THE IMPULSIVITY IN INTERNET PURCHASE

This paper investigates the influence of gender, age, income, and possession of a credit card on the impulsivity in e-commerce. The impulse buying is a type of unplanned purchase, defined as a consumer tendency to buy spontaneously, without reflection, in an immediate way, dominated by emotional attraction and absorbed by the promise of instant gratification. The impulse buying phenomenon, associated to the online retail is still relatively new and extremely important. E-commerce has grown by approximately 40% per year, reaching 23 million e-customers in Brazil in 2010. This study was based on a field survey with institutions of higher education in the Greater ABC region of Sao Paulo, whose sample consisted of 336 students in undergraduate and postgraduate level. According to the results analysis, the unique variable that showed influence on impulsive behavior in online retail is personal income. This outcome was not noticed in the other variables studied. The impulsivity mean score of the sample was 24,84 points, which could vary between 11 and 77. This suggests that the buying behavior on internet of analyzed students is guidance predominantly non-impulsive.