Influence of Online Reviews on Impulse Fashion Shopping Behavior in E-Retailer Sites

Abstract

With businesses going online in the COVID 19 era, online reviews have become even more important, providing the validation and social proof necessary to drive purchases. However, few studies had examined how reviews may influence e-impulse shopping behavior. Thus, this study aims to measure the effects of consumers’ perceived value: utilitarian and hedonic value from reading online reviews (Online value review) on urge to buy impulsively and impulse buying behavior. Framework of this study was tested on five major e-retailers using a quantitative approach. A Survey was distributed among 305 participants who had experience using above e- retailers from convenience and snowball sampling methods. Multiple and Simple Regression analysis was applied using SPSS 20. Findings revealed that online value review influenced impulse buying with the urge to buy impulsively as a mediating impact. However, hedonic value had a significant effect. Urge to buy impulsively was influenced by online value review which in turn significantly drives impulse purchases. Since only e-retail platforms were considered, a degree of biasness may include. Consequently, data-driven best practices to drive impulse shopping by the strategic use of reviews is discussed. The findings will be insightful for online marketers in general and specifically in e-retail to improve conversions. Alongside, this study contributes managerial implications as one of the very few studies conducted on the influence of online reviews towards fashion impulse buying in e- retail to the Sri Lankan context.