Investigation of Chinese students' O2O shopping through multiple devices

Abstract This study aims to dig out user needs in cross-channel and cross-device shopping environments. To achieve this goal, 20 college students reported their shopping habits of choosing channels and using devices in the interview. The results were complemented by the focus group where seven college students discussed their implicit shopping needs. Based on that, five college students were observed for one week in the anthropology study. Four findings were derived. First, price difference mainly contributed to the participants' shopping choice in the online channel, while the experience of offline shopping and time-cost savings did in the offline channel; Second, smartphones were not the core device of every participant's ecosystems; Third, participants with lower work engagements preferred to shop online and enjoyed sharing shopping information compared to those with higher work engagements; Fourth, female participants, especially those with lower work engagements, had more cross-device interactions than male participants. These findings were integrated into four personas which would be of reference value for practitioners.