Online Impulse Buying—Integrative Review on Self-Regulation, Risks and Self-Regulatory Strategies

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to make an integrative review on the impact of psychological aspects in online impulse buying, namely, self-regulation, emotional self-regulation, perceived risks (perceived financial risk, perceived security risk, perceived time and convenience risk, perceived non-delivery risk) and to present some constructs that can interact with the self-regulatory processes, namely, motivation, mindfulness and emotional intelligence). Helping decision makers to outline strategies aligned with their purposes. We suggest that (1) online impulse buying may partially include a cognitive deliberation process and therefore it may not be necessarily fully irrational, being cognition inevitably required to process and understand the available information; (2) consumers tend to make online impulse buying to repair bad mood or strengthen good mood: giving in to the impulse (self-regulatory lack) can result in pleasure or guilt/shame; non-compliance can lead to pride or regret/deprivation; (3) consumer's perceived risks can mitigate online impulse buying; (4) mindfulness may be positively related to self-regulation of impulsive reactions and (5) individuals with high emotional intelligence are unlikely to give in to online impulse buying.