Consumers’ Online Impulsive Buying Behaviour: Role of Trust, Shopping Orientation and Recommendations

Abstract

The impulse buying phenomenon has drawn the attention of the marketers and the consumer researchers since a decade. Although, impulse buying behaviour of consumers has been studied extensively, still there is a gap in understanding the consumers’ preference in various behavioral and situational setups in an emerging economy context. The impulse buying research lacks a holistic understanding of Indian consumers buying behaviour in various situational variables. The economic and technological developments are interdependent. While the economic development in India has gained momentum over the past few decades; the technological advancements has also changed manifolds. The nation has started adopting digitalization and the changes are clearly visible through the acceptance by the crowd. According to Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI) “India is a fast-growing nation and for any modern retailer who wishes to stay relevant, millennials are an important customer segment,” Deloitte an auditing and consultancy firm estimates India’s millennials at 440 million, which is nearly 34% of the country’s population that which can’t be ignored by the global marketers.
With the call of time it is imperative for the marketers to understand the factors impacting the Indian consumers’ behaviour and intention in a virtual environment which is drastically different from that of a traditional offline setup. Thus, the research primarily aims at exploring the predictive behavioral, situational factors impacting consumers’ online impulsive buying behaviour and technological factors contributing towards formation of trust among consumers which further impacts the online impulsive buying behaviour of consumers. The mediating effect of online reviews and recommendations between online trust formation and consumers online impulsive buying behaviour; and moderating effect of consumers shopping orientation have been statistically analyzed. The study uses the probability sampling technique for selecting the respondents. Simple random sampling is used for fetching the respondents’ opinion on the subject. The sample size of the respondents is determined by using the Charan & Biswas(2013) formula which was found to be 384, but the sample size has been increased to 516 in order to reduce the sampling error. The decision making statistical tools like exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modelling (SEM) has been used. The exploratory factor analysis technique is used to identify the dimensions of constructs used and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm the factor structure and validate the results of EFA. Finally, the SEM is used to analyze the hypothesized relationships. The results of the research will be useful to the online merchants and the managers of the e-companies to designing better service platform for the consumers and maintain a healthy, sustainable environment for the online consumers. The study will also provide insights for better quality of e-commerce services by understanding the needs and demand of consumers to match their trust and expectations and improve the e-commerce scenario in Indian market.