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1. Introduction
With the rapid development of mobile internet, mobile terminals are rapidly replacing desktops and laptops, becoming the best choice for end users to obtain information (Damle et al., 2016). According to the 43rd statistical report on internet development in China published by China internet Network Information Center in February 2019 (CNNIC, 2019), the number of online shopping users in December 2018 reached 610,000,000 (an increase of 14.4 per cent compared to the previous year), with 97.05 per cent of them purchasing through mobile platforms. Mobile shopping attracts a large number of online shopping consumers with its characteristics of convenience, speed, or no limit in time and space (Wang et al., 2015). At the same time, it gives consumers options, as they can easily browse shopping platforms in their free time, for example while traveling or before falling asleep (Wang et al., 2015), leading, thus, to the formation of mobile shopping behavior.
Impulsive buying is a phenomenon that often occurs during the shopping process. It is an unplanned, sudden and emotional purchasing behavior with a frequent occurrence in online shopping (Hausman, 2000). There have been previous proofs that the characteristics of the shopping environment are important factors that push consumers to display impulsive shopping behavior (Donthu and Garcia, 1999). Mobile shopping applications (M-shopping app) are essential shopping tools for online buyers (Taylor et al., 2011), being presented to consumers in the form of mobile shopping platform interfaces, their characteristics becoming important factors in determining consumers to stop browsing and initiate purchasing (Wang et al., 2015; Agrebi and Jallais, 2015). Marketing scholars have probed into these characteristics, the extant literature providing evidence about their impact on consumer behavior in the forms of perceived usefulness (Chung et al., 2016; Yang, 2012), perceived ease-of-use (Thakur, 2018; Agrebi and Jallais, 2015), perceived enjoyment (Chen and Yao, 2018; Chung et al., 2016; Yang, 2012; Agrebi and Jallais, 2015), flexibility and comfort of transactions (Damle et al., 2016), or information quality (Chen, 2018; Wu and Chen, 2016). However, there are only a few studies on the impact of mobile shopping platform characteristics on consumers’ emotional responses and impulsive buying.
According to Fam et al. (2009), in order to be successful in...