Internal Stimulus Factors as Antecedents of Impulse Buying: Gap Identification and Future Direction

Impulse buying is an important area of consumer behaviour. The process of impulse buying is influenced by various external, situational, and internal stimulus factors. The extant literature review suggests that various external and situational factors are studied in great detail; however, studies on various internal stimulus factors are rare. Hence, this study explores relevant research gaps, and, in this process, it identifies three internal stimulus factors such as materialism, hedonism and perceived risk as potential antecedents to impulse buying. This article also suggests the use of moderator variables, individualism, and income, the impact of which is to be tested on the respective proposed relationships. This article reviews the contributions of all seminal as well as other important works from 1950 through 2018 conducted in the field of impulse buying. In this process, it includes relevant published academic and research papers through a comprehensive search from the database of Scopus, electronic sources such as Sage Journals, Science Direct, Emerald Insight and aggregators such as JSTOR and EBSCOhost. However, consequently, it excludes unpublished doctoral thesis, conference proceedings, working papers, and dissertations. The reviewed literature are all written and documented in the English language.

Automated summary

Impulse buying is an important area of consumer behavior. This study explores the research gap in terms of internal stimulus factors and identifies materialism, hedonism, and perceived risk as potential antecedents to impulse buying. Moderator variables such as individualism and income are proposed to have an impact on these relationships.