Flash sale and online impulse buying: Mediation effect of emotions

This paper intends to analyze the impact of store layout, ambient factors, and employees on impulsive decision-making among female customers visiting the apparel outlets. The responses were collected through a single-stage mall intercept survey method using a structured questionnaire from 385 respondents in leading apparel stores in selected Tier I and Tier II cities in the state of Karnataka, India. The responses were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Constructs such as store layout, ambience and employees were found to be significantly positively correlated with impulse buying behavior. The variables largely explain the variation in impulse buying under store ambiance. Except ‘attention to the window display’ and ‘friendly staff’ all other twelve variables considered in the study were found to have significant impact on the impulse buying behavior. Though store ambiance, well-structured layout, and pleasant shopping experience are essential determinants of customer satisfaction, the study results imply that the number of store staff and sales skills are critical aspects of impulse buying in the apparel business and true assets to the retail organization. Additionally, poor customer interaction, staff shortage, and high employee attrition could discourage the store’s revenue generation.

TikTok Shop boosts TikTok’s huge potential as an e-commerce platform that encourages sellers and buyers to increase the number of transactions. The emergence of this feature encourages the online impulse buying phenomenon on the TikTok platform. This study aims to examine the factors that influence online impulse buying on TikTok in Indonesia through the constructs of brand review, sales promotion, customer satisfaction, religiosity, and brand expectation. This quantitative research uses a questionnaire that is distributed randomly online and collected from 312 respondents in Indonesia. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), data analysis was conducted and hypotheses were examined. The results show that customer satisfaction (β: 0.501) and brand review (β: 0.358) play an important role in increasing brand expectation. At the same time, sales promotion (ρ-value > 0.05) has no impact on brand expectation. This study highlights that religiosity (β: –0.239) and brand expectation (β: –0.510) can reduce online impulse buying behavior. Brand expectation (β: –0.510) is the most dominant variable in reducing online impulse buying behavior on TikTok.

This paper analyzes internet banking fraud alertness to the general public by the South African banking institutions. The study is centered on routine activity theory, which is a criminology theory. A qualitative content analysis was used as the research technique for the interpretation of the text data from each bank’s website through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns to provide an in-depth understanding of internet banking fraud alertness in the banking sector. A sample size of 13 out of 16 locally and foreign controlled retail banks in South Africa was used. The findings report that banks are not adequately providing internet fraud alertness information to the general public on their websites notwithstanding that most banks they do provide such information to log-in users and the use of that information is doubtful. This study suggests a need to augment internet banking fraud alertness information and passably inform internet banking users of the types of internet banking fraud perpetrated by internet fraudsters before they log-in for transacting. Considering the current and widespread quandary of internet banking fraud, the information of this paper is important for internet banking users to improve their aptitude in identifying fraudulent schemes and circumvent them, and for the banking institutions to invest more in the provision of internet banking fraud information to the general public.