FoMO as Mediator of Flash Sales on Impulsive Buying
A Study Among Students in Social Commerce
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32832/jm-uika.v17i2.23319Keywords:
Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), Impulse buying, Digital natives, Social commerce, Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR)Abstract
The growth of social commerce in Indonesia has transformed how students, most of whom are young people, engage with digital promotions, including flash sale strategies that can trigger impulsive purchases. This study aims to analyze the influence of flash sales on impulsive behavior with Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) as a mediator, using the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework. The respondents in this study were 242 students and university students who are active e-commerce users in Bogor City who had participated in flash sales of beauty products through social media. Data was collected through an online survey and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) via SmartPLS 4. The analysis results indicate that flash sales have a positive effect on FoMO and impulsive purchasing, and FoMO significantly mediates the relationship between flash sales and impulsive buying. These findings reinforce the role of social and emotional pressure in shaping digital consumer behavior and underscore the importance of digital literacy and promotional ethics among students and university students, who are predominantly digital natives. This research contributes theoretically to the development of the S-O-R model in the realm of social commerce and has practical implications, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
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