User talk:Shanglingzi Sun

This user is a NEW user
This user is new. They are a university student who is trying to contribute to Wikipedia. They should be developing new content in their sandbox which is an addition in their own words and with references. I am willing to assist if this user needs help. Victuallers (talk) 21:33, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Consumer Behaviour
Hello and welcome to Wikipedia, I am sorry to inform you that I have reverted a recent edit you made to the article on Consumer Behaviour. The section heading said "Internet Consumer Behaviour" but then the sentence that followed did not mention anything about the way that users behave on the internet. Instead, the content added simply repeated ideas that had already been covered in the article. Finally the references were simply links to an entry in a Library Catalog. It is not necessary to include a link to every reference, although obviously that is helpful. However, you must include a proper reference, so that if other users want to try and locate the book or article, they would be able to find it. If you would like to do some research on how the theories and concepts covered in the article might apply to the Internet, that could be a valuable addition to the article and would be most welcome. BronHiggs (talk) 15:40, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the constructive feedback. Victuallers (talk) 16:03, 8 May 2017 (UTC)


 * If you decide to contribute some content on 'consumer behaviour and the Internet', please try to remember that not all Internet activity is consumer-related. People use the internet for lots of different reasons- to communicate with friends, reference groups and social groups; to acquire information for educational purposes (e.g. to prepare school/uni assignments or seek help with homework questions); to access other types of information (e.g. share/stock market performance, betting odds or results of horse races, access news and current affairs, medical information); for other research purposes (e.g. genealogical research, academic research, research for wikipedia articles). General information about how we use the Internet is a topic that is already canvassed in other articles on Wikipedia. But these types of activities are not principally concerned with consumption and arguably would not belong in an article on consumer behaviour. Only a small proportion of internet activity is directly related to commercial consumption or purchase decisions. Consumers use the internet for a variety of activities related to purchase decisions e.g. to search for information about products and services (e.g. product attributes or features, prices, stockists, availability, special offers or deals); to make actual purchases (e-commerce) and also to engage in various post-consumption activities such as the provision of referrals, testimonials, endorsements, writing product reviews, acting as brand advocates etc. There is a solid body of literature theorising about consumption and Internet and I would encourage you to explore some of this. There is also a lot of commercial research that provides data on the types of internet consumption activities and describing typical users or segments (see for example, Nielsen, TNS Sofres). These types of research findings can add colour and detail to the more theoretical underpinnings in the academic literature.BronHiggs (talk) 02:22, 9 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I have read your latest edits to the consumer behaviour article. Well done! You are on a roll. That new material really adds some worthy new points to the article. I would also like to encourage you to think about how online purchase behaviour differs from offline shopping behaviour. To that end, I would encourage you to read an article which I found really interesting:  Shun, C. and Yunjie, X., "Effects of outcome, process and shopping enjoyment on online consumer behaviour," Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Vol. 5, 2006, pp 272–28 and available as a download at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shun_Cai/publication/220066620_Effects_of_outcome_process_and_shopping_enjoyment_on_online_consumer_behaviour/links/58cbb43692851c31f656c821/Effects-of-outcome-process-and-shopping-enjoyment-on-online-consumer-behaviour.pdf. If you could integrate some of the ideas about how online shopping contributes to customer value in different ways, that would give your section a much stronger focus on individual consumer behaviours rather than just looking as online shopper segments. In addition, I would like to point out that the earliest systematic attempts to examine  consumer behaviour and the purchase decision be traced back to the contributions of Howard and Sheth in the 1960s and and Fishbein and Ajzen in the 1970s  (References: Fishbein, M., and Ajzen, I., Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research, 1975, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA and Howard, J.A. and Sheth, J.N., 1969, The Theory of Buyer Behavior, Vol. 14. New York, Wiley - these two works are now considered to be seminal or classic contributions to the field.) Therefore this body of literature has a much older heritage than is suggested in the opening sentence for your section. For the sake of accuracy, my feeling is that the opening sentence should be amended or deleted.  (Note that Booms and Bitner are strongly associated with developing the literature on services marketing than on consumer behaviour in general. Mary Jo Bitner, for example, is best known for developing the Servicescape model.) I would be more than happy to make these minor amendments myself, but I am reluctant to do do, because I want to encourage you to develop the entire section as a sole-authored contribution. BronHiggs (talk) 23:55, 9 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I have some concerns about the paragraph that appears under the table. Firstly, the commentary says that the "the first row indicates the process of a consumer buying a new product." That statement does not seem to be entirely correct - based on the content, it could equally relate to a customer who is unfamiliar with the brand or category - it is not that it is a new product, but it is unfamiliar to the consumer. When a product is brand new, the entire market lacks awareness. An assumption of new product is not automatically evident from the content provided. At any point in time, there will always be some consumers who lack knowledge of specific products or brands, regardless of how long they have been on the market. There are many reasons why this may be so - for instance, the consumer may not previously had a need or interest in the product category and therefore, may have been unaware of what brands are on offer. New products typically require different strategies because of the general lack of awareness. Although Wikimedia allows some room for interpretation, you must be careful to provide reasonable and accurate interpretations.


 * Secondly, the commentary says "the second and third row illustrates the positive influences the Internet could have on buying process by creating effective communications with online consumers." Once again, this is not entirely correct. The second row shows relevant communications objectives at different stages of the consumer's readiness to buy while the third row simply suggests online media options to assist with achieving the stated objectives. According to the article, the influences on buying process may be external (reference groups, etc) or internal (motivations etc). I think it is important that new content is consistent with other terminology used in the article. If you believe that the influences on buying in an online context are different to offline contexts, then this is an argument that needs to be made, with reference to the literature. In this section, it might be possible to think about online social communities as an influencers (and if you were doing this for a student assignment, you could try to make that case). But, Wikipedia has different rules, so you would need to ensure that this what the source says or that it is clearly implied in the original source. You need to be careful that you do not put 'words into the mouth' of the source. If you do make interpretations that are inconsistent with the source, in Wikipedia-land, this is known is original research and is not permitted. In an educational context, this would be seen as developing an argument or a thesis and would be encouraged. But an encyclopedia is not in the business of creating new knowledge. Please see WP policies on Original Research, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research


 * Thirdly, the example appears to be very promotional in character. I question the choice of a named Chinese social media site which would be less familiar to English language users of an English language resource. In addition, it is a complex example where we have one social media site sitting inside another social media page. My preference would be to include well-known, simple examples that can be easily comprehended by users. However, apart from that, the repetition of the brand name, the hypothetical nature of the story and the unsubstantiated claim of excellence for JD.com has all the hallmarks of being promotional. There are many editors on Wikipedia who would be prepared to delete the entire section on the basis of a perceived promotional push. It you want your content to remain on Wikipedia for any length of time, you need to be very careful with how example are written and used. They should be carefully selected for purpose, reflect actual examples (rather than hypotheticals) and and provide proper, independent references for any factual claims. Please see WP guidelines on avoiding promotional prose, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox_or_means_of_promotion


 * Finally, in the table itself, by the term "intermediates" do you mean to say "intermediaries"? This is not entirely clear to me. Perhaps it requires some sort of explanation in the commentary? Perhaps you could provide a definition and a few examples to help clarify.

I have tried to provide some constructive comments, however, I won't bother you again, because I do not wish to be seen as harrassing. Good luck with developing your section. BronHiggs (talk) 04:26, 11 May 2017 (UTC)