A Study on Online Impulse Buying in a Cross Cultural Context

Abstract

Online impulse buying is a phenomenon which is characterised by the sudden urge to newlinebuy a product or service in an unplanned manner with an intention of immediate newlinegratification. Online impulse buying contributessubstantially to the revenue and overall newlineprofitability to the retailing organisations. This thesis contains the modelling of newlineantecedents of online impulse buying in a cross-cultural context. Structural Equation newlineModelling (SEM) using AMOS is used to validate the hypothesized relationship newlinebetween Urge to Buy Impulsively (UBI), its antecedents and online impulse buying. A newlineconvenience sample of 650 of Indian and Bahraini (India- 405, Bahrain- 245) customers newlineare collected through online survey using structured questionnaire. The construct UBI newlineis measured with its antecedent online sales promotion, personal factor, and website newlinequality. newlineThe empirical findings reveals that all these dimensions are significantly influence the newlineUBI and the relationship between UBI and online impulse buying behaviour. Website newlinequality found to be the most significant factor in urging consumers to buy impulsively newlineand offers important implications for the web designers and developers which will help newlinethem to ascertain better customer engagement that can ultimately lead to impulse newlinepurchase. The web developers shall conceive and design e-commerce web portal that newlinecan attract, engage and tempt customers to explore their offerings by spending newlinesubstantial time on their portal. Sales promotion found as another important factor in newlineurging customers to buy impulsively, however, it found more significant in the case of newlineIndian consumers as compared to their Bahraini counterparts. Personal factors are newlinefound more important for Bahraini consumers as compared to Indians. The consumer newlinebehaviour is largely influenced by cultural factors, in fact consumer behaviour is shaped newlinethrough culture a customer prospers in. newlineIn this study culture is considered as a moderating variable between the relationship of newlinethe antecedents of urge to buy i