Falling in love with online shopping carnival on singles' day in China: An uses and Gratifications perspective

Based upon the theoretical perspective from Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory, this study develops a nomological model to explain how incentivized gamification, hedonic presence, individual needs and platform synergy affect consumer active participation in the phenomena of online shopping carnival on singles' day in China. Data gathered from online shopping consumers in China through a large-scale online survey is used to test the proposed hypotheses. The research model was validated using the PLS technique. The empirical results show that (1) the consumers' active participation in online shopping carnival (OSC) facilitated by their engagement in online shopping are contributed collectively by incentivized gamification, hedonic presence, individual needs and platform synergy; (2) individual needs and platform synergy enhances consumer active participation in OSC; (3) incentivized gamification and hedonic presence have salient causal effects on consumers' individual needs and their perceptions on platform synergy. Our findings highlight the important roles of consumers' individual needs and their perceptions on platform synergy in mediating the effects of incentivized gamification and hedonic presence on online consumers' active participation.