Psychological Triggers of Impulse Buying in Online Shopping: Factors and Consumer Behavior Insights
摘要
The Digital Era has brought about a tendency to buy things not really needed which was a clear phenomenon underlined by the different psychological and environment factors of online shopping. The paper presents the psychological factors that are able to make the consumers buy products impulsively in the e-commerce environment. Among the factors that are put under consideration are: the consumers’ emotional states, discounts and product recommendations, and the fear of missing out (FOMO) as well as the role played by the demographic variables and financial comfort as moderators. A structured questionnaire and quantitative analysis of data collected from 105 respondents were used in the research and significant correlations between emotional and external factors and impulse buying behavior were revealed by the research. Emotional triggers, instant gratification, and marketing strategies such as flash sales and push notifications were found to have a strong predictive power over unplanned purchases. On the other hand, factors like FOMO and gender were observed to have very little influence. The research gives empirical evidence for most of the hypotheses as well as revealing the moral ways in which marketers can digitalize their strategies to conform with consumer psychology. The paper also points out the necessity of milliseconds in research to discover the constant change of technology and how it affects consumer traits and individual preferences.