The effects of Facebook browsing and usage intensity on impulse purchase in f-commerce

- The effects of Facebook browsing & usage intensity on impulse purchase were studied.
- Stimulus-Organism-Response framework was used with income as the moderator variable.
- A total of 808 f-commerce shoppers were gathered using mall-intercept technique.
- The model explained 33% variance in urge to purchase and 61.7% in impulse purchase.
- Interestingly, no moderating effects of income on all the relationships were found.

Due to the rapid advancements in Web 2.0 and social media, a novel class of online social business called Facebook commerce (f-commerce) has emerged. Even though there are studies on the factors that influence Facebook browsing and usage intensity, however, there is dearth in research that examine the impacts of f-commerce browsing and usage intensity on consumers' urge to purchase and impulse purchase. Unlike previous studies, this study examined the moderating effect of income. Since Facebook has become a phenomenon, there is a necessity to explore whether the level of f-commerce browsing and usage intensity can trigger urge to purchase and impulse purchase. Following the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, data was collected using mall-intercept technique and analyzed with SmartPLS 3. Majority of the suggested hypotheses have been empirically validated and the research framework can explain 33.0% of variance in urge to purchase and 61.7% variance in impulse purchase. Interestingly, the finding showed no moderating effect of income. However, marital status and Internet hours were found to have moderating effects. The research findings can contribute to the online retailers, marketers and other f-commerce stakeholders in formulating their marketing strategies and policies while providing novel insight in understanding the impulse purchase behavior.