Understanding online impulse buying behavior in social commerce: a systematic literature review

Abstract

In the past few years, online impulse purchase has garnered attention from researchers in various fields, especially noted in the relatively new field of social commerce (S-commerce). This interactive envronment is a full of impulse buying stimulators. However, no previous studies have been conducted to evaluate the status of the research about online impulse buying behavior (IBB) in S-commerce. Hence, the authors reviewed studies published between 2005 and 2019, to gain an insight into IBB. The authors used an input-moderator-mediator-output model for identifying and classifying factors that influence consumer's online IBB in S-commerce. The authors adopted a review protocol that involved two stages (i.e., automatic and manual), and identified 68 studies that addressed online IBB, of which 24 studies focused on IBB in S-commerce. The systematic review results indicated that survey-based studies (83%) and experiment methods (17%) were prevalent in online IBB in S-commerce. The authors also noted that a majority of existing studies adopted stimulus-organism-response. In this study, the factors that influence online IBB in S-commerce were classified, and a causal-chain framework for online impulse buying was developed. Finally, the authors made recommendations for future research in this field.