The Impact of Cue-Interaction Stimulation on Impulse Buying Intention on Virtual Reality Tourism E-commerce Platforms

Virtual reality (VR) tourism e-commerce platforms (VRTEPs) can provide trial experience for tourists, which is easy to trigger irrational impulse buying. Based on cognitive emotion theory and S-O-R model, this study innovatively explores the impact of the multi cue-interaction stimulation (the interactivity of VR display and the empathy of text display) of VRTEPs on consumers’ impulse buying intention through the mediating effect of new cognitive and emotional responses, namely, interactive pleasure (perceived usefulness and immersion). The results reveal that: (1) The interactivity of VR display stimulates interactive pleasure, then positively affects impulse buying intention. (2) The empathy of text display only stimulates perceived usefulness to positively affect impulse buying intention. This study also finds that the interactive comparison has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between immersion and impulse buying intention. These findings contribute to developing the new theory for effectively marketing using highly interactive new technology on VRTEPs.