Nguyen Duy Phuong

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Consumer Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) has emerged as a pervasive psychological driver of purchasing decisions. In today’s experience-driven retail environment exemplified by Vietnam’s rapidly expanding modern shopping malls, FOMO may prompt consumers to buy impulsively and unplanned. However, most FOMO research focuses on online or social media contexts, leaving its role in offline retail underexplored. This study fills that gap by examining how FOMO influences shoppers’ psychological states and subsequent buying behaviors in Vietnamese malls. We conducted a structured questionnaire survey of 428 mall patrons in Ho Chi Minh City in 2024, and analyzed the data using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results confirm that FOMO significantly heightens consumers’ financial risk-taking, emotional arousal, and reduced self-control. In turn, these states strongly predict purchase behaviors: risk-taking drives impulsive and repeat shopping, emotional arousal fuels impulse, and repeat buying, and diminished self-control leads to unplanned spending. Notably, the strength of these effects varies by consumer segment and context: younger, more tech-savvy shoppers and those in high-end malls showed stronger FOMO effects, and frequent shoppers were especially susceptible. These findings extend FOMO theory into physical retail and offer practical insight: marketers can leverage FOMO cues but must do so ethically, as this tactic powerfully drives consumption. The study concludes that FOMO is a key stimulus in malls, calling for future research to examine its long-term impact and boundary conditions.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Trust remains an important issue in consumer adoption of e-commerce, particularly in contexts characterized by information asymmetry and perceived online transaction risk. This study examines how perceived blockchain-enabled affordances, including transparency, security, decentralization, and control, are associated with consumer trust and how trust relates to purchase intention and loyalty, while testing the moderating role of blockchain literacy. Data were collected through a purposive online survey of Vietnamese e-commerce users between March and June 2025. The questionnaire was administered using Google Forms and distributed through e-commerce-related groups, blockchain-related communities, university networks, and social media platforms. After screening incomplete and low-quality responses, 427 valid questionnaires from respondents with prior experience of blockchain-enabled applications were retained for analysis using PLS-SEM. The results show that transparency (β = 0.29, p < 0.001) and security (β = 0.25, p < 0.001) are positively associated with consumer trust, followed by decentralization (β = 0.17, p = 0.001) and perceived control (β = 0.14, p = 0.011). Moderation tests indicate that blockchain literacy strengthens the effects of transparency (β = 0.11, p = 0.005) and security (β = 0.09, p = 0.024) on trust. The model explains meaningful variance in trust (R² = 0.61), purchase intention (R² = 0.57), and loyalty (R² = 0.53). These findings suggest that blockchain may contribute to consumer trust in e-commerce when transparency and security are made visible, understandable, and relevant to consumers through platform design and communication.