Understanding "window" shopping and browsing experience on social shopping website An empirical investigation

Purpose Social shopping website (SSW) introduce the social side into the shopping process, thus making "window" shopping or browsing more interesting for customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate customer online browsing experience and its antecedents (i.e. information quality and social interaction) and consequences (i.e. urge to buy impulsively and continuous browsing intention) in the context of SSW. Design/methodology/approach A survey questionnaire was distributed to visitors of online SSW to collect data, and partial least squares technology was used to test the research model. Findings The results of this study reveal that three types of web browsing, namely, utilitarian browsing, hedonic browsing and social browsing, take place in a SSW. The unique factors of SSW, namely, the quality of user generated contents and social interaction are critical for facilitating customers' browsing experiences. Furthermore, the findings reveal that hedonic browsing experience is found to be the most salient factor influencing customers' urge to buy impulsively and continuance intention. Practical implications The findings suggest that practitioners, such as designers and managers of SSW should give special attention to the benefits of browsing activity to convert web browsers into impulse purchasers and increase customers' loyalty. Moreover, they should focus on improving the quality of user generated content and pay more attention to support and encourage social interaction to enhance browsing experiences on a SSW. Originality/value Existing studies about browsing behavior mostly focus on traditional online e-commerce website. This study represents the first step toward understanding browsing activity on SSW. Moreover, prior studies mainly focused on utilitarian and hedonic browsing experience; however, there is a lack of research on social browsing experience. The current study attempts to fill this research gap.