Recently, in the field of marketing, the online environment became more and more important; in parallel, the focus shifted from the traditional buying decision-making process to the emerging phenomenon of impulse buying. Customers do not always follow the rational five-step choice model, but often make sudden and immediate online purchase with no pre-shopping intentions, grossly violating the assumptions of homo economicus. Joining these two concepts, the scope of this research is to investigate what are the precursors of the online impulse buying behavior. The present thesis starts with a Systematic Literature Review with the aim of gaining a deep understanding on the phenomenon and of the current state of research. The main gap highlighted is the little attention given to customer’s internal characteristics. For this reason, this research investigates how the mood influences the online impulse buying behavior. In order to achieve this objective, a laboratory experiment is designed and implemented. The experimental investigation involves 16 subjects interacting with an e-commerce website after a mood induction procedure, whose effectiveness was previously tested with an online survey with more than 100 respondents. The responses were collected both in form of self-reported surveys and of physiological signals – heart rate, electroencephalogram activity and electrodermal activity – to gain deep insights on the affective and cognitive states of the users. The results of the experiment provide evidence that both the positive and the negative mood influences the online impulse buying. Furthermore, the study reveals the great importance of the personality traits of the subjects that have an impact on the impulse buying but also on the elicited mood. Conclusively, based on these empirical results, managerial implications are drawn. From a business perspective the aim is to provide a guideline to trigger impulsive behavior; from a policy makers perspective, the aim is to provide a framework to regulate this behavior and avoid that it leads to a more dangerous compulsive one.
Recentemente, nel campo del marketing, il contesto online è divenuto sempre più importante; al contempo, l’attenzione si è spostata dal tradizionale processo decisionale di acquisto al fenomeno emergente dell’acquisto di impulso. I consumatori non seguono sempre le cinque fasi del modello di scelta razionale, ma spesso incorrono in improvvisi ed immediati acquisti online, senza averne precedente intenzione, violando le assunzioni di homo economicus. Questo studio si pone lo scopo di indagare quali sono i precursori del comportamento di acquisto di impulso online. La presente tesi si apre con una review sistematica della Letteratura con l’obiettivo di approfondire il fenomeno e lo stato attuale della ricerca. La principale lacuna emersa è la scarsa attenzione data alle caratteristiche personali del consumatore. Per questo motivo, questa ricerca indaga come il mood influenza il comportamento di acquisto di impulso online. A tal fine, un esperimento di laboratorio viene concepito e realizzato. L’indagine sperimentale coinvolge 16 soggetti che interagiscono con un sito di e-commerce in seguito a una procedura di induzione del mood, la cui efficacia è stata testata in precedenza con un survey online a cui hanno risposto più di 100 soggetti. Le risposte sono state raccolte sia sottoforma di auto-dichiarato dai questionari, sia di segnali fisiologici – frequenza cardiaca, attività elettroencefalografica e attività elettrodermica – per raccogliere un’approfondita visione sullo stato affettivo e cognitivo dell’utente. I risultati dell’esperimento mettono in evidenza come sia il mood positivo che negativo influenzano l’acquisto di impulso online. Peraltro, lo studio rivela la grande importanza della personalità dei soggetti, la quale ha un impatto non solo sull’acquisto di impulso ma anche sul mood. In conclusione, sulla base dei risultati empirici, vengono proposte implicazioni manageriali. Da una prospettiva di business, lo scopo è quello di fornire una linea guida per innescare comportamenti di acquisto impulsivo; da una prospettiva di policy makers, l’obiettivo è fornire un quadro per regolare questi comportamenti ed evitare che conducano a comportamenti compulsivi più pericolosi.
In the mood for impulse buying. An investigation of the influence of the mood on online impulse buying
SAPIENZA, FEDERICA;ZANDI, SARA
2019/2020
Abstract
Recently, in the field of marketing, the online environment became more and more important; in parallel, the focus shifted from the traditional buying decision-making process to the emerging phenomenon of impulse buying. Customers do not always follow the rational five-step choice model, but often make sudden and immediate online purchase with no pre-shopping intentions, grossly violating the assumptions of homo economicus. Joining these two concepts, the scope of this research is to investigate what are the precursors of the online impulse buying behavior. The present thesis starts with a Systematic Literature Review with the aim of gaining a deep understanding on the phenomenon and of the current state of research. The main gap highlighted is the little attention given to customer’s internal characteristics. For this reason, this research investigates how the mood influences the online impulse buying behavior. In order to achieve this objective, a laboratory experiment is designed and implemented. The experimental investigation involves 16 subjects interacting with an e-commerce website after a mood induction procedure, whose effectiveness was previously tested with an online survey with more than 100 respondents. The responses were collected both in form of self-reported surveys and of physiological signals – heart rate, electroencephalogram activity and electrodermal activity – to gain deep insights on the affective and cognitive states of the users. The results of the experiment provide evidence that both the positive and the negative mood influences the online impulse buying. Furthermore, the study reveals the great importance of the personality traits of the subjects that have an impact on the impulse buying but also on the elicited mood. Conclusively, based on these empirical results, managerial implications are drawn. From a business perspective the aim is to provide a guideline to trigger impulsive behavior; from a policy makers perspective, the aim is to provide a framework to regulate this behavior and avoid that it leads to a more dangerous compulsive one.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/171030