Impact of Social Presence on Consumer Impulse Buying in E-Commerce Platforms in China

Purpose: With the development of e-commerce, online shopping has become a new trend, attracting consumers all around the world. To draw more customers to purchase online, social presence is a vital factor in the pathway to impulse buying, for e-commerce platforms. Furthermore, social presence was found to be strongly associated with impulse buying. The goal of this study is to verify whether immersion and arousal can play a mediating role between social presence types and customers’ impulse buying, and if neuroticism and indecisiveness have a moderating effect on the relationship between immersion, arousal and customers’ impulse buying. Composition/Logic: This study begins with the background and the purpose of the research in the first chapter. In the second chapter, the hypotheses are proposed with the theoretical backgrounds and this study’s purpose. Chapter three suggested that the research model and data collection methodology. In chapter four, the data analyses were conducted through IBM SPSS 21.0 to verify our hypotheses. And in chapter five, we summarized research results along with implications, and limitations for future research directions. Findings: Social presence of interaction with the seller(SPS) has a greater positive effect on immersion, arousal and impulse buying than social presence of other customers(SPC). The mediating effects of immersion and arousal on the relationship between social presence types and impulse buying were verified. Neuroticism, as one of the Big Five Personality traits, was found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between immersion and impulse buying. Originality/Value: This study lends academic support to the proposition that different social presence types impact impulse buying on e-commerce platforms. In addition, this study also has practical value which can help online retailers understand the influence an formation mechanism of consumers’ impulse buying behaviors, and help marketers make better decisions such as when choosing which media format to convey the product and marketing information to consumers.