The Age of Indulgence: An Online Impulsive and Compulsive Buying Analysis

With the rapid growth and emergence of e-commerce in Indonesia, which offers easy access to an unlimited range of product customers, online impulse buying and online compulsive buying are on the rise, with the trend of self-indulging and rewarding oneself or having a lack of self-control surrounding consumer intention to buy online impulsively and compulsively. Drawing from the theory of planned behavior and construal level theory, the present study examined how lack of self-control and self-indulgence affect online impulsive and compulsive buying. Empirical evidence was collected from 174 users who have used Shopee, the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. The results of structural equation modeling revealed that lack of self-control and self-indulgence significantly influence consumer intention to buy online impulsively and compulsively. The findings show that self-indulgence is the stronger variable in affecting consumer intention to both impulsively and compulsively buy online. This current study contributes to previous findings by addressing the impact of other variables (lack of self-control and self-indulgence) on online compulsive and impulsive buying. This research suggests that managers implement impulsive and compulsive marketing tactics through the learning of consumer behavior (self-indulgence and lack of self-control) that is aligned with ethical values to attract consumers and gain sales.