Value-Based Design for Smart Jewelry in the Chinese Market: An Empirical Study for Entrepreneurs

This research paper presents the initial attempt to explore how entrepreneurs should strategically perform in the Chinese digital jewelry market to survive through market competitiveness in today’s environment full of challenges. Given the fact that China is currently the second-largest jewelry consumer in the world, has led Chinese consumers to increasingly think about design, value, and quality of the piece. Using a concept of consumer behavior to explain the research model, we proposed that generation, which is categorized in the same dimension of age, one of the major factors influencing consumer behavior, has influence on how Chinese consumers decide to buy digital jewelry. A questionnaire was developed to collect data from 374 Chinese people living in four major cities in China. With the pre-test of questionnaire development, we could generate four prototypes of a digital watch to further test our hypothesis. The result clearly demonstrated that generation has a positive effect on how Chinese consumers decision to purchase digital jewelry. In addition, specific attributes for digital watches as a piece of digital jewelry were also specified from this group, suggesting that new Chinese generations prefer digital pieces of jewelry that are light and suitable for everyday fashion styles and outfits. These findings offer both practical and theoretical implications for entrepreneurs. Practical implications include (e.g., the potential of designing lightweight, fashion-oriented digital jewelry depending on younger generations) as well as theoretical implications (e.g., the building of the generational impact on technology-driven consumer behavior).