The Role of Xiaohongshu in Shaping Malaysian Users Purchasing Behaviour

Yap, Wen Lam (2023) The Role of Xiaohongshu in Shaping Malaysian Users Purchasing Behaviour. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

Social media has been used by businesses to connect with customers and expand since it has the ability to influence how people purchase. This paper focuses on XiaoHongShu (XHS), a rising smartphone application that enables social interaction, information seeking, opinion expressing, information sharing, and convenience for Malaysian users by combining social media and e-commerce features. The two categories of content producers identified in this study—Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and Key Opinion Consumers (KOCs)—are both essential to XiaoHongShu, which is mostly dependent on user-generated content (UGC). The purpose of this study is to investigate how XiaoHongShu has influenced Malaysian consumer behaviour as well as the effectiveness of KOL and KOC to achieve so. Through a survey questionnaire, the study will gather responses from Malaysian Chinese young adults to better understand their usage patterns and the effectiveness of KOL and KOC in influencing consumers' decision-making. Three factors, which are attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise, will be utilised to predict the efficacy of KOL and KOC. The theories of uses and gratification (UGT), source credibility, and theory of planned behaviour (TPB) were all used in this study. As a result, businesses can utilise these findings to determine XiaoHongShu's potential as a marketing tool, and XiaoHongShu users can gain a deeper understanding of the KOL and KOC roles in XiaoHongShu. Keywords: XiaoHongShu, Key Opinion Leader (KOL), Key Opinion Consumer (KOC), purchasing behaviour