Research On Formation Mechanism Of Consumer Online Impulsive Buying Behavior

With the advent of “Internet+”, a new mode of commercial retail called “online retail” is emerging, which is changing people’s consumption patterns. Compared with the traditional ways of shopping, consumers can shop online without constraints of time and geography, but also to be provided with lower prices as well as more options and conveniences under the network environment. Online-shopping offers consumers a new kind of shopping experience due to its characteristics of diversification, fragmentation and facilitation. Meanwhile a special kind of purchasing behavior, known as impulsive buying behavior, occurs increasingly, from which the enterprises can make huge profits. The factors influencing the impulsive buying behavior and reasons of its occurrence are both the focuses for academia and business circles. From the perspective of consumers, this thesis explores and analyzes the primary influencing factors of impulsive buying behavior and its formation mechanism, aiming at enriching the consumers knowledge about relevant theories and providing some corresponding suggestions for the online retailers.In the first part of this thesis, 17 major factors that affecting consumers’ impulsive buying behavior are summarized through the quantitative integration analysis of domestic and foreign pertinent empirical literature. Then, Meta-analyses of the 17 variates are made by using the software of Stata. Based on the results of Meta-analyses, as well as the combination of relevant theories and features of online-shopping environment, a theoretical model about formation mechanism of consumer impulsive buying behavior is constructed. Then, more empirical analyses are made through the structural equation modal(SEM) to explore the the specific factors and impact paths in each process of impulsive buying behavior.The result of this research has shown that when browsing the merchandises online, consumers would be stimulated by the goods display, the promotion, design and reputation of online stores, accordingly generated a certain emotional reaction that is so called Flow Experience. The stronger the external stimuli are, the more intense of that feeling is. Likewise, the consumers own impulsive trait and hedonic shopping motivation will enhance this emotion. Thus the person who has stronger feelings of Flow Experience shows more positive impulsive purchasing intentions. According to the research, the process that from the formation of impulsive intention to the occurrence of actually buying behavior will be also influenced by the degree of consumers impulsive purchasing intention, their normative assessment and ability of self-control. Impulsive buying intention and positive normative evaluation can drive the behavior of impulsive purchasing while the ability of self-control will prevent it. Based on these studies, the thesis finally provides some countermeasures and suggestions for online retailers.