The Pulse Of Impulse Buying: An experimental study on the effects of background music tempo on impulse buying

Considering the importance of e-commerce, very little research has examined how marketing stimuli like music affect impulse buying behavior online. In general, the effect of music on impulse buying is not entirely understood yet. Prior research leads us to suggest that music may influence consumers’ ability to exert self-control and thus their receptiveness to product offers in a shopping situation. Most research has been done in offline settings via surveys or field studies, which often makes it difficult to measure traits, attitudes and cognitive resource and to control confounding factors. Our study aims to contribute to research on impulse buying in three ways: 1) observing impulse buying in an e-commerce setting, 2) exploring the relationship between self-control, background music and impulse buying, and 3) proposing an experimental design to study impulse buying in the lab.