Online reviews and impulse buying behavior: the role of browsing and impulsiveness

Purpose Online reviews have shown important information that affects consumers’ online shopping behavior. However, little research has examined how they may influence consumers’ online impulse buying behavior. The purpose of this paper is to bring theoretical and empirical connections between them....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Internet research 2018-06, Vol.28 (3), p.522-543
Main Authors: Zhang, Kem Z.K, Xu, Haiqin, Zhao, Sesia, Yu, Yugang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Browsing
Buying
Consumer behavior
Consumer Economics
Consumers
Electronic commerce
Impulse buying
Influence
Information Sources
Intention
Literature Reviews
Marketing
Merchandise Information
Online Surveys
Personality
Personality Traits
Psychological Characteristics
Shopping
Social Influences
Stimuli
Verbal Communication
Web site reviews
Websites
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Summary:Purpose Online reviews have shown important information that affects consumers’ online shopping behavior. However, little research has examined how they may influence consumers’ online impulse buying behavior. The purpose of this paper is to bring theoretical and empirical connections between them. Design/methodology/approach The framework of this study was tested on three popular online group shopping websites in China (ju.taobao.com, dianping.com, and meituan.com). An online survey with 315 participants who had experience using these websites was recruited to verify the effects of consumers’ perceived value from reading online reviews on urge to buy impulsively and impulse buying behavior. Findings The empirical findings show that consumers’ perceived utilitarian and hedonic value from reading online reviews enhance their browsing behavior. Browsing positively affects consumers’ urge to buy impulsively and finally affects their impulse buying behavior. Further, this study finds that consumers with high impulsiveness focus more on hedonic value of online reviews, whereas consumers with low impulsiveness put more emphasis on utilitarian value. Browsing demonstrates a stronger effect on urge to buy impulsively for consumers with high impulsiveness. Originality/value This study is one of the early studies to investigate the relationship between social influence (e.g. influence of online reviews) and impulse buying. It draws upon the perspectives of browsing and consumer’s perceived value from the literature. This research also considers consumer differences regarding the level of impulsiveness.
ISSN:1066-2243
2054-5657
DOI:10.1108/IntR-12-2016-0377