Understanding Consumers’ Impulsive Buying Behavior in Social Commerce Platforms

Social commerce has emerged as a new online commerce platform which enhances users’ interactions and information contributions. Hence, social aspects are important elements in these environments. Nevertheless, the potential influence of social facets on social commerce users’ behaviors is not yet fully understood. In this study, we are interested in examining the influence of social factors in driving social commerce users’ impulse buying behaviors. Drawing from Latent State-Trait theory, we suggest that environmental cues, users’ personality traits, and interactions between these two elements can influence users’ urge to buy impulsively. To capture the social aspects of social commerce platforms, this study considers environmental cues from two different perspectives; the stimuli from other members, and from the website itself. Potential contributions to research and practice are discussed