Exploring consumer value path of cross-border e-commerce: A perspective of means-end theory

Despite the explosive growth of CBEC, research into the phenomenon has not increased proportionally. Prior studies mainly discuss the opportunities, challenges and critical elements in CBEC on the organizational level. Little research has explored the individual consumer's psychological processes of joining and the benefits derived from purchasing on CBEC. Filling the research gap identified above, the objective of this study is to construct the hierarchical value map (HVM) of CBEC illustrating how consumers pursue their end through the decision making process consisting the linkage from perceived attributes to desired benefits and the eventual customer value when using CBEC. For this purpose, a qualitative rather than a quantitative approach ought to substantiate prior findings by uncovering the key defining components of CBEC context. The HVM presents 4 important benefits obtaining paths marked as boldfaced, referred as economic oriented path, efficacy oriented obtaining path, choice optimization path, and shipping progress oriented path.