Different facets of compulsive buying among Chinese students

Background and aims: Compulsive buying is a severe phenomenon, especially among younger consumers. It is well documented in Western industrial societies like the USA and Germany, and nowadays an increasing interest in compulsive buying in non-Western countries is on the rise. Methods: In the current study, we measured the prevalence of compulsive buying tendencies among Chinese female and male students by using a Chinese translation of the German Compulsive Buying Scale (Raab, Neuner, Reisch & Scherhorn, 2005). We examined the influence of gender, location and age using ANCOVA, and binary logistic regression. Results: Factor analysis identified three factorial dimensions of compulsive buying tendencies which are impairment of impulse control and reactive or compensatory aspects, reduced rationality according to money spending, and post-purchase guilt. Our results indicated that about 6.7% of the sample shows a compulsive buying pattern, and that females are more affected. For location, a geographic difference between Chongqing and Fuzhou was found for the overall compulsive tendencies, but not for the percentages of compulsive buyers. Conclusions: In sum, the existing study provides evidence that Chinese consumers have a factorial structure which differs somewhat in compulsive buying from Western samples. Observations about gender and location were considered. These findings give a deeper understanding of China’s compulsive buying behavior.