IMPULSIVE BUYING TENDENCY IN SOCIAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE: S-O-R MODEL AND EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

Impulsive buyers are a dream segment for retailers and marketers. Stimulants evoke sudden urge for the acquisition of product spontaneously. This desire of immediate possession and instant gratification may get effect from social as well as psychological aspects. The current study is an attempt to empirically investigate the influence of family communication, peer communication, experiential shopping and materialistic-attitude in the formation of impulse buying tendency. Based on the theoretical assumption underpinning of SOR model this research proposed family communication and peer communication as a stimulating factor for experiential shopping and materialistic-attitude that ultimately resulted in impulse buying tendency. Through self-administered questionnaire, information was gathered from three hundred eighty-six respondents. Data was collected from young consumers of fashion products. Structural equation modeling technique was carried out to establish the reliability, validity of measures and examine the proposed relational paths. The finding established that social factors i.e. communication (family and peer) had significant influence on consumers psychological factors (experiential shopping and materialistic-attitude). Moreover, consumer's impulse buying tendency had positively influenced through his or her social influences as well as psychological influences. This study offers valuable insight and solid grounds to academicians as well as practitioners concerning online impulsive buying behavior by presenting empirical findings and important implications in social learning context..