. The consumers in these countries have
become more reliant on digital media for addressing their needs and wants. Moreover, this is
expected to increase further in the upcoming years.
Research limitations/implications: The major limitation of the research is that it has
highlighted the findings from past research and synthesize the results. The research lacks in
depth analysis of the current scenario. Further studies can be conducted to examine the
impact of these factors on the buying behaviour using quantitative methods and empirical
analysis.
Originality/Value: The research has added value by accumulating all the necessary data on
the changes in the consumer behaviour in the past decade and the way it affects the buying
behaviour of the consumers.
Keywords: Digital marketing, consumer behaviour, developing countries, globalisation,
change in consumer behaviour and customer value.

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Topic: Impact of digital marketing on consumer behaviour in China and India
2.0 Literature review
2.1 Introduction
The interconnection between individuals have increased substantially due to the
advancement in technology and rise in web 2.0. There is a significant change in the way firms
communicate with their existing and potential consumers in the market (Abubakar & Ilkan,
2016). This has resulted in a major shift in the digital marketing strategies in the country.
Change in human interaction has been observed due to the increase in engagement on social
networking websites and rapid change in web platforms have influenced the behavioural
changes of the consumers including interactions, habitats and activities (Adnan, 2014).
These provided multiple options of marketing to all the brands, which includes
advertisement, generating engagement opportunities, brand content publishing and
participation in social networks. It is also important to examine the impact of the digital
marketing strategies and campaigns on the attitudes, beliefs and values of the consumers
(Adnan, 2014). The rise of social media marketing and digital marketing has provided the
business entities with various options for branding their products effectively. The application
for digital or content marketing can be designed in such a way that it can engage with the
consumers at any place and point of time (Abubakar & Ilkan, 2016). This strategy has the
purpose of educating, education and information valuable information for the brand.
The marketing channels and consumer behaviour have experienced a shift, which has
resulted in the change in the buying behaviour of the consumers. The change in the behaviour
of the consumers is progressive in nature, which results in frequent changes in the trends in
the market. Moreover, there has been a change in the perception and expectation from the
consumers in the market. The number of internet users were high due to the increase in the
number of populations in past decades but the penetration of the web was relatively less and
was only higher that Africa (Al-Debei, Akroush & Ashouri, 2015). Web 2.0 has significantly
increased the penetration into this market. This has improved the communication between
groups and among individuals and it has facilitated in developing relationship from one
corner of the world to the other corner. Moreover, globalisation has changed the condition of
the economy in both China and India where China was the first one to experience tremendous
growth and was once the fastest growing developing country in all over the world. Similarly,
India also become the fast-growing developing country in the past few years due to the boom

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in the economy. These countries have been growing economically and have attracted various
foreign investment due to the free trade policies. However, the most common factor in
respect to the consumers in the market is the steady increase in the disposable income of the
middle-class segment, which has presented significant opportunities to the companies in the
market.
2.2 Digital Marketing
Digital marketing has been defined as the process of achieving the objectives of
marketing through application of digital technology (Arli, Tjiptono & Porto, 2015). On the
other hand, it has also been illustrated that digital marketing is the application of technologies
to assist the activities in marketing. This facilitates in providing significant knowledge to the
consumers as per their needs. The developed world has already addressed and experienced
the need and significance of digital marketing. This has made major global organisations to
develop a business model, which aims to integrate digital and traditional marketing methods
for precisely catering to the needs of the consumers. The introduction of advanced
technologies has developed new opportunities for the business where they have to manage
their websites effectively to achieve the company objective (Balakrishnan, Dahnil & Yi,
2014). The introduction of the marketing orientation in business has enhanced the
significance of branding for all companies and online advertising has been considered as one
of the most powerful tools for brand development and increasing traffic on online platform.
Monotonous marketing and advertising techniques have been replaced by digital
marketing techniques and it is one of the powerful ways of reviving the economy and
developing opportunities for operating in a more effective way (Arli, Tjiptono & Porto,
2015). Business organizations in Singapore have measured the effectiveness of digital
marketing tools and found out that it is one of the most effective tools in achieving results
(Balakrishnan, Dahnil & Yi, 2014). However, the growth in technology and globalisation has
contributed immensely in the development of digital marketing techniques. It has been
highlighted that speed, navigation, accessibility as the key characteristics for developing
effective content on digital platform (Ghose & Todri-Adamopoulos, 2016). On the contrary,
it has been considered that word of mouth on different social media platform as one of the
effective methods of developing new consumers and increasing the traffic on the online
platform (Cummins et al., 2014). The importance of digital marketing is significantly
important as it addresses digital technology at all aspects. Search engine optimization is one

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of the commonest forms of marketing as it has facilitated in maximizing the ways in which
search engine searches for company websites.
It has been argued that the term digital marketing has evolved over the years where it
has evolved from being a tool for marketing services and products to an umbrella term that
describes the methods of using digital technologies to develop preferences of the consumers,
retain customers, increase sales, promote brands and acquiring new consumers (Balakrishnan,
Dahnil & Yi, 2014). On the contrary, digital marketing has been described as the method,
activities and institution of utilizing digital technologies effectively for communicating,
delivering and creating value for the consumers (Adamopoulos, 2016). An inclusive
perspective has been used to define digital marketing as a technology enabled, adaptive
process, which facilitates in collaboration with the customers and other stakeholders to
communicate, create, deliver, and sustain value for both internal and external stakeholders.
Digital technologies enable adaptive processes which results in the development of values in
different ways (Godey et al., 2016). The companies integrating technologies into their
organisational processes has been able to develop processes, which has added value for both
the business entity and the consumers. The different processes developed by using digital
technologies are able to generate value for the consumers by developing new consumer
experience and effectively interacting with them. Digital marketing consists of series of
digital touchpoints that are adaptive in nature and it encompasses the processes, customers,
and marketing activity. It has also been stated that there has been significant increase in the
number of digital touchpoints, which has resulted due to the annual increase in the digital
buyers (Godey et al., 2016). The younger generation, being more inclined towards digital
technology are moving into the group of digital buyers.
The conventional marketing process starts with the analysis of the external and
internal environment consisting of the five C’s- collaborator, competitors, customers,
company, and context (Cummins et al., 2014). Customer is the central focal point with other
critical elements such as collaborator, context, and competitor that shapes up the operating
environment of a company. A research framework was proposed which measured the
interaction among digital technology and the five C elements (Hajli, 2014). The concept,
structure, and institutions has been identified that emerged from the interaction between the
two variables and interaction within the elements. These consists of factors such as two-sided
markets, platforms, social media, user-generated content, contextual interaction, emerging
consumer behaviour and search engines. The analysis of all the activities forms the main

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inputs for the marketing mix and the information gathered through analysis of the market
develops the marketing strategy of the firm. Digital technological are responsible for shaping
this information gathering and analysis, actions, strategies, which highlights the overall value
generated by using digital strategies (Islam, Rahman & Hollebeek, 2018).
Figure 1: Research framework
Source: Islam, Rahman and Hollebeek, (2018)
Value creation includes creating value for consumers through brand equity, value
equity, customer satisfaction, and relationship equity (Kannan, 2017). It also consists of
creating consumer equity by developing strategies for retention, higher margin, and
acquisition. Finally, it also focuses on generating firm value by improving growth rate,
profits, and sales volumes. Digital technology has rapidly changed the surrounding
environment within which the firm operates. Digital technology is also responsible for
reducing the asymmetries between sellers and consumers in relevant ways (Kelly et al.,
2015). The interaction between the digital and the different aspect or elements of the
surrounding environment can be understood by the impact of each of the variable. Consumer
behaviour have changed due to the increase in access to various technologies in different
touchpoints. Digital technology has influenced the ways information is gathered by the
consumers with regards to price and quality, expectations, search processes and implications
for the firms (Lim et al., 2016).

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2.2.1 Social media and user-generated content
One of the major interesting differentiation between traditional and digital marketing
is the ease with which consumers are able to share information to other consumers through
word of mouth (Kannan, 2017). This sharing of information is not limited to only friends and
families but to strangers on a social network which is highly extended. Digital platforms
consist of information, out of which a major percentage comprises of the ser generated
contents and customer often post reviews on services, brands, products and company
websites which are accessible to wide area of social media users that can be considered as the
potential consumers. A critical aspect that have been focused on have addressed the reason
for contribution of the people on social media and the results distinguished between the major
two types of facility that a contributor derives from any social media interaction, image
related utility and intrinsic utility of posting content (Kelly et al., 2015). Image utility is
derived from the perception of other social media users. Empirical analysis or investigation
clearly provides the distinction between both the utilities where the first is dependent on the
posting behaviour of the user and the later aspect is related to the amount of follower the user
has on the social networking sites. The field experimental conducted showed that intrinsic
utility outweighs utility related to image when the number of followers is less and the
situation is exact opposite when the number of followers is higher. The overall results
showed that image related utility has been dominant for most of the users tested.
This means that it is critical to highlight the individuals that have significant influence
on social media platforms. A tentative theory was proposed which suggested that the number
of influencers are small and its impact is cascaded on others (Kannan, 2017). A dormant
measure of influence has been measured and the empirically investigated the impact or
influence of individual login behaviour in respect to the social network data (Lim et al.,
2016). It has also studied the diffusion of influence and found out that in a network, there are
specific demographic information, which can be considered as good adoption predictors
(Stephen, 2016). Individuals are expected or have higher chances of adopting if they are
connected to other adopters and if the density of connection of adopters are higher in that
specific group.
Online review is one of the most studied form of online customer interactions, which
consists of electronic and content word of mouth, and user generated content (Lim et al.,
2016). Electronic word of mouth bears similarity to the traditional method of word of mouth
where the major element is the knowledge of the consumers regarding the product,

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experience, usage, complaints and recommendations. It is perceived as reliable and
trustworthy by most of the online users. On the contrary, the major difference between online
word of mouth and traditional word of mouth is that electronic word of mouth has large
volume and has richer content (Stephen, 2016). Moreover, the accessibility of the content is
much higher and has higher penetration power than the traditional word of mouth medium, as
it is limited to only family and friends. This is the reason that electronic word of mouth has
been a subject of extensive research in the past decade, which evaluates its impact on the
dynamics and sales and its impact on the other reviews and posts. Moreover, it is also critical
to identify the most influential people on the social networks.
The dispersion and volume of online review and results showed that dispersion is an
effective predictor for measuring the rating of television programs (Hajli, 2014). The
importance of the relationship between sales and online reviews was measured , which
showed that online reviews that, are positive and helps in improving the sales (Kannan,
2017). However, the negative reviews have stronger impact when compared to the positive
reviews. The two major dimensions of online review was highlighted which consist of factors
such social dynamics and product evaluation (Kelly et al., 2015). The result showed that both
these factors have significant impact on the sales. Researchers has developed tangible metrics
for measurement of return on investment on social media. A metric was developed which
aimed at measuring the relationship between monetary value and viral influence of electronic
word of mouth (Balakrishnan, Dahnil & Yi, 2014). A model was developed which measured
the monetary value of review and results showed that contextual comments derive more value
than the numerical ratings (Kannan, 2017).
A comparison was made between observational learning and impact of electronic
word of mouth where the consumers provide electronic data and the observational learnings
are provided by the companies (Arli, Tjiptono & Porto, 2015). The results showed that
negative word of mouth has stronger influence than the positive word of mouth but the results
are exact opposite for observational learning. Therefore, it is profitable and essential for the
business entities to provided observational informational to the consumer as it strengthens the
electronic word of mouth volume. However, one of the factors that has to be taken into
account is the fact that online review is not contributed by all the customers and there is need
for modelling the consumer reviews. A model was created which aimed at capturing the
decision process, which examined the volume, variance, and valence of the ratings (Kannan,
2017). These results showed that users that are more active provide lower ratings when

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compared to the less active reviewers and with time, these active users become the majority
of the reviews, which highlights the declining trends of favourable ratings over time. Similar
studies on the diminishing proportion of favourable ratings, which showed that consumers
purchasing product provide review on a later date, which reduces the utility and lower ratings
on these products results in lower valuation among the other consumers.
The past decade has witnessed the increase in studies on online review on the
products and a meta-analysis was performed on the elasticity of the valence and volume of
online reviews (Kelly, 2015). The results showed that volume elasticity is lower than valence
elasticity where the elasticities are higher for low-trialability and private products. It was
highlighted that almost five percent of the reviews on retail websites were products that were
never purchased by any reviewer (Kannan, 2017). Similar studies on electronic word of
mouth showed that electronic word of mouth had stronger impact on the sales volumes for all
the tangible products that are new to the market. However, it had no impact on the services.
2.2.2 Platforms and two-sided markets
Digital era has witnessed the emergence of various platforms and market that connect
individual buyers with other individual sellers and multitude of sellers, media sites and
several advertising exchange networks, crowdsourcing platforms and business-to-business
platforms. In all the above cases, the platforms can be considered as independent third party
that facilitates the interaction or connection between buyers and sellers. A study was
conducted to examine the relationship between field experiments and its influence on the
disclosing information on the seller based and user based of exchange network (Arli, Tjiptono
& Porto, 2015). The findings showed that sellers prefer exchange networks have a greater
number of sellers due to its appeal to the buyers. A vector auto regression model was
implemented which investigated the direct impact of the sellers and buyers on the advertising
revenue of the platforms and indirect impact on the cost per click and click through rate
(Kannan, 2017). These results a very strong network effect where more buyers boosted the
cost per click for the sellers and increase in seller increased the click through rates of the
buyers.
The examination of influence of competition on the two-sided platforms in case of
both monopoly and duopoly setting with analytical models showed that media firms charge
more in duopoly market than in monopoly market where there is no competition (Kelly,
2015). This contradicts the major belief that there is negative relationship between price and

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competition where price is lower in case of lower competition in the market. This implies due
to significant network firms lose profits due to the high cost of advertisement in case of two-
sided marketing due to high level of competition. Business to business platforms were
evaluated and it highlighted their orientation of the total consumers, which is a factor for
seller vs buyer side concentration on these platforms (Abubakar & Ilkan, 2016). The result
showed that total consumer orientation results in the increase in the concentration on the
buyer side.
2.2.3 Search Engines
Search engine is used for allowing customers to acquire information that is free on
services and products and highlights the business entities that fit into the search engine
criteria. Search engines provide paid search listings and organic listings of websites in
response to the key search words. Arli, Tjiptono and Porto, (2015) evaluated the effectiveness
of search engines which highlighted that customers acquired through paid search engines
provide higher customer lifetime value than the offline channels. Paid search advertising is
more effective than online advertising and the impact of paid search is more durable than that
email marketing (Kannan, 2017). The first page estimate mechanism and price bidding and
the results was compared which, showed that first page estimation mechanism has major
advantages in dealing with the budget constraints and hidden valuation (Kelly, 2015).
Additionally, it was found that the effect of a paid inquiry is more suffering than that
of email. There are three players associated with web search tool promoting: the web index,
the sponsor/firm, and the client (Abubakar & Ilkan, 2016). There has already been discussion
on the job of web indexes in a client's choice voyage. In this sub-area, emphasis has been put
around explicit issues from the viewpoint of the web search tools and the sponsors: (1) in
what capacity should web search tools cost and rank watchwords, and (2) how should
promoters pick explicit watchwords and offer for those catchphrases for the most productive
and successful client securing (Adnan, 2014). The summed up second value sell off is
generally embraced via web crawlers to decide the costs and rankings of postings for every
catchphrase. It is outstanding in financial aspects that the summed up second value sell off
outflanks the main value closeout; however, its usage at web indexes may not generally be
ideal. The summed up second value offering and the main page offer gauge component
executed at Google was analysed(the gauge offers the base offers to show up on the main
page of list items for explicit watchword and promoter blends) (Adnan, 2014). Their
outcomes accentuated the last's bit of leeway in managing sponsors' concealed valuation and

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spending imperatives, bringing about higher incomes for web crawlers that do not really
come to the detriment of the publicizing customers.
A systematic model was developed of ideal offer structure to relegate offers of
impressions to the bidders and help web indexes accomplish maximal incomes (Ghose &
Todri-Adamopoulos, 2016). Afterward, a half-and-half offering plan was examined wherein
promoters can offer on a compensation for every impression premise or then again on a
compensation for-execution premise (for example the quantity of snaps) (Godey et al., 2016).
They recommended that web crawlers give distinctive offering choices to promoters. The
bartering-based market at web indexes, by definition, can make extraordinary challenge
among sponsors. Numerous organizations employ a promoting office to deal with their
internet searcher advertising and grant the office dependent on transformations. It was found
such remuneration plan could bring down the office's benefit by up to 30% (Kannan, 2017).
A mechanized offering choice emotionally supportive network to amplify the sponsor's
benefit was pro. The proposed calculation is appeared to improve return for money invested
by 21% in field analysis and increment both sponsor's and company's income (Kelly, 2015).
The trade-off of acquiring a company's very own image name versus its rival's image name
was examined (Godey et al., 2016). Such a buy is influenced by the quality of brand
proprietor and its rival. At the point when the brand proprietor anticipates that its rival should
buy its image catchphrase, the ideal activity is to purchase its very own image name to block
the contender. Furthermore, they found that offering on contenders' image names builds
internet searcher's benefits, yet could lead both brand proprietor and its rival to the detainee's
issue wherein both lose benefits.
Web crawlers give the firm catchphrase execution reports to enable the firm to
comprehend the adequacy of their purchase intention. For instance, Google gives day by day
insights including the quantity of impressions, number of snaps, clickthrough rate (CTR),
transformation rate, normal CPC, all out costs, normal position, and quality scores, and so
forth. Among these measurements, position, CTR and change rate apply the most effect on
procurement costs. In one of the soonest observational investigations on web indexes,
demonstration was made based on the customer navigate and change, the CPC and the
situation of inquiry advertisements (Ghose & Todri-Adamopoulos, 2016). They found that as
the inquiry promotion moves to the highest point of the outcome page, the CTR is higher.
Their outcomes demonstrated that the consideration of the retailer name in the inquiry
watchwords produces higher CTR, while the incorporation of the brand name or longer

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search queries prompts lower CTR. Following this examination, demonstration was made
that showed that the CTR diminishes as the promotion position moves down; however, the
transformation rate is not monotonically connected with the advertisement position (Godey et
al., 2016).
This surge of research was broadened by demonstrating that the transformation rate of
watchword promotions is influenced by the nearness of brand name what's more, area data.
Some exploration concentrates more on the promotion position (Adnan, 2014). For instance,
it was analysed that the challenge for promotion position and demonstrated sponsors' key
conduct (Kelly et al., 2015). A relapse brokenness way was utilized to deal with examination
of the effect of position on the adequacy of hunt advertisements (Hajli, 2014). They indicated
position is increasingly significant for littler sponsors, and they likewise found the nearness
of brand name or explicit item data can undermine the advertisement adequacy. They
demonstrated the association's watchword offering and its ROI, the web crawlers' positioning
choice and the buyers navigate and transformation, and demonstrated that attribution systems
can significantly affect focusing on clients utilizing catchphrases (Kannan, 2017). It has been
analysed that the effect of site design improvement (SEO) on the challenge between sponsors
for natural and supported indexed lists, and distinguished conditions under which SEO
improves consumer loyalty with web search tool results (Hajli, 2014).
2.2.4 Contextual interactions
The examination of the relationship between contextual factors of business entities
environment and digital technologies showed significant results. The three major contextual
elements, which has been focused on, are the location, geography, privacy regulations and
regulations against content piracy. A study was conducted on these elements and showed that
geographical location of the users significantly affects the purchasing decision of the buyers
in this context (Kelly et al., 2015). similarly, studies conducted on the location of the users
showed that traffic is higher for some products based on location where the preferences of the
consumers to visit a website depends on their geographical location. The target effectiveness
of the mobile advertisements was examined which showed that over crowded trains are
expected to have more consumers responding to offers when compared to trains with lower
crowds (Hajli, 2014).
There is an expanding exertion by online firms to use the important individual-level
data on clients' pursuit practices, online audits, web-based life exercises, and with whatever

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else that clients cooperate with on the web. In the US, clients' close to home data can be
shared among organizations as long as the organizations express their goals in their
protection strategy. The granular information gathered by the organizations enables
advertisers to all the more likely get when, where and how to satisfy a client's needs. Be that
as it may, clients' anxiety for their security is rising. An ongoing report by the author,
demonstrated that purchasers' security concerns stay at an abnormal state while their doubt of
online information authorities keeps on developing (Kannan, 2017). Most overviewed clients
do not trust firms should get to their own information by following treats or online
networking exercises. Notwithstanding, 81% buyers feel they do not have command over
how their own data is being gathered and utilized. In the European Union (EU), the
protection laws are a lot stricter, which can significantly affect focusing on clients. Utilizing
an enormous scale overview of clients presented to show promotions, it was found that,
overall, "show publicizing wound up far less successful at changing expressed buy aim after
the EU laws were established, with respect to show promoting in different nations" (Kannan,
2017). The decrease in adequacy was especially articulated for showcase advertisements of
littler sizes with no intelligent components and for sites that had general substance, for
example, news.
An expository model was build up to analyse the harmony dimension of security in an
improved setting with a restraining infrastructure firm and a delegate client, accepting the
market of protection is free of government guideline or mediation (Arli, Tjiptono &Porto,
2015). Their discoveries were in accordance with the well-held conviction that general
security would decrease after some time and keeping up protection would be all the more
expensive for buyers. They anticipated that a business opportunity for security should
develop wherein buyers could buy a specific dimension of security in that showcase. At last,
swinging to the issue of theft and advanced rights the executives (DRM), there have been
various investigations, both scientific and observational, concentrating on the effect of
robbery and DRM on deals and benefits of data products (Arli, Tjiptono & Porto, 2015). A
few analysts have demonstrated that theft can be helpful to firms when there are solid system
impacts and replicating extends the market. It has been demonstrated that notwithstanding
when there is no system impact, robbery could build an association's benefit as flimsier
copyright insurance could empower firms to lessen value rivalry by permitting value delicate
shoppers to duplicate (Kelly et al., 2015). Along these lines, more fragile copyright security
could fill in as a coordination gadget to lessen value rivalry. In like manner, notwithstanding

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when there is a nearness of solid system impacts, more grounded copyright requirement by
one firm could fill in as a planning gadget to decrease value rivalry
2.3 Consumer Behaviour
Consumer behaviour has changed significantly with the advent of digital technologies
where it has been seen that major consumers are more oriented towards digital platforms for
searching of information and purchasing of products. Even though, the market for brick and
mortar outlets are still considerable high, there has been significant growth in the market of
online purchases. The different instruments and modes discussed in the above have
significantly influenced and impacted the buying decision of the users. Consumer behaviour
can be defined as the behaviour of the consumers regarding the purchase and selection of
products (Balakrishnan, Dahnil & Yi, 2014). It can also be defined as the actions taken by the
consumers and the underlying motives in a marketplace. Consumer behaviours has also been
defined as the study of the human behaviour in the role of a consumer (Ghose & Todri-
Adamopoulos, 2016). Consumer behaviour defines when, where, how and from whom the
service or products needs to be purchased. On the contrary, a different definition of consumer
behaviour was provided where it is considered as the study of buying products and exchanges
process involved in the disposal, consumption and acquiring of products (Arli, Tjiptono &
Porto, 2015). Consumers can be divided into organisational and personal consumers. The
personal consumers consist of the individual consumers that purchase products for individual
usage. On the contrary, the organisational buyers consist of user that purchase for the
operation of their whole organisation.
Key investigation emphasis is to see how purchaser conduct is influenced by the
advanced condition, explicitly through communications with web crawlers, online surveys,
suggestions, and other comparable data not delivered or constrained by the firm or brand.
Moreover, even as the external and internal environment itself changes relying upon the
gadget that clients use – (PCs), advanced mobile phones, tablets, or wearable gadgets – how
do these it is essential to investigate the impact of gadgets and condition on the purchaser
behaviour of the consumers (Abubakar & Ilkan, 2016). Such research issues emphasize
around the components interesting to the gadgets or condition and look at their effect on
buyer basic leadership and the purchasing intention. A genuine case of an early paper
concentrating on such research examined the idea of the impacts that intuitive choice guides
may have on shopper basic leadership in web-based shopping conditions (Ghose & Todri-
Adamopoulos, 2016).

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Another model utilized eye-following information to analyse how clients secure and
process data in their online basic leadership (Kannan, 2017). Suggestions were developed on
how the qualities of cell phones may impact customer conduct, and inspection was made on
the effect of tablets on shopper conduct in advanced environments (Ghose & Todri-
Adamopoulos, 2016). Focusing on the job of choice guides in developing purchaser intention,
the found that the customers advance through unmistakable social states after some time, and
the development is owing to their earlier use involvement with different choice guides
(Abubakar & Ilkan, 2016). Choice guides can be compelled by gadget highlights, and in this
way, the ideal structure of choice helps could differ crosswise over gadgets.
Research in the specialist's domain offers another point of view of the computerized
purchasing venture wherein intuitive internet-based life and simple access to data may extend
instead of thin client decisions. Moreover, clients can impact other potential purchasers
through online audits, internet-based life, etc, amid both the pre-buy and post-buy stages
(Kannan, 2017). The client choice on the journey, as a general rule, ranges crosswise over
advanced just as customary disconnected environments. This purchaser intention crosswise
over situations has been the subject of a few papers. A print inventory was the main
disconnected channel and its clients were contrasted and clients who utilize the online
channel, or both.
They built up an applied system where the fiscal estimation of a client depends on two
highlights of the item class - regardless of whether the item is utilitarian or epicurean and
whether the item is of low or high seen hazard. They found that the multichannel clients are
not really more significant than single channel clients. For instance, the disconnected just
clients have a higher money related an incentive than multichannel clients on generally safe
utilitarian item classes, and the online-just clients spend more on high-chance utilitarian items
than multichannel customers. A thorough survey on the client conduct in the inquiry, buy,
and after-deal phases of multichannel customers was performed (Arli, Tjiptono & Porto,
2015). They recognized five key difficulties for future research, including information mix,
understanding client conduct, channel assessment, asset allotment, furthermore, channel
coordination. Also, the enormous volume of individual-level touch point information adds
greater multifaceted nature to these challenges. Data seek assumes a significant job in the
client's choice adventure. Early research analysed how the computerized condition influences
vehicle buys and uncovered that the Internet abbreviates the thought and assessment phases
of the client adventure, and clients would have looked significantly more if the Internet was

15LITERATURE REVIEW
missing (Cummins et al., 2014). A later examination in a similar setting, found that the
Internet substitutes for time spent at the vendor, for print content from outsider sources in
pre-buy organize, and for time spent in arranging costs in the overall buying process
(Cummins et al., 2014). These outcomes feature the significance of the decreased hunt
expenses and therefore increasingly productive buy forms in computerized situations.
The particular way where the customers' computerized hunt unfurls and how the
procedure is influenced and directed via search and choice guides in a consistently changing
advanced condition is, all by itself, a significant point. A significant number of the
exploration discoveries in the general region of inquiry can be connected to explicit advanced
settings. For instance, group of researchers built up a basic model in which the inquiry choice
is together demonstrated with the buy choice (Islam, Rahman & Hollebeek, 2018). The
clients choose how much data they need to accumulate by exchanging off the apparent buy
utility with inquiry cost. Utilizing clients' shopping information in customary physical stores,
it was demonstrated that clients do not look in around 70% of their shopping trips because of
high look costs (Cummins et al., 2014). On the off chance that the inquiry cost is diminished
into equal parts, as in his counterfactual investigation, the flexibility of interest can be more
than tripled. In the web-based setting, when cost of purchasing is essentially decreased,
analysts found higher interest versatility in different item classes
The consecutive inquiry process was incorporated into a decision model (Islam,
Rahman & Hollebeek, 2018). They utilized web crawled information of review and
positioning for all camcorder items at Amazon.com for a one and a half-year information
window and accepted this information are conglomerations of individual-level ideal hunt
groupings. Their outcomes demonstrated that shoppers normally seek among ten to fifteen
item choices. While the positioning and channel devices offered by the retailer can enable
clients to lessen seek costs, these apparatuses likewise focus request on the top of the line
items. Analysis of client online look conduct for multi-quality, separated tough products, for
example, cameras, and found that by and large a client conducts 14 seeks online over
different brands, models, and online retailers over a 2-week time frame (Cummins et al.,
2014). Notwithstanding, the broad inquiry is kept to a little arrangement of properties and
70% of the client’s pursuit and buy inside the equivalent online retailer. They likewise
discovered that client’s first hunt with nonexclusive watchwords and thin down to explicit
catchphrases, reverberating the look into discoveries by Islam, Rahman and Hollebeek,
(2018).

16LITERATURE REVIEW
Trust is a significant component that impacts clients' particular data assembling and
hunt conduct in the computerized condition. An applied structure was presented for online
trust building utilizing partner hypothesis, which moved toward the trust working from the
point of view of various partners, for example, clients, providers, and merchants (Stephen,
2016). From clients' points of view, they need retail destinations to be dependable and their
exchange data and individual data to be ensured. Notwithstanding, such client needs may not
exactly line up with provider's effectiveness point of view. In one of the most critical
observational investigations on client security worries in web-based shopping, a field analysis
was conducted and found that focusing on, can undermine the adequacy of a showcase
advertisement (Cummins et al., 2014). As per their exploration, a promotion that is both
prominent and content-put together focused on has less contact with respect to a buy than a
promotion that is just prominent or focused on, potentially due to clients' security concerns.
Seeing how developing computerized advancements influence purchaser conduct is a
significant research territory. It is the way to understanding the job of different touchpoints in
deciding clients' buy venture, broadening crafted by Stephen, (2016).
The consumer buying behaviour model has been developed to illustrate the overall
process of purchase decision, which has been derived from the different human behaviour
models. The first step is generation of need, which refers to the recognition, or the need to
purchase a product. This is dependent on external and internal stimuli where the consumers
may be lured in by attractive offers or advertisements on social networking sites or
information available at various touchpoints in digital marketing. The next step is searching
for relevant information and in case of digital marketing, there are huge amount of data
available on the variety of products that fulfil the need or want. In case of digital marketing,
the role of online reviews and user experience of the products play a significant role in
addressing the need of the consumers. The consumers decide these products based on the
various factors where the presence of the company on digital platform play a significant role
where consumers use search engine to identify the products that best suits the need (Cummins
et al., 2014). On the other hand, electronic word of mouth creates positive impacts for the
companies and products that have received higher positive reviews that negative comments.
The next step is evaluation of various alternatives which shows the importance of digital
presence as companies have better engagement with the consumers are likely to be preferred
by the consumers. The consumers connect with the products and organisations based on the
story or role they want to play in the lives of the consumers (Stephen, 2016). The next step is

17LITERATURE REVIEW
making the purchase decision and digital marketing has the power of convincing the
consumers even at the last moment as they are able to reach the consumers through various
touchpoints. The consumers may have decided to purchase a product but the decision may
change due to better reviews, ratings and offers from the companies. The business entities
have to make the organisations aware of the work done by them. The final step is the post
purchase behaviour, which determines whether the consumer will make repeat purchases
based on personal experience. This determines the actual and predicted user and if the
predicted user experience is not met then this results in less likely future purchase (Cummins
et al., 2014). Moreover, due to increase in user-generated content on social media platforms,
negative reviews have stronger impact on the purchase decision of the consumers. The
electronic word of mouth has better penetration and strangers are able to information
regarding products with bad reviews. Therefore, it is difficult for products receiving negative
reviews as consumer trust the opinion of the influencers in the society and online platforms.
The role of influencers is significantly important in the modern digital marketing
environment.
2.4 Change in consumer behaviour in China and India
Globalisation has caused significant change in the behaviour of the consumers in the
market due to the penetration of digital technologies. The growth of ecommerce and retail
sectors in China and India has provided opportunities for the companies in the retail industry
to develop product to acquire the emerging middle-class segment. China is one of the most
dynamic consumer markets and they have become more reliant on digital technology to serve
all their needs and wants. The number of users on the digital platforms has also increased in
India. The growth of the middle-class segment in these countries is increasing at rapid rate
and it is expected to reach 40% by the end of 2025 (Stephen, 2016).
A study was conducted to examine the impact of the purchasing behaviour of the
consumers due to the implementing of digital marketing, which showed that Chinese and
Indian consumers are growingly searching for products on online platforms before making a
purchase (Balakrishnan, Dahnil & Yi, 2014). These consumers prefer making purchases from
both online and offline stores but they gather as much information possible based on their
need generation. Another study performed on the impact of digital marketing on the
consumer behaviour in India showed that digital marketing has significant positive impact on
purchase behaviour of the consumers (Godey et al. 2016). The research used an empirical
analysis to determine the impact of the consumers from different segments having different

18LITERATURE REVIEW
disposable income, which showed that there has been significant search for information and
communication from these consumers before and after making a purchase. This is due to the
high level of younger population in these countries where the consumers prefer searching for
information and gather data by online reviews and other available information. The
examination of dispersion and volume of online review and results showed that dispersion is
an effective predictor for measuring the rating of television programs (Ghose & Todri-
Adamopoulos, 2016). Importance of the relationship between sales and online reviews
showed that online reviews are positive and helps in improving the sales (Kannan, 2017).
However, the negative reviews have stronger impact when compared to the positive reviews.
Two major dimensions of online review were highlighted, which consist of factors such
social dynamics and product evaluation (Adnan, 2014). The result showed that both these
factors have significant impact on the sales. Researchers has developed tangible metrics for
measurement of return on investment on social media. A metric was developed which aimed
at measuring the relationship between monetary value and viral influence of electronic word
of mouth (Abubakar & Ilkan, 2016). A model was developed, which measured the monetary
value of review, and results showed that contextual comments derive more value than the
numerical ratings (Hajli, 2014).
Similarly, studies conducted on the behaviour of the consumers in other Asian
markets have shown similar influences ratings of the products and online reviews play a
critical factor in selection of products and the consumers search for higher value. The impact
of higher brand value is also a significant factor in choosing products. On the contrary, the
post purchasing behaviours significantly affect the operations of the companies where the
consumers review the products and their features (Hajli, 2014). There has significant increase
in active communities that affect the change in the consumer behaviour on the online
platform. Moreover, globalisation has changed the condition of the economy in both China
and India where China was the first one to experience tremendous growth and was once the
fastest growing developing country in all over the world (Adnan, 2014). Similarly, India also
become the fast-growing developing country in the past few years due to the boom in the
economy. These countries have been growing economically and have attracted various
foreign investment due to the free trade policies. However, the most common factor in
respect to the consumers in the market is the steady increase in the disposable income of the
middle-class segment, which has presented significant opportunities to the companies in the
market.

19LITERATURE REVIEW
2.5 Conclusion
The systematic literature suggests that digital marketing has had significant impact on
the consumer behaviour of the developing countries like China and India. The findings had
shown that advent of globalisation and web 2.0 has resulted in increase in disposable income
and reach of the online consumers. The number of consumers using digital platform has
increased in the past decade, which has caused the economy to grow rapidly. However, the
literature is based on the past studies so the findings lack analysis of the present scenario. The
research has been successful in illustrating the different digital marketing tools and
techniques. The research has added value by accumulating all the necessary data on the
changes in the consumer behaviour in the past decade and the way it affects the buying
behaviour of the consumers. Thus, it can be concluded from the research that digital
marketing has significantly changed the buying behaviour for the consumers where majority
has been using online platform to search for information and purchase products.

20LITERATURE REVIEW
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