23 Chapter 2 Theoretical Background and Hypotheses Development Impulse visits and impulse buying Impulse purchases can be defined as unplanned purchases accompanied by a sudden and strong urge to buy (Rook, 1987; Amos, 2014). Building on this definition, we define impulse visits as the unplanned entry into a physical store accompanied by a sudden strong urge to do so. A meta-analysis on impulse buying (Amos, 2014) shows that antecedents of impulse buying can be categorized into dispositional factors (e.g., impulse-buying trait), sociodemographic factors (e.g., age), and situational factors (e.g., retail environment). Additionally, research shows that internal perceptions (e.g., time pressure), product characteristics (e.g., hedonic products), and product’s promotion factors (e.g., discounts) affect impulse buying (see Khan et al., 2015). More specially, for the impulse buying of fashion items, Lee and Johnson (2010) stress the effect that store layout has on consumers’ impulse buying. Compared to impulse buying, impulsive store visits are studied less often. However, it is known that store visits and impulse buying are often triggered by the same antecedents. For example, both store visits (Beak et al., 2020) and impulse buying (Sun and Yazdanifard, 2015) are stimulated by sensory experiences. It can be concluded that various antecedents affect both impulse buying and store visits. However, studies have not yet identified the effect of in-store interactive advertising screens on impulse-visit urges and impulse-buying urges. Interactive advertising screens can be classified under user-machine or user-message interactions, depending on the screen’s features. In user-machine interaction, the emphasis lies on human interaction with computers. User-message interaction entails the possibility of users modifying a message (Liu and Shrum, 2002). Based on different interactivity types, Liu and Shrum (2002, p. 54) propose the following definition of interactivity: “The degree to which two or more communication parties can act on each other, on the communication medium, and on the messages and the degree to which such influences are synchronized.” They also suggest that interactivity encompasses three dimensions: active control, twoway communication, and synchronicity (also see Liu, 2003). Even though mixed results on the effect of interactivity have been found (Wu, 2005), the notion that interactivity can affect persuasive outcomes for the better seems widely accepted (e.g., Chattaraman et al., 2014). For instance, studies demonstrate that interactivity positively affects constructs such as consumers’ perceptions of usefulness and enjoyment (Yim et al., 2017), attitudes (Hu and Wise, 2021), and online buying activity (Kim and LaRose, 2004). A meta-analysis of 63 studies on web interactivity underlines this notion and shows that it is positively correlated with attitudes and desirable behavioral intentions of consumers (Yang and Shen, 2018). Additionally, Kakalejčík et al. (2020) show that positive experiences between companies and consumers with respect to online interactions can enhance consumers’ (re)visit behavior and purchase behavior. Correspondingly, Effect of interactivity on impulse urges
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