Online impulse buying behavior model for social commerce in Malaysian context

Abstract

The rapid development in Web 2.0 technologies and social media has given rise to a new business model—social commerce (S-commerce)—that emphasizes social aspects. Consequently, the consumer‘s online impulse buying behavior (IBB) increases and contributes significantly to S-commerce revenues. In line with this, an understanding of such behavior is critical for E-retailers to strengthen competitiveness, enhance revenue, and ensure business sustainability in today‘s challenging business environment. Most of the previous studies have utilized urge to buy impulsively (UBI) as a proxy to examine the consumer‘s online IBB instead of the actual IBB. As a result, the number of research that distinguishes between UBI and IBB is minimal. These limited studies have only focused on the impact of consumer characteristics, websites-related factors, and marketing factors. However, they neglected the important role of social-related factors on IBB. Furthermore, because the majority of the previous studies adopted the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, building a model based on a theoretical foundation to investigate online IBB in the context of S-commerce is another challenge. The main aim of this study is to examine the impact of social-related factors on triggering online IBB in S-commerce websites. To investigate the social elements influencing online IBB, this study integrated the Social Influence Theory (SIT) and the Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT). A quantitative approach was applied to test fifteen hypotheses of the proposed model by surveying 365 consumers from four Malaysian S-commerce websites. The Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was employed to analyze the survey data. The findings indicate that compliance, identification, internalization, entertainment, purposive value, and maintaining interpersonal connectivity significantly influence IBB. It was also discovered that UBI has significant moderating effects on the relationships between compliance, identification, internalization, and IBB. Moreover, it was also identified that impulsiveness has served as a moderator in the relationships between compliance, internalization, and UBI. Theoretically, this study has enriched the understanding of online IBB in S-commerce. It also has practical implications on S-commerce designers, marketers, and managers in terms of regulating online IBB.