The Study On Consumers' Online Impulse Buying In Social Commerce

Social commerce,a new form of commerce facilitated by social media through information dissemination and social sharing,has undergone booming development in recent years.Social commerce focuses on user-generated content and emphasizes the interaction,communication and sharing among consumers,which has made the shopping experience on social commerce platform different from other contexts.Compared with the traditional e-commerce environment,consumers' buying behavior has changed significantly in social commerce context.Impulse buying behavior is a common phenomenon in people's daily consumption behavior,and it occupies a significant proportion in online shopping.The combination of social media and traditional e-commerce creates rich conditions for online impulse buying.While the existing research about social commerce most focuses on rational purchase behavior,and only a few have analyzed impulse buying behavior in social commerce.Therefore,this paper aims to investigate consumers' online impulse buying in the context of social commerce.The research deepens our understanding of online impulse buying and provides theoretical basis and practical guidance for enterprises.Based on the background analysis and literature review,this paper analyzes consumers' online impulse buying on two kinds of social commerce platform: social shopping community and WeChat.First,based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm,this study develops a model to theorize how environmental cues on social shopping community improve customers' browsing experiences and subsequently affect their impulse buying behavior.The results reveal that the unique factors of social shopping website,namely the quality of user-generated content and social presence are critical for facilitating customers‘ browsing experiences.The results also show that both utilitarian browsing and hedonic browsing experience have a positive impact on customers‘ urge to buy impulsively.Second,based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm and emotion theory,this study develops a research model to investigate how the technological features(affective cues in particular)on social shopping community that arouse consumers' affective response and subsequently drive consumers' impulse buying behavior.The results confirm that the positive effects of affective cues(visual appeal,social interaction and self reference)on individuals' emotion(pleasure and arousal),which subsequently affect their urge to buy impulsively.Third,based on the signaling theory and trust theory,this research proposes a model to examine how product recommendations on social media affect users‘ urge to buy impulsively.We selected WeChat official account as the research background.The owner of WeChat official account interacts with its followers and conveys signals mainly through its non-product-related posts and product recommendation posts,which will influence followers' buying behavior.The results indicate that urge to buy impulsively is determined by affective trust in the recommender and affection toward the recommended product.The effect of cognitive trust in recommender on the urge to buy impulsively is fully mediated by affective trust in recommender.The cognitive trust and affective trust,in turn,are influenced by the external signals(information quality and similarity)which are conveyed by the non-product-related posts.The product affection,in turn,is influenced by the internal signals(vicarious experience and aesthetic appeal)which are conveyed by the product recommendation posts.