Social factors that influence consumers’ decisions when buying second-hand cars in China—Based on EKB model

Sammanfattning: Today more and more people buy second-hand products on internet. As the typical durable goods, second-hand cars are very popular among consumers. In recent years, the sale of second-hand cars increases quickly in China. In addition, there is still potential in the second-hand market. On the other hand, consumers are the subject in the second-hand market. So what consumers take into consideration is important when buying second-hand cars. We have chosen some social factors that influence consumers’ decision when they purchase second-hand cars. Furthermore, we have analyzed the importance of these social factors and the relationship between factors.The purpose of this study is to give vehicle dealers a guide how consumers with different characteristics will pay attention to different factors of the cars but also to guide consumers to make a rational decision when they buy second-hand cars.We have chosen the EKB model as our basic theory. A quantitative research approach and cross sectional research design were used in this study. The link of our questionnaire was published in Baidu Tieba after being designed by SOJUMP and we collected 151 responses. Then, respondent demographics, cross tabulations analysis, one-way ANOVA analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, and sorting analysis were analyzed.The results show that information about the real condition of the car is the most important factor influencing customers when purchasing second-hand cars, price is the second most influencing factor, vehicle model and brand are the third and the fourth respectively, after-sales service ranks the least as most influencing factor.