Measuring Post-purchase Regret and Impulse Buying in Online Shopping Experience from Cognitive Dissonance Theory Perspective

Abstract

This study adopted the Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT) to investigate the effects of internal and external factors on consumers’ shopping behaviour, as well as to explore how consumers overcome post-purchase regret of online impulse buying. Data were gathered from 422 respondents via online questionnaire. The statistical model was tested by using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique in Partial Least Square (SmartPLS) version 3.2.7 and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0. The findings indicate that sales promotion, bank card payment, visual merchandising, pricing, and online review significantly influenced impulse buying, while hedonic shopping motivation did not display any moderating function. Impulse buying positively influenced post-purchase regret and was moderated by materialism. Recommendations to marketers and limitation of this study are provided.