PERSUADED TO BUY: HOW ONLINE COMMUNITY FORUM COULD INFLUENCE WOMEN’S IMPULSIVE BUYING BEHAVIOR
Authors: Yulia Rachmawati & Hersinta
Institution: Graduate School of Communication, The London School of Public Relations Jakarta
[email protected] & [email protected]
Abstract
The development of the Internet has lead to form a two-way communication media platform like Female Daily online community forum, which could facilitate information and communication activities for women who have similar characteristics and interest. The objective of this research is to explore how online community forum which provide vast information about women’s lifestyle, could be used as a reference by the users, particularly in terms of fashion and beauty, and eventually could lead to the forming of impulsive buying behavior. This research uses CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) concept on Online Community for exploring the group’s dynamics, ELM theory to find out how members proceed information received in the context of persuasion, and Impulse Buying theory to explore whether behavior could leads to impulsive purchases. The use of qualitative method in the form of in-depth interviews and observations were conducted to compiling the data. Results of this study indicate that there are contributions from Female Daily online community forum in encouraging member’s impulsive purchases. From the results, we could see that the group dynamics affect the members’ self-existency, which in turn would influence them to choose the reception shorter information (peripherals route). It is also found that the role of influencers and the majority voice became dominant, and eventually it could lead to Suggestion Impulse Buying and Planned Impulse Buying type of behaviors.
Keywords: Online Community Forum, Computer Mediated Communication, Impulse Buying behavior