To Determine how Sales Promotion and Website Quality Triggers Online Impulsive

The body of literature on impulse buying behaviour has grown over the years with researchers researching different factors and influences that are likely to induce impulsive buying behaviour in consumers. With such a wide scope of the study, we limit our discussion to focus on those findings that bear specifically on the purpose of the present study. Impulsive buying according to Lin & Lo (2016) is different from rational buying in that the impulsive buyer focuses on the instant benefit to be derived and not the actual result of the purchase.

However, Matharaarachchi and Abeysekera (2016) highlighted in their research that there is a difference between an impulsive purchase and an impulsive buying behaviour.  

They reasoned that an impulsive purchase is made on the spot at the time of seeing or observing a product while an impulsive buying behaviour is an action that can take place on a single occasion or can be repeated.  After conducting a study of 240 Croatian consumers, Vojodic & Matic (2013) came to the conclusion that Croatian online consumers are influenced by two major factors, impulsiveness and recreation factors. However, Chen and Zhang (2015) proposed that impulse buying is not only influenced by those two major factors. In a more comprehensive research to investigate a clear endogenesis relationship among factors that influence online buying behaviour, the researchers administer an online  survey which was completed by 246 respondents. 

Chen and Zhang (2015) found that impulse buying emotions are significantly influenced by online shopping mood, online store stimuli, recommendations and personal impulse character. Similarly, after administering 231 electronic databases and interviewing 75,000 consumers, Gopalkrishman et al (2020) also found that impulse buying emotions are influenced by online store stimuli. The findings from the study also reveal that inner affective and cognitive physiological processes influence impulse buying as well as industry and method moderators. As it relates to effect of personality traits on impulsive buying, after interviewing 640 university students Shahjehan and Quresh (2018) found that for lower level impulsive buying behaviours an individual’s conscientiousness is necessary and for medium level agreeableness, extraversion and openness become necessary conditions; while conscientiousness is a complementary necessary condition. 

The authors also found that neuroticism is necessary for the highest levels of impulsive buying behaviour which is usually complemented by other personality traits, Farid and Ali (2018) in a study of 400 Pasikan consumers also found that the traits of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism had a significant effect on impulsive buying, however the authors also found that the effect of agreeableness was insignificant.  The study also reveals that persons with a positive mood were more likely to engage in impulse buying than ones with a negative mood. Adding to the scope of research to identify the influence of online impulse buying behaviour, an online survey consisting of 212 responses was conducted by Aragoncillo & Orus (2017). The authors found that offline businesses can trigger the buying impulse to a greater extent than online retailers, as managers carefully select social media platforms to encourage purchasing impulse from most influential to least impact. The study also found that the role of impulse buying creates uncertainty both in physical and online channels as e-commerce businesses use this channel to encourage this behaviour to a greater extent.

            Websites are used to primary store information and boost characteristics that can help consumers when they explore websites for information. The design characteristics of a webpage can affect a consumer’s online purchase decision. Literature suggests various attributes of a website that can enhance quality and induce impulse buying behaviour. Shen & Khalifa (2012) highlights the significance of online impulse buying as a phenomenon triggered by system design factors. The authors found that the design of websites can stimulate online shopping as well as the value of cognitive intervention at the purchasing stage. 

In addition, the online stores therefore capitalize on this reaction by integrating multiple media and enabling consumers to buy around the clock, thereby exposing them to rich stimuli and subsequently providing ever increasing for impulsive spending, Shen and Kahlifa (2012). A website virtual format such as freeform, racetrack and grid freedom also have an impact on customers’ ease of navigation, emotional responses and desire to purchase impulsively. Moreover, 216 respondents participated in a stratified survey questionnaire conducted by Lin and Yi-Shihlo (2016), the study found that the ease of navigation influences consumers’ emotional responses significantly to making online impulsive purchases. 

The study found that freedom is the easiest to navigate, compared to the other three formats and can produce the greatest degree of enjoyment along with the greatest desire to purchase impulsively. Similarly, Parboteeah, Taylor and Nelson (2016) administered an online survey with 115 participants in an attempt to understand the reasons for impulsive wine sales, the study supported Lin and Yi-Shilhlo research and found that the influence of impulsive purchases of wine was because of customer enjoyment and website usefulness. The study also found that sales occur as a result of the features on the winery’s website and impulsive buying also led to the positive feeling between involvement and usefulness but controversially the research found that impulsive buying also has a negative feeling between involvement and enjoyment. John, Veena & Joseph (2011) also found that the quality of the website may have a positive effect on online impulsive buying.

Likewise, Alarm et al (2018) in their study also discovered that online impulse purchases are positively influenced by the use of credit cards which enhances the relationship between website quality and online impulse buying. John, Veena & Joseph (2011) in their study also found that if the content of a website is consistent with the past online pulsation this will directly affect the probability that a customer will be encouraged to purchase them impulsively. While the objective quality of an e-commerce website is significant, the consumer’s inherent impulsivity is also essential to understand how and why people react impulsively to different levels of website quality. Similarly, Deepti & Vrinda (2018) conducted a study of 101 online consumers, the study also found that content and variety encourages impulsive purchase. Websites inform the users of: products, prices, policies, appearance and this is where content and variety comes into play.  The study also found that the individual characteristic tells us that persons in similar age groups and other characteristics are likely to be engaged in impulsive buying. 

Shopping is sometimes referred to as an escapist, retail therapy and fantasy like qualities, people shop because shopping helps them to forget their problems and have a good time. However, purchases that are made impulsively could be a way to relieve stress. After studying the influence of six broad categories of hedonic shopping motivations on consumers’ impulse buying behaviour in Bosnia and Herzegovia, using a web-survey consisting of 500 participants Cinjarevic, Tactic and Petric (2011) found that impulse buying behaviour is significantly related to adventure, gratification, value and idea shopping motivations. 

The findings from the study also indicate that role shopping, social shopping and fashion consciousness were not significantly related to impulse buying behaviour. 430 Turkish online consumers completed an online survey which also found that hedonic value does drive online impulsive buying. Ozen and Engizek, (2014) in their research found that social shopping was negatively related to online impulsive buying and idea shopping does not have a significant effect on online impulsive purchases. The finding also indicated that adventure; relaxation and value are three dimensions of hedonic shopping motivation that affect online. Bhardwaj and Manchiraju (2017) in an attempt to widen the understanding of the impact of impulse buying and hedonism on attitude and intentions, administered an online survey of 176 students in three sophomore-level classes in south-eastern university in the United States. The authors found that hedonism demonstrated positive reliability to favourable attitude and impulse buying demonstrated a negative reliability to favourable attitudes.

Sales Promotion can be described as a collection of various motivational tools which is designed to stimulate consumers to make purchases. Using an online and personal survey from 161 shoppers from three cities located in China. The findings from the study discovered that that sales promotion has a significant influence on OIBB and this acts as a strong moderator on the relationship between the quality of a website and online impulse buying Akram et al (2018). Moreover, . (Omid & Pons, 2016) who interviewed 415 online consumers, support the claim that positive sales promotional influence an increase in online impulse buying.  In a study to examine and compare the effects of both forms of promotion namely: online purchasing price discount and bonus packages. A total of 280 business students participated in a promotion on a mock website. Xu (2014) found that price discounts led to a bigger push to purchase the product than bonus packages when it was hedonic, and bonus packages were more effective in promoting price discounts. Likewise, Dodoo and Wu (2019) found that perceived personalization of sales promotion incentives including discount codes and bonus packs on social media positively influence perceived relevance and positively affected online impulse buying behaviour.  

References

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• ISSN: 0144-929X (print), CODEN: BEITD5 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Country of Publication: UK
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