Exploring Consuming Psychologies and Behaviors in Chinese Yi Ethnic Embroideries Product

This research aims to explore customers’ consuming psychologies and behaviors of Chinese Yi ethnic embroidery products. The present study focuses on the effects among perceived value, brand image, purchase intention, customer satisfaction and word of mouth. By quantitative method, the study has built research model and analyzed research data primarily by using structural equation modeling. Eventually, this study has found some significant effects which can explain people’s purchase tendency of Yi embroidery products. Based on these results, the study has made some constructive suggestions.


Introduction
There aremore than 50 ethnic groups living in China, and each ethnic group has its unique embroidery.As part of the minority ethnic group of China, the Yi has their unique embroidery too.Yi women use mass of colors to stitch their pictures and totems including red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple and the like.They learned color law from nature.The design of Yi embroidery is fresh, vivid and plump in details, and it is colorful in whole finery.It fully reflects Yi people's outgoing character of passionate love of life (Chen & Yuan, 2013).In recent years, the Yi embroidery becomes more familiar to Chinese and some Europeans.According to market feedbacks, the customers appreciate Yi embroidery's beauty and recognize its value.However, its monotonous contents also become a limit to Yi embroidery's development.Most people purchase it because they are interested in Yi embroidery's beauty and the Yi culture.The material used and processing problems still exist when compared with Suzhou's or Hunan's embroidery works.Therefore, this study aims to study customers' consuming psychologies and behaviors concerning Yi embroidery products by studying the relationships among perceived value, brand image, purchase intention, customer satisfaction and word of mouth.Besides, the reasons that influence customers' buying behavior in Yi embroidery are to be found and constructive suggestions are to be made.Zeithaml (1988) indicated that when customers estimate the value of commodities, they would consider the differences between benefits (customers' perception from the product's internal and external attributes) and losses (monetary and nonmonetary factors) from goods or service.In addition, most researches use multi-dimensional model to identify the perceived value.Kantamneni (1996), who researched some business school students, found perceived value includes four dimensions, which includes the social value, experience value, functional value and market value.Philip Kotler (2012) explained that the customer value is a delivered value which depends on the difference between overall customer value (product, service, people and image) and overall customer costs (money, time, physical force and energy).Based on Zeithaml's SERVQUAL model, Petrick (2002) propounded a five-dimension perceived value of service, which includes behavior price, currency price, emotional response, quality and reputation.Sheth, Newman & Gross has propounded a consuming value model which includes functional value, social value, emotional value, tentative value and conditional value (Paul & Geoffrey, 2000).According to Sheth's research, those dimensions can affect customers' behaviors in the following various degrees: (1) purchase degree (buy or not buy); (2) product degree (product A or product B); (3) brand degree (brand A or brand B).In this study, the researchers suggest that the perceived value is a process that customers perceived from the attributes of products or services and thus they can get the whole assets.

Brand Image
The concept of brand image emerged firstly in marketing and advertising field at 1950s (Padgett & Allen, 1997).Currently, brand image does not have a unified definition among scholars.It can be explained in many perspectives as follows: (1) in psychological factors, scholars are more concerned about customers' psychological reflection in brand.They consider brand image as customers' inner association or consciousness of products or services (John et al., 2006;Keller, 1993;Hsieh et al., 2004).(2) In symbolic concepts, customers sometimes choose given products or services because they see them as specific symbols.Commodities can be regarded as an intangible cultural model, which conveys meanings of customers' self-image (Cova, 1996;Firat. et al., 1995;Meenaghan, 1995;Jamal & Goode, 2001).( 3) As for personality, scholars consider that a certain brand contains personality of certain people.There were two methods for solving brand anthropomorphism: One is an anthropomorphic description of a brand and it has individual personality; another being that brands can represent people's personality and it can be a media for people's communication (Schau & Gilly, 2003).According to previous studies, this study suggests that brand image is a dynamic association process of customers to a specific brand.(1985) considered that purchase intention was customers' attitude to specific products and it was customers' subjective purchase possibility in specific products or services.Zeithaml (1988) indicated that when customers got perceived value, then further purchase intention would be generated.In general, this intention depends on the consciousness of gaining benefits or value from commodities.William et al. (1991) has indicated that whether customers are willing to buy goods or not depends on the benefits and costs that came from goods or service.Spears and Singh (2004) indicate that customers' preference or attitude to goods has restricted customers' subjective tendency to product or brand purchasing . Feng Jianying et al. (2006) has summarized previous purchase intention theories and propounded four visual angles of research in purchase intention as follows: (1) Maximizing the perceived value, which means customer would prefer products or services which share the highest perceived value during the decision-making (Monroe & Krishnan,1985;Zetthaml, 1988;Grewal, 1998).( 2) Minimizing perceived risk, which means customers would choose products or services in low perceived risk (Claudhuri et al., 2002).(3) Customer attitude.Psychological theories indicate that intention was influenced by attitudes towards events (Shao Bingjia et al., 2009).Sondergard's research found that during the process of purchase, if the "agreeing" attitude emerged, purchase would be easily done (Zhu Guowei et al., 2010).( 4) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB).The TPB theory is widely used in attitude and behavior research of social psychology (Ajzen, 1985(Ajzen, , 1992)).This theory suggests that intention is a direct factor that may influence people's behavior, and behavior tendency indicates a person's motive for executing specific behaviors.It reflects how much efforts and time a person is willing to pay.TPB theory contains five components which include Attitude toward the Behavior, Subjective Norm, Perceived Behavior Control, Intention and Behavior.The research model of this study is based on TPB and similar theories.Previous researchers found that perceived value has positive effect on purchase intention (Li et al., 2012), and some researchers got strongly effects (Doina et al., 2008;Chen et al., 2014;); Kisang et al. (2008), Paurav Shukla (2011) and Young et al. (2012) have found that brand image has positive effect on purchase intention.Based on previous researches, this study has made the following hypotheses.

Mullet
H1. Customers' perceived value in Yi embroidery has a positive effect on their purchase intention.
H2. Brand Image of Yi embroidery has a positive effect on customers' purchase intention.

Customer Satisfaction
The earliest concept of customer satisfaction was propounded by Gradozo in 1965 (Gu Hong, 2012).Present literatures define customer satisfaction from two perspectives: One was cognitive angle, which believes that customer satisfaction is customers' cognition and process of estimation on products or services (Westbrook, 1980); another one was emotional angle, which considers that customer satisfaction is not only the consequence of the experiences of using products, it also covers customers' psychological activity and emotional reflections (Oliver, 1981).Based on Expectation-Disconfirmation mode (E-D model), scholars have developed series of models to research consuming behaviors.Cardozo (1965) and Anderson (1973) have analyzed the influence of customer satisfaction through E-D model (Gu Hong, 2012).According to their model, customers compare the result of benefits and costs between the expectation of pre-purchase, and the perception of post-purchase.If the perception is higher than expectation, customers would be satisfied.In contrast, they were not satisfied.After that, Oliver (1980), Churchill and Surprenant (1982), Woodruff (1997) and others scholars made similar theories in customer satisfaction.Previous theories primary discussed static situation, but customer satisfaction is a dynamic process, thus many scholars focus on this dynamic situation to in their research.Homburg et al. (2006) has investigated the cognition and emotion influence to customer satisfaction under dynamic situation.Just as satisfaction is generated, emotion has great effects because customers have little knowledge about products or services.Nevertheless, with the growth in customers' experiences, cognitive influence is enhanced.Therefore, this research believes that with product or service increasing, the emotion and cognition influence on satisfaction are different.Besides, other scholars have made similar conclusions (Bolton, 1998;Slotegraaf & Inman, 2004).Ramseook-Munhurruna (2015) has found perceived value was positively associated with customer satisfaction in tourism industry.Other scholars have found similar conclusions in different industries (Qin, 2009;Sandra et al., 2012;Natalia et al., 2014);Ali Turkyilmaz and Coskun Ozkan (2007) established CSI-TMPS model in which brand image could directly influence customer satisfaction in Turkish mobile phone industry.Kisang et al. (2008), Li and Jarinto (2012) and Aditi et al. (2015) found similar direct or indirect effects on two variables; Lai and Chen (2011) found customer satisfaction could positively influence purchase behavior.Therefore, according to previous research, the author in this study has made the following postulates to researching Yi embroidery.
H3. Customers' perceived value in Yi embroidery has a positive effect on customer satisfaction.
H4. Brand Image of Yi embroidery has a positive effect on customer satisfaction.H5.Customer satisfaction on Yi embroidery has a positive effect on customers' purchase intention.

Word of Mouth
The earliest concept of Word-of-Mouth (WOM) was propounded by Asch (1956).He firstly disclosed social psychology of conformity by scientific experiment.Westbrook (1987) indicated that WOM was people's informal communication about products or services by using personal experiences.Emanual and Rosen (2000) indicated that WOM was the comments on a brand at a given period.It was person-to-person communication in specific products, services and certain firms.WOM was a significant factor to customer purchase (Marsha & Teri, 1988).Mangold and Miller (1999) found that only 2% of WOM was promoted by a firm's marketing activity, and the rest of WOM establishment depends on customers.This means a firm's power is weak.This study suggests that WOM is customers' subjective comments on specific products which can influence other customers' purchase behavior.Sandra and Cristiano (2014) found that purchase intention has a positive effect on word of mouth.Christy (2009) and Wang (2014)

Sampling
To guarantee the sample's validity, this study adopts cluster sampling method since only specific people who are interested in embroidery products will tend to buy the products.Meanwhile, this study primarily researches the reasons that can influence customer purchase behaviors in Yi embroidery.Therefore, this study focuses on groups who have post-purchase activities and groups who are curious to this product.In this study, dada collection process is separated into two phases: The first phase is to find target groups (cluster sampling) and in the second phase, the random sampling method is used to find samples in target group.Through partner firms, questionnaires were sent to target groups which include customers who had bought the Yi embroideries and organizations that have interest in Yi embroideries and tend to cooperate with the firms producing Yi embroideries.

Measurement
The five variables in this study are perceived value, brand image, purchase intention, customer satisfaction and word of mouth.Each variable is separated into diverse dimensions.According to previous study, this study has designed questions which are proper to measure Yi embroideries, and those variables are shown in Table 1.A total number of 56 items are measured by using 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree).Through reliability test, variables value of Cronbach Alpha is more than 0.7, which meets the requirements in empirical studies.

Data Analysis
In this study, 900 questionnaires have been sent within one year, and 654 copies were received, and finally 412 valid questionnaires were used.Percentage of validityis 45.7%, the demographic result is show in  -value (24.38, 23.80, 24.77, 24.06, 25.94, and 25.64).Perceived value is an important factor which positively points to purchase intention and customer satisfaction.( 2) All of the brand images (BI1-BI4) are significant of T-value (3.89, 14.39, 18.19, and 13.07).The brand image is also an important factor but is separated into a positive and a negative line which points topurchase intention and customer satisfaction respectively.( 3) Within customer satisfaction, observed variables CS2 to CS4 are significant of T-value (26.53, 27.22, and 24.93).Factor loading of CS1 is fixed at value 0.99.The customer satisfaction is an important factor which respectively points to purchase intention and word of mouth.( 4)Within purchase intention, factor loading of PI1 was fixed at value 0.97, and observed variables PI2 and PI3 were significant of T-value 31.96 and 34.96.The purchase intention points to word of mouth as an important factor.
The structured model indicates the following hypothesis results: Customers' perceived value in Yi embroidery has a positive effect (0.56) on purchase intention.At t-value of 9.08, the H1 was significant; Brand Image of Yi embroidery has a positive effect (0.05) on purchase intention.Thus at t-value of 3.05, H2 was significant; Customers' perceived value in Yi embroidery has a positive effect (0.90) on customer satisfaction andthus at t-value of 19.95, H3 was significant; Brand Image of Yi embroidery has a negative effect (-0.02) on customer satisfaction at t-value of -0.71, H4 was rejected; Customer satisfaction on Yi embroidery has a positive effect (0.45) on customers' purchase intention at t-value of 7.32, H5 was significant; Customers' purchase intention has a positive effect (0.49) on word of mouth of Yi embroidery at t-value of 4.84, H6 was significant; customer satisfaction has a positive effect (0.51) on word of mouth of Yi embroidery at t-value of 4.91, H7 was significant.Note.** P < 0.05; "-" indicates the path effect is significant, and "---"is not significant.
The goodness of fit test of this study is shown in Table 3 and it illustrates the quality of research model.Based on the results, RMSEA, GFI, RMR, NFI, NNFI and CFI which respectively equals to 0.02, 0.96, 0.02, 1.00, 1.00 and 1.00, have met the standard.Moreover, Table3 shows the research model is acceptable because χ 2 /df equals to 1.14, which is less than 2.What is more, P-value equals to 0.108, which is more than 0.05.Thus the model is significant.Path analysis is shown in Table 4.It illustrates direction, indirection and total relationships among those variables.Within all the effects of perceived value on customer satisfaction, direct effect is 0.90, and total effect is 0.90; Within the effects of perceived value on purchase intention, direct effect is 0.56, indirect effect is 0.41 and total effect is 0.97; Within the effects of perceived value on word of mouth, indirect effect is 0.93, and total effect is 0.93; Within the effects of brand image on purchase intention, direct effect is 0.06, indirect effect is -0.01 and total effect is 0.05; Brand image has indirect effect on word of mouth; Within the effects of customer satisfaction on purchase intention, direct effect is 0.45, and total effect is 0.45; Within the effects of customer satisfaction on word of mouth, direct effect is 0.51, indirect effect is 0.22, and total effect is 0.73; Purchase intention has direct effect on word of mouth (0.49), and the total effect is 0.49.In addition, according to χ 2 result, 97% of the variance of purchase intention can be explained by perceived value, brand image and customer satisfaction; 81% of the variance of customer satisfaction can be explained by perceived value and brand image; 97% of the variance of word of mouth can be explained by perceived value, brand image, purchase intention and customer satisfaction.

Conclusion
In this research, customers' perceived value in Yi embroidery products has positive effects on purchase intention and customer satisfaction.This result maintains congruence with previous researches.Most people are attracted by the design of Yi embroidery products as well as the fancy pictures and various kinds of them.On the one hand, they like the special design; on the other hand, the given sense of uniqueness makes them feel different from other people.Some people show concerns about Yi ethnic cultures and they can gain some knowledge about Yi ethnics through its embroideries.
Besides, brand image of Yi embroidery has positive effects on purchase intention but negative effects on customer satisfaction.The former positive effects maintains congruence with previous studies; and the latter one, the negative effects go against the conclusions of previous studies by quantitative research.Yi embroideries have been well-known in recent years, but the whole industry is not so mature, and the scales of production are small as they are scattering in different locations.Current form of organization is still in workshop phases and there is no power to create a strong and famous brand, thus the effects of brand image on purchase intention are weak.
Customer satisfaction in Yi embroidery products has respectively positive effects on customers' purchase intention and word of mouth, which fits in with previous researches.A satisfying piece of work can stimulate customers' positive purchase intention and create person-to-person positive communications too.Customers' purchase intention has positive effects on customers' word of mouth.This result maintains congruence with previous empirical studies.People's purchase behavior can influence their judgments on special goods just like voting.Positive purchase intention can influence people's communication and further influence word of mouth.

Implication
According to the conclusions of this research, this study makes the following suggestions in Yi embroideries: In producing stage, producers need to maintain the quality of existing products since customers tend to by the products for unique design and quality.On the other hand, creative business ideas and management model are important.Those scattered workshops can cooperate together and transform their form of organization to enterprise-based business.Then producers can integrate their dominant resources and eliminated unqualified components by market mechanism.New form of organization can help establish clear business plan, organize standard producing, integrate internal and external relationships, and control each important aspect.In this way quality controlling system of products can be established for developing products and maintaining the qualities; Besides, market mechanism boost competitions around firms which can stimulate innovation and left best firms, then it can make excellent brand possible.
Except for the special design of the Yi embroideries, customers are concerned about Yi ethnics' culture.Most people are curious about the reasons why Yi woman use camellia, Rhododendron delavayi Franch, tiger, calabash as totems stick on the works.However, only a small proportion of customers know Yi ethnics' culture.Hence, Yi embroidery firms have to set a goal of making embroidery "excellent art-crafts" because it transmits the long history of Yi ethnics.On the one hand, firms need keep digging the cultural elements and makes them combined with modern designs.On the other hand, they need to transmit the culture through various media.
What is more, local government can give policy support on Yi embroidery products and firms, such as taxes, finance supports, positive reports, market environment supports.Finally, human resources are a key component to the development of this industry.Current embroidery workers primarily come from close families and apprentice-style workshops.Although current products have various categories and forms, the contents are monotonous.Therefore, embroidery firms can be the major role to cultivate the designers to meet the market needs.Besides, colleges can set specific majors to cultivate relevant students to serve the Yi embroidery industry.
Generally speaking, developing Yi embroidery is a long-term job and this process needs more and more researches and practices to perfect.

Contribution
Based on marketing theory, this study explores customers' consuming psychology and behavior in Yi embroideries by scientific methodology.This research has made the following contributions: 1) It has found the customers' psychology while buying embroidery products.
2) It offers suggestions for Yi embroidery products and the Yi firms' future developments.
4) The application of business theory in realistic commodities also promotes new developments of relevant theories in the new industry.
There are many related researches in embroideries, but they focus more on art, literature or philosophy.Only few researches focus on consuming psychologies and marketing field.Therefore this research fills the theoretical vacancy and provides supports for future empirical studies.

Limitations
By using scientific business model to investigate customers' consuming psychologies and behaviors in Yi embroideries, this research has gained satisfying results.However, limitations in content and design still exist and more work need to be done in future.
Firstly, the sample is only set among post-purchase groups, including individuals and some organizations.The main reason for this is to guarantee the quality of the questionnaires since the Yi embroideries are not familiar to everyone and if the questionnaires are filled by people who know little about the Yi embroideries, validity of this research would be possibly lost.Thus, cluster sampling is adopted in this research.But the limitation is that cluster sampling mainly focuses on certain groups but some potential groups who may be new profit makers are easily ignored.
Secondly, the measurement model of this study needs to be improved.In this research, the variables are measured by 5-point Likert-type.However, the subjective judgments of the subjects may influence the results while filling questionnaires.Besides, the number of questions is quite large and the subjects may lose patience and the real ideas may not be reflected.
Lastly, the variables set in this study do not cover every aspect because the consuming psychologies and behaviors are very complicated.In this research, designed dimensions only focus on internal environment but the perspective of external environment like cultural background, regional difference, religions, publicity and economic situation are not covered.Besides, qualitative research needs to be taken as a supplement of quantitative research.

Future Research Work
Firstly, the size of the sample can be enlarged and potential groups needs to be added to increase validity.Secondly, qualitative research can be taken because perceived value or purchase intention vary from person to person and more field study and in-depth interviews need to be conducted to collect effective data.Thirdly, this study is a static type of research, but people's psychology is a dynamic process and as time flies, their needs may change.Finally, this research should not only focus on marketing or related economic and management theories, it should also cover other research fields like sociology, philosophy, history, and art to make it a multidisciplinary research.
indirectly discussed those two relationships; Olgun et al. (2014) has proved customer satisfaction has a positive influence on word of mouth in Public Healthcare Industry.Woo (2009) and Li (2012) has indirectly validated this influence in another industry.Hence, this study made the following hypotheses according to previous researches.The research mode is shown in Figure 1.H6. Customers' purchase intention has a positive effect on word of mouth of Yi embroidery.H7.Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on word of mouth of Yi embroidery.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.The research conceptual model

Table 1 .
Variables, indicators and reliability keep my personal uniqueness by buying some special art-crafts.2.I never mind going against tradition when I buy products or brand.3.I seldom consider other people's suggestions when I decide to buy an art-craft.4.I seldom buy products that are commonly owned by other people.5.An important goal for buying a product is to find something that indicates uniqueness.
7. When I give this product as a gift to my friends, they would be very happy.8.When wearing the products with Yi embroidery elements, I think I'm very beautiful.9.The various embroidery products can satisfy my different needs.Perceived Value 3 (Perceived losing value) 0.82 10.Sometimes I'd like to buy some special art-crafts.I think it is worthy even though they are expensive.11.I do not tend to buy it immediately when I see an art-craft with a high price.12.I think the price of this product matches its function.13.The price of this embroidery product is reasonable.3.I tend to compare similar products whenbuying Yi embroideries.4.Buying Yi embroideries makes me happy.Purchase Intention 2 (Subject Norm, SN) 0.801.My colleagues and friends have bought Yi embroidery before.2.Those who are important to me believe that I should buy Yi embroideries.3.My family and close friends support me tobuy Yi embroidery products.

Table 2 .
Schumacker and Lomax's (2004)s (2004)theory, the Structural Equation Modeling technique is used in this study by software LISREL 8.8.According to received data, the authors built the research structure to examine the effects by corresponding variables, the full model is shown in Figure2.

Table 2 .
Demographic analysisFigure2is the conceptual model.According to this model, we can see that: (1) the needs for uniqueness, functional value, losing value, affective attitude, social value, and cultural value (PV1-PV6) are significant of T

Table 3 .
The fit indices of the research model

Table 4 .
Direct effects, indirect effects and total effects of the research model