A Study on the Influence of Impulsive Purchase Intentions

: In this paper, we focus on the factors influencing impulsive purchase intention, including the characteristics of anchor information source, mind flow experience and social presence. By reviewing a large amount of relevant literature and analyzing the findings of previous scholars in depth, we summarize the intrinsic relationship between the above three factors and impulsive purchase intention as well as the interrelationship between the factors, and finally propose several conclusions for subsequent research.


Introduction
With the popularity of Internet technology and mobile payment, online shopping has become the norm. Through combing the existing literature lineage, we found that the existing research results at home and abroad on the influence of consumers' purchase intention are mainly distributed in webcasting characteristics, on-the-spot consumption experience, and consumers' perceived service quality, and are mostly quantitative studies. Secondly, there are few studies that focus on consumers' personal perceptions, and there are even fewer studies that include anchor characteristics and consumers' personal perceptions, i.e., anchor information source characteristics, mind flow experience and social presence, into the same research framework. In this paper, we summarize the interrelationships among anchor source characteristics, mind flow experience, social presence and impulsive purchase intention, and explore the mechanisms and mechanisms of these four factors in the same framework. Kelman (1961) pointed out that Trustworthiness, Expertise, and Attractiveness, as the three basic characteristics of information sources, are important factors to convince individuals and can help persuade them to produce a specific behavioral intention. Regarding the division of anchor source characteristics, the academic community has used the rooting theory to conclude that several dimensions of anchor source characteristics have a positive impact on consumers' impulsive purchase intentions. A large number of scholars coded and analyzed the interview results by means of qualitative research in-depth interviews, and found that live webcasters have five characteristics of credibility, professionalism, skill, interactivity and attractiveness to attract consumers, which in turn enhance consumers' attention to their promoted products and stimulate their purchase intention. Some scholars have also drawn conclusions about the characteristics of anchors from the perspective of opinion leaders. For example, by studying the mechanism of the role of opinion leader attributes in impulse buying, some scholars recognize that consumers learn rich product and brand knowledge through the expertise of opinion leaders, thus increasing their self-efficacy in the consumption process, which directly leads to the generation of impulse buying intentions, while opinion leaders with higher Trustworthy opinion leaders reduce the uncertainty in the shopping environment and make consumers perceive the opinion leaders and the community environment as trustworthy, thus generating impulsive purchase intentions. Some scholars have also studied the moderating effect of opinion leader attributes on post-purchase cognitive dissonance and repetitive purchase intention, and found that the higher the opinion leader attributes, the weaker the negative effect of post-purchase cognitive dissonance on repetitive purchase, i.e., anchor attributes have a significant positive effect on consumers' purchase intention. The anchor, with its own attributes, highly reproduces the offline real consumption situation and becomes the most impactful e-commerce anchor as the "spokesperson" of the live broadcast power of the product or merchant, which in turn constantly influences consumers' online behavioral intentions. Chen et al. (2018) pointed out that in the live broadcast, consumers can actively interact with the anchor by posting pop-ups and messages, and the anchor can actively interact with the anchor by posting pop-ups and messages. In a highly interactive situation, consumers are more likely to be immersed in the live broadcast and have a strong positive emotional experience, and are more likely to make impulsive purchases.

Status of domestic and foreign research 2.1. Research related to the characteristics of anchors
Jerry et al. (2013) found that anchors as a source of information, when they are highly attractive, will lead to consumers' strong curiosity and desire to know about the product, which will lead to better emotional experience and purchase intention. Hyun et al. (2020) found that consumers tend to have positive emotions towards attractive anchors and transfer this positive attitude to the product. Scholars examined the influence of the information processing ability of live e-commerce viewers on their purchase intention based on multiple attitudes theory and found that both anchor attractiveness and viewer involvement have significant effects on users' perceived information usefulness and affective attitudes, which affect consumers' purchase intention.
Jin et al. (2019) argued that trustworthiness means that the information provided by the anchor is reliable and the anchor is trustworthy, and when consumers do not trust the anchor, they will have doubts and uncertainty about the goods recommended and the information provided by the anchor, thus affecting consumers' purchase intention. In addition, from the perspective of psychological contract, it is found that the interactivity and trustworthiness of anchors have a significant positive influence on consumers' purchase intention, in which the psychological contract plays a part of the mediating role.
Numerous studies have shown that the stronger the professionalism of the anchor, the more professional information consumers have about the product, and the less cost and effort they have to spend on searching for the target product, which helps to enhance the consumers' experience of the product and live viewing, thus prompting them to make impulsive purchases. Most scholars emphasize in their studies that anchors, as the main source of information for the anchoring process species, usually provide a lot of professional information about the goods they recommend. The more professional the anchor is, the more efficient and effective the information delivery is, and the more consumers will think they can get more detailed information about the product from the anchor. Quyu Wu et al. (2021) pointed out that the cost effectiveness of the product and the anchor's explanation are the main reasons to provoke consumers' willingness to purchase, and consumers prefer anchors to further improve their professional explanation ability.

Research related to mind flow experience
Psychologist Csikszentmihalyi (1975) 2012) found that online consumers enhance website traffic by being fully immersed in it, i.e., the mind-flow experience mediates the main effect. zheng Y M (2013) summarized the basic framework of mindflow experience in terms of both online shopping behavior and consumer experience, i.e., antecedents, experiences, and outcomes. the study also showed that The antecedent influences of the mindstream experience are mainly focused on two aspects, namely, activity traits and consumer traits. In other words, the mind-flow experience is a kind of emotional response triggered by consumers' activity traits and their own emotional traits, while the characteristics of the anchor information source have the ability to influence consumers' mind-flow experience.
In this study, the mind-flow experience refers to a state of physical and mental pleasure in which consumers are fully engaged in the live broadcast process and attracted by the anchor when participating in the live broadcast activity. By studying the mediating role of mind-flow experience between anchor characteristics and consumers' impulse purchase, many scholars found that anchor interactivity and attractiveness significantly affect consumers' impulse purchase intention through mind-flow experience. Some scholars have also interpreted the formation mechanism of consumer stickiness from the perspective of both platform and anchor interaction, and found that anchor expertise is an important factor influencing user mind-flow experience, and anchor expertise and anchor interaction tend to indirectly influence user stickiness through user psychological experience. chia-Lin Hsu et al. (2020) mentioned that businesses in social media post product-related videos through video bloggers to guide consumer purchase behavior. The attractiveness of the video blogger's appearance and consistency with the user's attitude bring a sense of belonging to the user, thus forming a mind-flow experience when watching the video and triggering impulsive purchase behavior. From the perspective of mind flow experience, some scholars study the influence mechanism of two basic features of website interactivity and vividness on online impulse purchase, and find that the vividness of the website significantly and positively affects mind flow experience and thus impulse purchase, i.e. the stronger the mind flow experience, the stronger the impulse purchase intention of consumers. Some studies have shown that by examining the impact of live scene ambience cues on consumers' impulse purchase intention, the study found that mind-flow experience mediates the role of live ambience cues and consumers' impulse purchase intention. Kühn et al. (2018), in a study of online retail store website design, argued that mind-flow experience is a mediating variable for visual appeal and perceived usefulness to influence consumers' purchase intention. Ing-Long Wu et al. (2020) pointed out that when consumers search for products on websites according to their needs, select them and use functional buttons such as navigation and engines to achieve their shopping goals, the use of online shopping skills and challenging shopping tasks make consumers generate a state of mind-flow that includes a sense of control, enjoyment and concentration and triggers impulsive buying behavior.

Studies related to social presence
Williams (1976) pioneered the concept of social presence, which refers to the degree to which the presence of others is felt in the communication process, i.e., whether the user can generate a sense of intimacy or direct feeling in the interpersonal interaction with the communication medium. Hoffman et al. (1996) applied this concept to a conceptual model of mind-flow experience to study the impact of virtual environments on user experience. Hoffman et al. (1996) applied this concept to a conceptual model of mind-flow experience to study the impact of virtual environments on user experience, arguing that presence is a subjective feeling that describes the immersion in a virtual world similar to the real consumer environment. Based on this, some scholars have found that the presence of the interaction object and the social presence of "being with others" can be perceived through rich video and voice communication information, and this process plays an important role in the generation of mindflow experience, and it is also found that the presence and mind-flow experience are closely related. In the context of online shopping, both spatial presence and social presence can generate the mind-flow experience for consumers. In this context, Animesh (2011) confirmed the effect of social presence on mind-flow experience by studying virtual world purchases, social reading behavior, and online crowd consumption. Related studies also suggest that there is a positive influence between social presence and mindful flow experience. A review of the existing literature shows that social presence in different online contexts significantly affects the mind-flow experience of online users. For example, in online learning contexts, the more social presence learners perceive, the easier it is for them to achieve mindfulness, and Quarterly's (2011) study of users purchasing virtual goods in virtual world contexts also showed that consumers' social presence increased their mindfulness experience. Fang (2018) also shows that social presence can influence consumers' online loyalty by facilitating the mind-flow experience, thus influencing consumers' purchase intention. The study found that the live marketing context creates a better experience for consumers to perceive presence and interact, and this approach is more likely to create a strong sense of presence for participants. In this context, consumers are able to communicate with other parties in a synchronized manner. The stronger the sense of social presence, the more the emotions of the parties in the room interact, and the easier it is for consumers to have a mind-flow experience. Other studies have also shown that consumers are more likely to feel a sense of presence during synchronous online communication than asynchronous communication, and thus will experience a stronger mind-flow experience. Gunawardena (1997) and others argue that a high level of presence conveys a warm, emotional, and immersive atmosphere, thus reducing the distance between the merchant and the consumer. Based on this, scholars point out that the medium in live e-commerce enables real-time interaction between consumers and anchors or other consumers, exhibiting a strong sense of social presence. Some scholars argue that when consumers watch live webcast and interact with live webcasters in real time, a sense of social presence is created. Under the effect of social presence, consumers' inner selves are aroused when they meet their own needs from the perspectives of compensation psychology, herd mentality and self-actualization, respectively, and then identify with the characteristics of the weblebrity and its attitude. Research on the sense of presence in the live marketing context confirms that various information sharing and interactive activities are conducive to creating a "virtual presence of others" shopping experience, which makes up for the regret that traditional online shopping is not able to perceive the products up close, thus bringing consumers closer to the products and creating a positive consumer attitude. In the live e-commerce context, although online consumers cannot interact with the anchor face-to-face, the anchor can bring a sense of social presence to online consumers through active performance and the created context, thus influencing consumers' behavioral intention. The positive influence of social presence on consumer behavior can also be seen in studies by Wang (2014) and Shen (2012), among others. Jieqiong Zhang et al. (2022) pointed out that social presence can reflect the real psychological state of consumers in live interaction behaviors, and at the same time, social presence positively influences consumers' purchase intention by promoting anchor commitment, which is accompanied by the same frequency enhancement of social presence.

Conclusion
Companies can target the cultivation of platform anchors according to this study, highlighting the key to cultivating more personal and popular anchors and head anchors to achieve attraction, thus enhancing consumers' stickiness to anchors, forming user loyalty, and realizing consumers' sustainable and healthy purchase. In addition, by understanding the internal and external motives for the formation of consumers' purchase intentions, the live streaming platform is conducive to the optimization of live streaming strategies and the improvement of live streaming services for the sustainable green development of the platform.
For the government and relevant live-streaming regulatory platforms, they can establish and improve the binding policies about the live-streaming industry of e-commerce according to the findings of this study. The regulator can more comprehensively regulate the order of live broadcast, establish a trust mechanism and improve the threshold of access to live broadcast rooms; the government can introduce relevant network security governance regulations, promote the platform regulator to implement self-monitoring and optimize the regulatory services in order to accelerate the development of the live broadcast industry.