Kuei-Wan Chen’s research while affiliated with National Chung Cheng University and other places

Since much online shopping is attributed to online impulse buying, it is important to define this particular shopping process. This process has three important issues, perceived risk for virtual stores as well as e-store design and psychological state for online shopping. This is because consumers are both system users and impulse buyers when shopping on e-stores. E-store design is based on the interaction of customers with e-stores and the expectation-confirmation model supports examination of this issue with a wide familiarity in IT use. Psychological state is emotional responses to the stimulus of products in e-stores and flow theory, with task skill and task challenge as precursors, is suitable for exploring this issue. Grounding on the three issues, this study proposes a new research model with these considerations to thoroughly examine the determinants of online impulse buying. Flow state and customer satisfaction also interact with each other. Empirical research shows an important link for the three defined issues of online impulse buying.

With the proliferation of e-commerce, a large part of online shopping is attributed to impulse buying. Hence, there is a particular necessity to understand impulse buying in the online context. Impulse shoppers incline to feel unable to control their tendencies and behaviors from various stimuli. Specifically, online consumers are both the impulse shoppers and the system users of websites in the purchase process. Impulse shoppers concern individual traits and system users cover the attributes of online stores. Online impulse buying therefore entails two key drivers, technology use and trust belief, and the mediator of flow experience. Grounding on flow experience, technology-use features, and trust belief, this study proposes a novel research model to examine impulse buying behavior in a complete manner. Data were collected from an online survey. Data analysis considers structural equation modeling technique with formative structure. Empirical results showed that flow experience is an important factor to affect impulse buying from its original drivers. Trust belief is also critical to impulse buying as perceived usefulness is not. Implications for managers and scholars are further discussed.