Impulse buying in social commerce: bundle offer, top reviews, and emotional intelligence

Abstract

PurposeConsidering the rapid adoption of social media among consumers and organizations, this study intends to examine the impact of online bundle promotions and contextual interactions on impulse buying as consumers encounter them synchronously. Hence, a research model is proposed with the integration of perceived transaction value, perceived acquisition values, top reviews information, impulse buying tendency and emotional intelligence following the stimulus-organism-response framework, promotional framing effect, and theory of selective attention.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from the active social media members of organization pages and selling groups by utilizing the self-administered questionnaire. This study employed the partial least squares structural equation modeling to evaluate the data of 358 individuals.FindingsResults reveal the positive impact of targeted constructs on the urge to buy impulsively with complementary partial mediation of impulse buying tendency. Besides, emotional intelligence dissuades users' impulse buying tendencies, but unexpectedly, its moderating effect is insignificant. Further, importance-performance map analysis highlights the highest importance of impulse buying tendency and better performance of perceived transaction value for the urge to buy impulsively.Originality/valueThis research is one of the early studies to explore the influence of social media advertising and contextual social factors (e.g. bundle offers and top reviews information) on impulse buying with the moderation of emotional intelligence and mediation of impulse buying tendency. This research is imperative for scholars and managers with pertinent suggestions to arouse impulse buying.