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© 2019 by the authors; licensee Eastern Centre of Science and Education, USA 

 

Asian Business Research Journal 
Vol. 4, 44-53, 2019 
ISSN : 2576-6759 
DOI: 10.20448/journal.518.2019.41.44.53 
© 2019 by the authors; licensee Eastern Centre of Science and Education, USA 

 
 

 

 
Co-Creation with Ceramic Practitioner for Improving the Marketing and Enhancing 
the Customer Purchase Experiences 

 
Yu Qinghua1   
Yukari Nagai2 
Luo Yinghuang3 
  

( Corresponding Author) 
 

 

1Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan and Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen, 
China. 

 
2Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan. 

 
3Hanshan Normal University, Chaozhou, China. 

 

 
Abstract 

Background: As China's porcelain capital, Jingdezhen has had a glorious history of producing 
ceramics for thousands of years. Nevertheless, the private ceramics sector industry is going 
through a development bottleneck nowadays. This research aims to utilize service design tools to 
co-create values with local ceramic practitioners, to improve marketing of ceramics and enhance 
user`s purchase experiences. Methodology: 1) Devised Likert's 7-point scale by open-ended 
interview approach to clarify the existing problems to collect quantitative data. 2) Analyzed the 
collected data by one-way ANOVA to identify the different opinions of 87 interviewed subjects. 3) 
Employed co-creation method and service design tools to design the online-offline service system. 
Findings: 1) Through qualitative and quantitative methods identified the target researched group 
was the young group (age range from 20 to 30). Their insights used to co-create and design an 
online-offline marketing system in four steps why, what, who and how. 2) Utilizing service design 
tools to clarify the service contents, main stakeholders, marketing models, touchpoints and how 
they are connected and interacting. Finally, designing an application to facilitate online purchase 
to improve user experience. 

 
Keywords: Purchase experience, Online-offline, Service design tools, Marketing, Co-creation, Jingdezhen. 

 
Contribution of this paper to the literature 
This study contributes to existing literature by utilizing service design tools to co-create values with 
local ceramic practitioners, to improve marketing of ceramics and enhance user`s purchase experiences. 

 

1. Introduction 
1.1 Background 

    Jingdezhen has a long history in ceramic manufacturing; the earliest records trace back to the Han Dynasty 
(BC202-AD220). This study does not focus on the glorious ceramic producing history, but rather on the current 
status of the private sector industry. The ten state-owned porcelain factories are being restructured since 1995, 
(state-owned porcelain factories refer to the state-owned ceramic enterprises in Jingdezhen in the Chinese planned 
economy era). 60,000 to 100,000 workers were laid off from their work around the same time which seemed like the 
beginning of the decline of the ceramics industry in Jingdezhen. That led to the emergence of a private sector 
ceramic business. This study mainly focuses on small and medium-sized ceramic studios, factories and companies, 
to figure out how to utilize co-creation approaches with the ceramic practitioners to enhance marketing and 
purchase experiences using an online-offline marketing service system. 

An interview and questionnaire approach used to find the already existing questions in the private sector 
industry in the beginning. The questionnaire was devised based on a long-term investigation in Jingdezhen (2010 - 
2018). The collected data were analyzed by a statistical method, according to the choice of the target group (age 
range 20-30). 

Service design tools used to achieve three simultaneous targets: (1) Research the main stakeholders; (2) Devise 
strategies to enhance the customer’s purchase experience; (3) Improve marketing. Four steps are needed to 
accomplish the above: 1) why: analyzing the needs and problems of the main stakeholders of the private ceramic 
industry; 2) what: use service design tools to show the service content; 3) who: clarifying who is involved with the 
service system and how they are connected, and 4) how: defining touchpoints and the interaction with the service 
system to illustrate how the service works.  

Co-creation is a useful approach to achieve ideal results in this research; we collaborated with local private 
ceramic practitioners in the design process of an online-offline service marketing platform. Co-creation belongs to 
the boundary of participatory design; however, the term co-creation has not been defined yet in academic circles. 

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Sanders and Stappers (2008) mentioned the notion of co-creation and co-design in the growing participatory design 
domain. The terms of co-design and co-creation often treated similarly. One of the ideas of participatory design is 
to use tools to bridge between the researchers and the community members for the sake of minimizing the 
knowledge gaps and social-cultural differences (Sabiescu et al., 2014; Teli et al., 2017). As for co-creation, the 
appropriate tools should utilize in both the research and design processes. Co-creation has become the latest trend 
in marketing and brand development (Sanders and Stappers, 2008). Co-creation transforms design strategies from 
user-centred to be co-designed; the roles of both the end-users and designers have changed. Over the last decade, a 
user-centred design approach looked like the golden rule in the design field; the designers are always mining for 
the needs of end-users by interviews and other methods. Nevertheless, the end-users were not involved in the 
design process. The co-creation approach needs deep participation from the end-users with the designers and other 
stakeholders. All sitting around the same table, in the co-creation process, with their opinions become twined 
together iteratively (Mattelmäki, 2008). Hence, this research adopted the co-creation approach to collaborate with 
end-users for conducting design innovation. 
  

1.2. Research Questions 
This study aims to address the following two research questions:  
1) How to build an online-offline service system?   
2) How to enhance marketing and user purchase experience by using that online-offline service system? 
To achieve this, a structure of cumulative progression proposed in this study: Section 2 illustrates the methods, 

including open-ended interview, questionnaire, depth interview and co-creation. Section 3 conducts quantitative 
data analysis. Section 4 presents the results. Section 5 utilizes service tools to clarify how the service work and how 
to enhance the purchase experience. Section 6 concludes, and section 7 presents limitation. Finally, 
acknowledgement provided in Section 8. 
 

2. Methods 
2.1. Open-Ended Interview and Questionnaire 

The initial research stage utilized ethnography methods to study the practitioners from the private ceramics 
sector and employed an open-ended interview approach to clarify the existing problems. For this case, a 
longitudinal element embedded in the survey, 65 practitioners from the private sector interviewed over a period 
from 2010 to 2018. Dairies, pictures and records were kept to note the entire interviews (60,000-words diary - 65 
videos and hundreds of photos). Each interview lasted 60~90 minutes. 

According to the practitioners, the questionnaire designed to include fifteen questions using Likert's 7-point 
scale approach. The questionnaire designed into two dimensions: 1) the first dimension is concerned with the 
subsistent problems in the developing process of the private ceramics sector (questions 1 to 7), and 2) the second 
dimension covers the Jingdezhen ceramic marketing model (questions 8 to 15) Appendix 1.  

87 subjects from the local ceramic practitioners answered the questionnaires (66 males and 21 females, aged 
from 20 to 60). The collected quantitative data were analyzed by SPSS software, using one-way ANOVA method to 
examine the subjects according to different age groups. The points of view on both investigated issues 
(development process and marketing models) used for the sake of finding clues to establish new hypotheses and 
developing new theories (Wu, 2017). This research identified the target group to research by statistical analysis 
and designed an online-offline marketing service platform. In the end, the new design theories are generalized. 
 
2.2. Co-Creation 

After evaluating the quantitative data, the co-creation approach employed to design an online-offline service 
marketing system using service tools, such as service offering map, online-offline product marketing service 
blueprint. Out of the previous practitioners,12 subjects were chosen in this process, eight females and four males, 
aged from 25 to 30 with ceramic design or art background. The focus groups organized to discuss; the needs and 
problems of the stakeholders in this research - identify the service contents - clarify the main stakeholders - 
understand the operating methods of the service system. 
 

3. Quantitative Data Analysis 
Developing a design questionnaire from two levels, the first level problems are concern the existing problems 

in the Jingdezhen private ceramics industry, including the shortage of funds in manufacture process, the need for 
design innovation, design plagiarism, intellectual property protection, brand development planning, expansion of 
production scale, and the government support, totally 7 items, in order to analyze the problems encountered during 
the development of the private ceramics industry in Jingdezhen. The second level problems are focus on the 
marketing of the ceramic product of Jingdezhen, including the traditional store sales model, store direct sales and 
agent sales model, internet marketing for the development of ceramic enterprises, online selling and offline taking 
delivery model, online ceramic culture promotion, the government integrate online-offline sales service platform, 
self-media marketing model and unified price in direct sales or agency sales, which has eight issues.  

The distribution of the questionnaire was targeted, Jingdezhen ceramics practitioners were the primary 
research target groups, including potters, ceramists, artisan, business owners and ceramic sales staff, and so forth. 
The 87 subjects (66 males and 21 females) answered the questionnaires, on the age level, 41 subjects aged 21-30, 
accounting for 47.13%, 35 subjects aged 31-40, accounting for 40.23%, and subjects aged 41-50 are 8 People, 
accounting for 9.2%; 3 people surveyed between the ages of 51-60, accounting for 3.45%. The respondents of 20-30 
and 31-40 age grades are the main body of this research who are the main force of the private ceramics industry in 
Jingdezhen. 
 
 

 



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3.1. Research Hypotheses  
H1: Through long-term investigation, many problems found in the Jingdezhen private ceramics sector. The ones causing 

most of the concerns include; design plagiarism, brand development, product design innovation and shortage of funds. 
Nevertheless, different age groups of practitioners had different consideration of the importance of the existing problems. 

H2: The traditional store sales model is still the mainstream in Jingdezhen. However, the rapid development of Internet 
marketing methods has been influencing Jingdezhen's ceramics marketing hugely in recent years; since internet marketing has a 
wide range of development prospects. Establishing an online-offline marketing platform in new business sales is necessary. As 
to Jingdezhen ceramic marketing, applying service design strategy to build an online-offline service platform is necessary to 
help integrating manufacture and sales resources as well as improving purchase experience. This is considered the best way to 
utilize the limited production and design resources. As for the marketing model, subjects from different age groups have 
different opinions regarding the traditional and networked marketing model. Younger subjects are more willing to accept 
internet marketing models. 
 

3.2. One-Way ANOVA Analysis of H1 
Seven questions included in the first level of the questionnaire, and then one-way ANOVA method was used to 

analyze the answers. Testing the Homogeneity of Variances is shown in Table 1 the Levene Statistic Values are 
1.72, 0.96, 1.28, 1.08, 0.82, 0.18 and 0.31. All the significance values are greater than 0.05, indicating all have not 
reached a significant level. Thus, the null hypothesis should be accepted, which indicates that the variances of the 
two groups of samples are not significant and the homogeneity of variance is not violated (Wu, 2017).  

 
Table-1. Test of homogeneity of variances. 

Test of homogeneity of variances 
 Levene statistic Sig. 

A1 1.72 .17 
A2 .96 .42 
A3 1.28 .29 
A4 1.08 .36 
A5 .82 .48 
A6 .18 .91 
A7 .31 .82 

                                                                          Source: Field survey, 2019. 

 
The variance summary in Table 2 shows that the significance values of the seven issues are also greater than 

0.05, not reaching a significant level again, implying the null hypothesis. Combining the results of Table 1 and 
Table 2 concludes that the subjects from different age groups do not have different opinions regarding the seven 
issues. Thus, the result does not validate the problems mentioned in Hypothesis 1. Still there are differences in the 
opinions of the age ranges regarding the problems in the Jingdezhen private ceramics sector. 

 
Table-2. ANOVA. 

ANOVA 

 F Sig. 

A1 

Between Groups .50 .69 

Within Groups   

Total   

A2 

Between Groups .21 .89 

Within Groups   

Total   

A3 

Between Groups 1.69 .18 

Within Groups   

Total   

A4 

Between Groups .84 .48 

Within Groups   

Total   

A5 

Between Groups 1.12 .35 

Within Groups   

Total   

A6 

Between Groups .32 .81 

Within Groups   

Total   

A7 

Between Groups .81 .49 

Within Groups   

Total   

                                                                Source: Field survey, 2019. 
 

3.3. One-Way ANOVA Analysis of H2 
The second level of the questionnaire has a total of eight questions related to marketing ceramic products in 

Jingdezhen. One-way ANOVA method also used to test the data here; the Test of Homogeneity of Variances is in 
Table 3. Levene Statistic Values are 1.28, 1.37, 0.67, 1.22, 1.63, 0.20, 1.73 and 0.65. All values are all greater than 



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0.05so have not reached any significant level. Again, we should accept the null hypothesis, that the variance 
between the two sample groups is not significant and the homogeneity of variance is not violated. 
 

Table-3. Test of homogeneity of variances. 

Test of homogeneity of variances 

 Levene statistic Sig. 

B1 1.28 .29 

B2 1.37 .26 

B3 .67 .57 

B4 1.22 .31 

B5 1.63 .19 

B6 .21 .89 

B7 1.72 .17 

B8 .65 .58 

                                                                                 Source: Field survey, 2019. 
 
The variance summary in Table 4 indicates that the ninth topic: “The store direct sales and agent sales model 

have broad development of prospects”, is significant (P = 0.01 < 0.05), and this must reject the null hypothesis and 
accept the opposite hypothesis. Accordingly, the respondents from different ages groups have different perspectives 
regarding the development broad prospects of store direct sales and agent marketing models. The significance 
values of the other seven questions are all greater than 0.05, so not reaching any significant level. Therefore, the 
null hypothesis should be accepted that among the subjects from different age groups, there are no differences. 

 
Table-4. ANOVA. 

ANOVA 

 F Sig. 

B1 

Between Groups .10 .96 

Within Groups   

Total   

B2 

Between Groups 3.90 .01 

Within Groups   

Total   

B3 

Between Groups .89 .45 

Within Groups   

Total   

B4 

Between Groups .62 .60 

Within Groups   

Total   

B5 

Between Groups .92 .44 

Within Groups   

Total   

B6 

Between Groups .10 .96 

Within Groups   

Total   

B7 

Between Groups .51 .68 

Within Groups   

Total   

B8 

Between Groups .11 .96 

Within Groups   

Total   

                                                                      Source: Field survey, 2019. 
 

Table-5. Multiple comparisons. 

Multiple comparisons 
Dependent variable:   B2 

Scheffe 

(I) Age (J) Age Mean difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig. 

 
20-30 1.770* .539 .008 

41-50 -1.770* .539 .008 

                                                     Source: Field survey, 2019. 
 

The ninth topic found significant, which needs the further investigation to identify the differences between the 
age groups. Multiple comparisons using Scheffe method utilized for analyzing, from the pairwise Scheffe post-hoc 
comparisons Table 5. In the third column of the Mean Difference (I-J) shows the different values from the paired 



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comparisons between the two groups. The mean difference value is -1.770, between the 20-30 age group and the 
41-50 age group which indicates that the 20-30 age group is significantly lower than the 41-50 age group in the 
average score of the ninth issue. This means the young group hold negative attitudes to the store direct sales and 
agent sales model than the older group.  

 
4. Results of Research Hypotheses 
4.1. Hypothesis 1 

For the first level questions, there was no difference between the views among the ceramic practitioners 
regardless of their ages. This is mainly because all the subjects were ceramic professionals from Jingdezhen with 
enough knowledge about Jingdezhen ceramic industry and its troubles. The subjects consider among these 
problems, design plagiarism, brand development and design innovation are the most concerning. Through long-
term investigation in Jingdezhen, we learnt, that the ceramics enterprises have had no leaders, no established 
marketing management or operating mechanism. Since the ten state-owned porcelain factories closed down, a low-
end survival and developing mode is being adapted in the local private ceramics sector.  

The solution is to give full play to the government functions and establish reasonable industry rules to settle 
down trouble effectively. At the same time, the government should: organize design and production - pay attention 
to the design innovations and brand development strategies - enhance the popularity of Jingdezhen ceramic 
products by establishing strong brands. 
 
4.2. Hypothesis 2 

The second level questions were about ceramic marketing in Jingdezhen. Except for the ninth item, there is no 
difference between the points of view of the subjects from different age groups. The ninth question is whether there 
is a wide range of development prospects for store direct sales and agent business models. Among them, the 
subjects of the 20-30 age group have a negative attitude towards this issue, while the subjects of the 41-50 age 
group hold a positive point of view. This is probably because Internet sales model has been rising in Jingdezhen in 
recent years. Young ceramic practitioners are more receptive to emerge internet sales models. While for older 
groups, traditional sales models are more attractive. In fact, at present, the leading group to apply the internet 
marketing model in Jingdezhen is the 20-30 age group; they always use all internet marketing models to sell 
ceramic products to introduce ceramic craft and culture, providing excellent user experience in the purchasing 
process to enhance the user viscosity, for the sake of expanding products sales. 
 

5. Discussions of Service Marketing System 
Quantitative data analysis is conducted with target research population from the 20-30 age group. We used co-

creation approach to collaborate with the ceramic practitioners in designing a service system to improve ceramics 
marketing and purchase experiences. According to the survey data from a research report of Jingdezhen ceramic 
institute, currently, 20% of the ceramic practitioners hope to maintain their status; 5% of them plan to change their 
business; 17.5% of them have not decided while the majority (57.5%) want to move towards brand developing 
direction. The data also shows the desire of the most ceramic practitioners to change their development model.  

How to develop the private ceramic sector to improve ceramic marketing and enhance purchase experiences? 
The current problems are mainly due to the government policy; because the reform of the ten state-owned 
porcelain factories led to an unprecedented increase in people's leaving and production pressure. In the 1990s, the 
production of porcelain began to fall and excellent artisans and designers started to drain. The original foundation 
collapsed and ceramic exports, as well as domestic sales plummeted (Shen, 2004). The measures taken by the 
Jingdezhen government were completely market-oriented, but the results proved unsuccessful. In order to rectify 
the path of development, the Jingdezhen government has explored carried out various countermeasures (Liu and 
Chen, 2008). At the moment, the Jingdezhen government still regards the development of private ceramics sector 
as its core annual issue. Through interviews to get the development strategies: The first step is to take the lead 
from the government to integrate resources towards private ceramics studios and factories first to develop brand 
strategies. To create brands in the form of joint-stock companies with a unified brand approach, cooperative 
ceramic factories need, completing orders on time, while guaranteeing both quality and quantity. Design agencies 
are needed, hiring professional designers to develop new ceramics and service system. The second step is to 
implement the policy of online-offline marketing to maximize economic benefits. That way, ceramic factories can 
fulfil sales commissions and year-end dividends strategy to generate income. 

How to achieve this goal can be demonstrated here in four steps (why, what, who and how), as that will show in 
this rest of this section. 
 
5.1. The First Step “Why” 
5.1.1. The Existing Problems 

“Why”: Analyzing the needs and problems of the main stakeholders in the private ceramic sector. The main 
stakeholders in this research include ceramists, potters, artisans, salespeople and entrepreneurs. We conducted 
interviews with them to find out the needs and existing problems in their business and planned the design strategy 
according to their needs. 

1). For the ceramists and porters, who mainly focus on two issues; first, the government support, the other is 
how to eliminate plagiarism. They need support from the government because ceramists and porters always suffer 
crises in their career development mostly due to the lack of a platform to study new ceramic craft, designs and art 
trends. Design plagiarism is another problem they are suffering in their business developing process. The ceramists 
and porters are the leading force in implementing ceramics innovation. Hence, they should be acquainted with the 
recent international ceramic innovations, and also need help to eliminate plagiarism. 

2). For the artisans, Jingdezhen has a long history in ceramic manufacture, and the private ceramics industry 
has also achieved industry division of labour; in Jingdezhen, ceramic craft includes several types of work as rolling 



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over, throwing, trimming, painting and firing Figure 1. Using interviews, we identified their needs and existing 
problems; the primary problem is the lack of funding; the long-term low-end development model makes it 
challenging for these ceramic workshops on surviving and can barely maintain daily operation. 

3). For the sellers, the target research group in this study was 20 to 30 years old. We conducted in-depth 
interviews to learn about their business and marketing methods also the principal internet marketing users. Some 
of their problems are: 1) Brand development awareness is weak due to the lack of funds, so online marketing is 
heading towards a crisis. The number of customers has been declining; the customers' interests are changing 
rapidly and cannot be caught promptly. 2) Orders and ceramics manufacturers are not well connected; the supply 
shortage is sometimes exposed. Moreover, the whole selling process is complicated, distributors’ payments are 
always late, which easily causes a financial deficit for those online marketing companies. 
 

 
Figure-1. The ceramic studios. 

                                 Source: Field survey, 2018. 

 
4). For the entrepreneurs, the information needed to manage such companies is incomplete, and a manager ends 

up with the company into an out-of-stock situation or excessive production with products backlog, as well as the 
company's investment in producing is still high, product innovations are not enough and usually suffering from 
design plagiarism. 
 
5.1.2. How to Deal With these Problems 
    How to deal with these problems for ceramic practitioners in their developing process, we put forward the 
following strategies. 

The ceramic practitioners have been paying more attention to design innovation, design plagiarism and brand 
development in their developing process. First, design innovation, the government should build a service platform 
for ceramic practitioners to provide a chance to learn and improve their design level and professional skills. The 
government can hold an international ceramic workshop inviting domestic and international ceramic artists to 
collaboration. Second, design plagiarism, it has been perplexing the ceramic industry for years. To eradicate 
plagiarism, the local government should issue relevant regulations to restrict and punish design plagiarism as well 
as promote the development of ceramic design innovations. Third, nowadays developing strategy of the brand must 
be adapted as in European countries. Jingdezhen ceramic brands have a short history which led to low-end 
competition model in marketing. However, brand building is expensive and could not afford by most of the ceramic 
practitioners. The local government must take leadership in the brand-building process and provide legal and 
economic guidance to practitioners. 

Finally, marketing method, we should integrate into online-offline ceramic marketing service platforms to 
promote ceramic culture. We designed an online-offline ceramic marketing system for ceramic recommendations, 
customization and crowdfunding to help sellers and entrepreneurs improve their marketing. 
 
5.2. The Second Step “What” 

A map for service offering is a useful tool to show the service content in this research. From Figure 2 online 
stores contain five major functional modules: 1) Ceramic recommendations: utilizing big data technology to analyze 
consumers’ preference and suggest recommended ceramic products; 2) Ceramic customization: designers and 
manufacturers depend on customer`s needs to provide one-on-one ceramic customization services. Normann (2001) 
pointed out that the business environment continues to shift from a goods-dominant environment towards a 
service-dominant one (Normann, 2001).  

Ceramic customization is a new direction to integrate ceramic products and service. 3) Ceramic crowdfunding: 
ceramic crowdfunding services offer opportunities for the new entrepreneurs in the ceramic business to use internet 
dissemination characteristics as well as artists or individuals to show their creativity to the public for financial 
assistance. 4) Sharing community: registered users can publish comments posting about their purchase and 
experience. 5) User communication: to provide online instant chat capability, so that, consumers can communicate 
quickly and promptly. Those services integrate design, manufacture resources and sales to maximize production 
benefits. Offline service support logistics, customer service and network technical support as well as on-going order 
processing. 

 



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Figure-2. Service offering map. 

                               Source: Designing by Luo Yinghuang. 
 

The profit sources of the online sales platform are as follows: 1) Ceramic sales commission; 2) Platform 
promotion fee; 3. Business admission fee; 4. Brand marketing service fee.  
 
5.3. The third step “Who” 

The designed online-offline platform shows the main stakeholders and how are they connected. Stakeholders 
are groups or individuals who have a stake in the conduct and consequences of the business operation. Figure 3 
shows the stakeholders and marketing model throughout the service system. The stakeholders in this study are: 
customer service departments - customers - logistics departments - ceramic studios - factories - offline display 
promotion platforms - offline merchant and marketplace platforms - production resources. This can be divided into 
two parts: online and offline, the online aims to improve purchase service experience, reduce transactions, optimize 
service experience. Offline provides product design, manufacture, transportation and exhibition services. Users 
would access the online marketing service from a mobile terminal and the webpage terminal.  

All the stakeholders in this research interact with each other and the whole system in funds, production and 
information flows, represented by the three lines in Figure 3. The production flow connects production resources, 
ceramic studios, factories, logistics and customer. The offline platform should support the producing resources and 
collaborate with ceramic studios, factories to manage manufacturing processes. The logistics department should 
contact the ceramic studios and factories responsible for delivering the ceramics to customers. The funds flow is the 
critical factor in the online-offline system, which connects all the business stakeholders to the customer service 
department. Information flow is another vital factor in the system connecting all the Stakeholders. Through 
information flow, the customer can get excellent purchase experience relying on the collaboration of all the other 
stakeholders. 

 

 
Figure-3. Stakeholders and online-offline model. 

                                                    Source: Designing by Luo Yinghuang. 

 
5.4. The Fourth Step “How” 

Employed service blueprint in this research to study touchpoints and interaction in the online-offline 
marketing service system; the purpose is to analyze how the service work. We are co-creation with stakeholders to 



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design service blueprint; the first step is to design the layers, to clarify how many layers include in the online-
offline ceramics marketing service system. We conducted a focus group discussion, and at last, designed six layers 
in this service blueprint Figure 4: evidence, customer journey, touchpoints, online employee contact, backstage 
employee contact, and support processes. 1). The evidence layer is to show the visual and physical evidence in 
browser the web, payment informant, and delivery service; 2). Customer journey is to illustrate the process from 
visit website to get the ceramics; 3). Touchpoints are to identify the multi-touch points in the whole service 
process, including interface, webpage, charging system, message; employee and deliveryman; 4). Online employee 
contact is to demonstrate the selling process, from answering customer`s questions, checking inventory, 
confirming the address to provide delivery time; 5). Backstage employee contact is to execute the marketing 
service, the backstage staff will respond to chat questions, utilizing the inventory management system to check the 
ceramics, and execute the order, and 6). Support processes are related to technical support, such as using big data 
to analyze web visitor, to recommend ceramic product depending on the visitor`s preference. The web browser, 
payment process, order fulfilment, and delivery service company are the support processes, providing support for 
the whole marketing system. 

 

 
Figure-4. Online-offline ceramics marketing service blueprint. 

                             Source: Designing by Luo Yinghuang. 
 
5.5. “MI” Application 

In order to improve the online-offline purchase experience, we designed a user interface, for mobile and web 

applications, as shown in Figure 5. The mobile application, we called: MI (觅), which means of Chinese is to “find”. 

The customer can use the application or webpage to search for the ceramics he wants; big data techniques can auto-
recommend depending on the customer`s preferences. Additionally, customers can find others with common 
interests using the online commenting module. The application also introduces information related to ceramic, for 
in-depth understanding of the ceramic culture and craft. 
 

 
Figure-5. User interface design of MI. 

                                            Source: Designing by Luo Yinghuang. 
 

The design style of the interface used warm tone; standard colors are red, grey scheme. In terms of functional 
modules, it provides several major functions as product categories, promotion, sales and user evaluation. For 
different modules made a reasonable function division Figure 6: 1) the product category shows the different 
ceramics types as tableware, wine sets, tea sets, coffee sets, vases. 2) The promotion module includes packaging, 
transportation and other different information to improve the user experience; 3) The sales module provides an 
online purchasing service; and 4) In the user review area (Q&A), registered users can obtain bonus points by asking 
and answering questions in order to increase the users' viscosity and knowledge. The user needs to register for 



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shopping online; the registered user can enjoy convenient services. For example, a user can choose custom service; 
the designer will work according to individual customer requirements to design for them; the design fees also listed 
on the webpage. Ceramic crowdfunding service can also be operated and viewed from mobile applications. The user 
review area is a type of online participation model, to express knowledge about ceramic and to know more about 
the culture and craft. Additionally, it can expand social relationships with others having the same interests in the 
ceramic domain. 

 

 
Figure-6. The function division of MI. 

                                                              Source: Designing by Luo Yinghuang. 

 
In conclusion, integrating resources by local government, to establish an online-offline service marketing 

platform to promote the ceramic culture of Jingdezhen, provide multiple sales services, enhance user viscosity, and 
offer customers outstanding online shopping experience. The importance of the customer experience has been 
recognized by service organizations (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2010; Patrício et al., 2011). Enhancing customer 
experience, customer satisfaction and loyalty can create a new value, which is the most critical development way for 
Jingdezhen private ceramic sector. 
 

6. Conclusions 
Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to study the target subjects, utilizing open-ended interviews, 

in-depth interviews, focus groups and questionnaires to collect qualitative and quantitative data. One-way ANOVA 
analysis was used to identify the age group from 20 to 30 who had disagreed with the other groups about 
traditional ceramics marketing. Co-creation approach was followed with that age group to design an online-offline 
marketing system. 

We employed service design tools and co-created with the ceramic practitioners to design service offering map and service 
blueprint for learning how the service works and how to enhance the customers’ experience. We tried to offer an outstanding 
user experience in the purchasing process by providing unique services. The user review area can enhance the conversation 
between ceramic sellers and customers and further improve the user experience and user viscosity. Additionally, spreading 
ceramic culture online will also help increase marketing. 

 

7. Limitation 
    The limitation of this study is that the current concept still stays at the design stage. However, this design 
strategy has been awarded by the China Construction Bank, the China University Innovation, Entrepreneurship 
Education Alliance and the National University Innovation and Venture Investment Service Alliance. However, 
the implementation of the project still needs the support of the local government in Jingdezhen since the actual 
implementation of this project is estimated to take quite a long time. 
 

References 
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60-63. 
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Normann, R., 2001. Reframing business: When the map changes the landscape. New Sussex: Wiley, Chichester. 
Patrício, L., R.P. Fisk, J. Falcão e Cunha and L. Constantine, 2011. Multilevel service design: From customer value constellation to service 

experience blueprinting. Journal of Service Research, 14(2): 180-200.Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670511401901. 
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case studies. In Proceedings of the 13th Participatory Design Conference: Research Papers. ACM, 1: 1-10. 
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https://doi.org/10.1080/15710880701875068. 
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83-95.Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2017.1309439. 
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670509351960. 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 



Asian Business Research Journal, 2019, 4: 44-53 

53 
© 2019 by the authors; licensee Eastern Centre of Science and Education, USA 

 

 

Appendix 1 

Topics 

Extremely 
disagree 

Strongly 
disagree 

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly 
agree 

Extremely 
agree 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 

1. The shortage of funds in the 
manufacture process 

       

 2. It is necessary to carry out 
design innovation        

3. Frequently encountered 
product plagiarism        

4. Local ceramic practitioners 
have intellectual property 
protection awareness 

       

5. It is necessary to establish a 
brand development plan        

6. It is necessary to expand the 
production scale        

7. The government has not 
supported private ceramic 
enterprises properly 

       

8. traditional store sales model 
is the mainstream         

9. The store direct sales and 
agent sales model have broad 
development prospects 

       

10. Internet marketing is 
necessary for the development 
of ceramic enterprises 

       

11. online shopping and offline 
store pick-up mode are feasible        

12. online platforms to promote 
ceramic culture can enhance 
ceramic products marketing 

       

13. It is necessary for the 
government to integrate 
online-offline ceramic 
marketing service platforms. 

       

14. Self-media marketing model 
is necessary        

15. The same product needs a 
unified price in direct sales or 
agency sales 

       

  Source: Field survey, 2019. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Citation | Yu Qinghua; Yukari Nagai; Luo Yinghuang (2019). Co-
Creation with Ceramic Practitioner for Improving the Marketing 
and Enhancing the Customer Purchase Experiences. Asian Business 
Research Journal, 4: 44-53. 
History:  
Received: 20 September 2019 
Revised: 29 October 2019 
Accepted: 4 December 2019 
Published: 2 January 2020 
Licensed: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 

Attribution 3.0 License  
Publisher:  Eastern Centre of Science and Education 
 

Acknowledgement: The authors wish to thank Luo Yinghuang for helping to 
design the figures in this article. They also thank the anonymous reviewers for 
the valuable constructive suggestions. 
Funding: This research was supported by the Art General Project of 2018 
National Social Science Fund (18BG118, Research on the History of Chinese 
Traditional Tool Design Concepts). 
Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflict of 
interests. 
Transparency: The authors confirm that the manuscript is an honest, 
accurate, and transparent account of the study was reported; that no vital 
features of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the 
study as planned have been explained. 
Ethical: This study follows all ethical practices during writing.  
 

Eastern Centre of Science and Education is not responsible or answerable for any loss, damage or liability, etc. caused in relation to/arising out of the use 
of the content. Any queries should be directed to the corresponding author of the article. 

 

 

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