Three Ways to Convert Browsing into Impulse Buying: Website Streamline and Decoration

Online stores spring up everywhere and their store display changes more agilely than the brick-andmortar ones. The webpage aesthetics in online stores, similar to in-store atmospherics in brick-andmortar stores, are significant to consumer impulse buying, yet has received very limited attention from researchers. This paper reports three empirical studies that examine how webpage aesthetic components affect consumer online impulse buying. The objectives of this research are based on the framework of webpage aesthetics to systematically investigate the influence of webpage aesthetics components on impulse buying, so we design three separate studies to answer the following research questions: Study 1: Does virtual layout influence consumers’ emotions, which in turn affect their online impulse buying behavior? Study 2: Does virtual atmospherics influence consumers’ emotions, which in turn affect their online impulse buying behavior? Study 3: Does virtual theatrics influence consumers’ emotions, which in turn affect their online impulse buying behavior?