Flash sale and online impulse buying: Mediation effect of emotions

This paper intends to analyze the impact of store layout, ambient factors, and employees on impulsive decision-making among female customers visiting the apparel outlets. The responses were collected through a single-stage mall intercept survey method using a structured questionnaire from 385 respondents in leading apparel stores in selected Tier I and Tier II cities in the state of Karnataka, India. The responses were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Constructs such as store layout, ambience and employees were found to be significantly positively correlated with impulse buying behavior. The variables largely explain the variation in impulse buying under store ambiance. Except ‘attention to the window display’ and ‘friendly staff’ all other twelve variables considered in the study were found to have significant impact on the impulse buying behavior. Though store ambiance, well-structured layout, and pleasant shopping experience are essential determinants of customer satisfaction, the study results imply that the number of store staff and sales skills are critical aspects of impulse buying in the apparel business and true assets to the retail organization. Additionally, poor customer interaction, staff shortage, and high employee attrition could discourage the store’s revenue generation.

This paper analyzes internet banking fraud alertness to the general public by the South African banking institutions. The study is centered on routine activity theory, which is a criminology theory. A qualitative content analysis was used as the research technique for the interpretation of the text data from each bank’s website through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns to provide an in-depth understanding of internet banking fraud alertness in the banking sector. A sample size of 13 out of 16 locally and foreign controlled retail banks in South Africa was used. The findings report that banks are not adequately providing internet fraud alertness information to the general public on their websites notwithstanding that most banks they do provide such information to log-in users and the use of that information is doubtful. This study suggests a need to augment internet banking fraud alertness information and passably inform internet banking users of the types of internet banking fraud perpetrated by internet fraudsters before they log-in for transacting. Considering the current and widespread quandary of internet banking fraud, the information of this paper is important for internet banking users to improve their aptitude in identifying fraudulent schemes and circumvent them, and for the banking institutions to invest more in the provision of internet banking fraud information to the general public.

This article analyzes the influence of Internet and e-commerce diffusion in the development of European countries. Conclusions about the faster spread of Internet technologies in the modern world, especially in developing countries, due to the achievement of so-called “saturation points” by developed countries of the world (e-commerce markets in Ukraine and Poland are at the stage of formation and active growth) have been made. The purpose of this article is to construct an economic and mathematical toolkit for investigating the impact of the Internet and e-commerce on indicators of economic development of the country. The methods of scientific analysis, description and synthesis, modeling and statistical analysis are used in the research. Models of technologies diffusion have been considered, and as a basis, the distribution of the Internet in Poland, Austria and Ukraine is forecasted.
Findings suggest that Internet technology spread has a significant impact on the development of e-commerce, and Internet development in different countries of the world. This study uses the classification of countries according to the World Bank Country Classification, which, since 2005, has ranked countries by GDP per capita into four groups:
1) low-income;
2) lower-middle-income;
3) upper-middle-income;
4) high-income.
It has been found that the pace of Internet technology and broadband Internet access spread is a lot higher in low-income countries due to the later beginning of the diffusion process, while in the high-income countries, the peak of Internet development has passed and the technology spread has slowed down.