Mobile shopping platform characteristics as consumer behavior determinants

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to appraise the impact of mobile shopping platform characteristics on consumer’s emotions, the relationship between emotions and their impact on impulsive buying. Design/methodology/approach Mobile shopping platform characteristics were grouped into five dimensions: information, entertainment, personalization, visuality and economic benefits, and integrated in a model built on the Stimulus-organism-response theory to evaluate the influence on arousal (excitement) and pleasure, the relationship between arousal and pleasure and their impact on impulsive buying. In total, 303 valid questionnaires were collected from Chinese mobile shoppers. The research hypotheses were tested through confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Findings Entertainment and personalization had significant positive influences on consumer’s arousal and pleasure. Information, visuality and economic benefits had significant positive influences on consumer’s arousal. Arousal had a significant positive impact on consumer’s pleasure. Arousal and pleasure had significant positive influences on impulsive buying. Research limitations/implications New insights can be obtained by investigating other consumer’s profiles. The model can be improved by including other mobile platform characteristics (product availability, platform ease-of-use and interactivity) and broadening the impulsive buying perspective through assessing flow experience and virtual atmosphere. Practical implications Marketing strategies are proposed based on the mobile platform characteristics and considering Chinese customer values, for generating positive emotions and impulsive buying. Originality/value This study enriches the literature by recommending a classification for mobile shopping platform characteristics and proposing a model to investigate the characteristics, emotions and impulsive buying nexus.