Understanding Impulsive and Compulsive Buying Behavior of Online Consumers

Abstract: In today's time, the usage of internet and smart phones has been rapidly growing resulting in to quick sharing of information  and enabling consumers to access and share information on the go. Consumers are preferring to use online mode over the traditional  method of buying goods and services. The buying patterns of the online consumers in the Fastmoving Consumer Goods sector is  generally governed by personal, psychological and social factors. It can have both the traits of compulsive and impulsive buying. The  aim of this paper is to identify the factors formulating compulsive and impulsive buying behavior of online buyers and to identify  relationship between compulsive and impulsive buying. For this purpose, data from 516 consumers who prefer to purchase online was  collected. The tools used include Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structured Equation Modeling.  Analysis of data reveals that deal is a confounding variable for both impulsive and compulsive buying behavior. Further there exists a  positive impact of impulsive  buying behavior on compulsive buying behavior.