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The Effects of Scarcity Messages and Impulsivity on Customers' Rational Purchase Decision-Making Process in Group-buying Social Commerce

  • Sujeong Choi (Department of Electronic Commerce, Mokpo National University) ;
  • Min Qu (Department of Electronic Commerce, Jiangsu Vocational Institute of Commerce)
  • Received : 2022.10.14
  • Accepted : 2023.02.03
  • Published : 2023.06.30

Abstract

This study attempts to extend the customer value - customer satisfaction - customer loyalty framework by introducing key constructs of scarcity messages as a major environmental stimulus and the urge to buy impulsively as its response in the context of group-buying social commerce, across countries including Korea and China. More specifically, this study proposes that scarcity messages influence customers' value perception (i.e., utilitarian value and hedonic value) and thereby influencing customer satisfaction and further customer loyalty. Moreover, the study suggests that scarcity messages and utilitarian and hedonic values arouse the urge to buy impulsively. In the Korean sample, the results show that scarcity messages increase both utilitarian and hedonic values as well as the urge to buy impulsively, which in turn leads to customers' satisfaction and further loyalty. Besides, customer satisfaction is determined by utilitarian value, not hedonic value. In the Chinese sample, utilitarian value-related relationships are insignificant. More specifically, scarcity messages only influence hedonic value which increases the urge to buy impulsively. Besides, customer satisfaction is determined by both utilitarian and hedonic values, but not by the urge to buy impulsively.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This Research was supported by Research Funds of Mokpo National University in 2021.

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