The Effect Of Promotion Information Overload On Consumers' Online Shopping Satisfaction

In the Internet era,online shopping has become an indispensable way of shopping in people's life.The rise of online shopping carnivals,such as “Double 11”online shopping carnival not only brings certain benefits to people,but also brings decision-making challenges under massive promotion information.Based on the cognitive load theory,our study used questionnaire method,situational experiment method and click stream data tracking method to explore the effect of promotional information overload on consumers' online shopping satisfaction and its mechanism.Our study is mainly divided into four parts.In pre-study,we designed the priming materials of promotion information overload.And in study 1,we explored the efffect of promotion information overload on consumers' online shopping satisfaction and the mediating role of cognitive load between promotion information overload and consumers' online shopping satisfaction.Furthermore,Study 2 examined whether the mediating effect of cognitive load was moderated by list reference.In addition,in study 3,we also designed a simulated shopping website and verified the moderated mediation model proposed in the shopping situation of the simulated website.And the decision process of subjects was analyzed combined with click stream data.From the results,we have some conclusions as below:(1)Promotion information overload had a negative effect on the satisfaction of consumers' online shopping.Specifically,consumers who had a higher level of promotional information overload would have a worse online shopping experience,manifested in lower online shopping process satisfaction and lower online shopping outcome satisfaction.(2)Cognitive load played a mediating role between promotion information overload and consumers' online shopping satisfaction;specifically,on the one hand,cognitive load played a complete mediating effect between promotion information overload and the process satisfaction of online shopping.On the other hand,cognition load played a partial mediation effect role between promotion information overload and the outcome satisfaction of online shopping.(3)List reference moderated the mediation effect of cognitive load,which was between promotion information overload and consumers' online shopping satisfaction.List reference moderated the second path of the mediation.Specifically,when the list reference existed,it would buffer the negative impact of high cognitive load on consumers' online shopping satisfaction.(4)List reference could help consumers to make decisions in the case of promotion information overload.In terms of clickstream data,in the case of promotional information overload,individuals with list reference would have a shorter total page viewing time than individuals without list reference.Therefore,the effect of promotion information overload on consumers' online shopping satisfaction was a moderated mediating effect.