Abstract

First, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of situational variables, scarcity and serendipity, on online impulse buying (OIB) in Chinese social commerce (SC) environment. Second, the study further assesses the moderating role of five dimensions of hedonic shopping value. Data were gathered from 671 online shoppers who come from two metropolitan cities of China, Beijing, and Shanghai. Structure equation modeling utilized was generated by AMOS 23 version to test the study hypotheses. The results confirm that situational factors positively influence the online impulse buying among Chinese online shoppers in SC environment. Four dimensions of hedonic shopping value (social shopping, relaxation shopping, adventure shopping and idea shopping) positively moderate the relationship between serendipity and OIB; value shopping is insignificant with moderation effect. The finding is helpful to the online retailers and SC web developers by recommending them to take the scarcity and serendipity in their consideration. These factors have the potential to motivate the consumers to initiate the hedonic shopping aptitude to urge to buy impulsively. Unlike the previous work which remained unsuccessful in incorporating all factors into one study, this study has incorporated irrational and unplanned consumption along with rational and planned one in the same research.

Highlights

  • Utilizing social apps and websites is a popular trend worldwide, not to mention in China

  • The second path serendipity to online impulse buying with β = 0.376 significant (p < 0.05; t-value = 13.21) resulting Hypotheses 1 (H1) is supported such that SR has positive influence on OIB

  • The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of two situational factors, scarcity and serendipity, on OIB

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Summary

Introduction

Utilizing social apps and websites is a popular trend worldwide, not to mention in China. Social commerce (SC) is an emerging craze among online consumers It is mentioned as a vital and recurrent subject in e-commerce [1]. SC could be described as one kind of e-commerce that uses social media, social networks, and consumer involvement to promote the online shopping of products or services. It satisfies the needs and demands of the current consumers. The three spheres of human perspective represent in this model, e-commerce, person-to-person interaction, is viewed as vital to the online social networks and web 2.0 technologies. The applications of web 2.0 provide tools such as Wikis, blogs, RIA, RSS which integrate social media into e-commerce websites. By making it possible for online consumers to have RSS feeds of daily or weekly updates with community feedback or links for collaborations, Sustainability 2018, 10, 352; doi:10.3390/su10020352 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

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