The effect of social and ambient factors on impulse purchasing behavior in social commerce

ABSTRACT Social commerce is an exciting new business model in the e-commerce world. Because it is a relatively new concept, the strategies that achieve the best market performance remain unclear. To better understand consumer purchasing behavior and develop corresponding strategies, special characteristics of social commerce need to be considered. This study uses the stimulus-organism-response framework to examine the effect of social presence and ambient factors from the impulse purchasing perspective in a social commerce context. Experimental data were collected from 300 social commerce users related to nine social commerce deals, and hypothesis testing was performed using a partial least squares model. First, the results of our study indicate that social presence in a social commerce site replicates the presence of consumers in the retail environment and makes consumers feel like shopping together, which leads to higher impulse purchasing behavior. Second, this study identifies music tempo as a potentially important ambient factor in the success of a social commerce site. Third, this study finds a very interesting phenomenon that the scarcity of a deal can have a negative effect as a moderator between music tempo and pleasure. The findings of this study suggest that a pleasant and entertaining experience is necessary and a social aspect needs to be incorporated for better performance in social commerce sites.