Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 47 (2019) 150–156

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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser

Clicking the boredom away – Exploring impulse fashion buying behavior T

online
⁎
Malin Sundströma, , Sara Hjelm-Lidholma, Anita Radonb
a
University of Borås, Swedish Institute for Innovative Retailing, Borås, Sweden
b
University of Borås, Borås, Sweden

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper presents a Swedish case study focusing on online shopping and impulse purchases of fashion. The
Impulse buying behavior paper contributes by bringing new light on the bored-state-of-mind's importance in impulse shopping, and
Fashion provides insights for further research to examine the topic on a greater scale. Results reveal that young con-
Online shopping sumers’ impulse purchases of fashion items online are often motivated by boredom, and described in two di-
Boredom
mensions: 1) Consumers are often responding to triggers that can break monotony and 2) Boredom occurs in a
Impulse purchases
Negative emotions
contextualized totality. When consumers are bored they are easily triggered by stimulus like price, easy access,
and free delivery, and it is perceived as easy to click the boredom away. It is suggested that retailers choose a
strategy based on customer value and satisfaction, as there is a lot to win by stepping away from price com-
petition and instead satisfy customers by providing an opportunity to become less bored.

1. Introduction
The retail sector is sales driven and often described as dependent on
additional sales. Retailing is also at times described in terms of impulse
purchases and as a contributor to excessive consumption (Pookulangara
and Shephard, 2013), especially regarding fashion (Kivetz and
Simonson, 2002). Overall, sudden, compelling, and hedonically moti-
vated buying behavior is more prevalent in fashion retailing than in
other businesses (Dittmar and Drury, 2000; Kacen and Lee, 2002;
Pentecost and Andrews, 2010), and impulse buying behavior is of great
importance to the fashion industry (Khan et al., 2015). There are ample
studies on why fashion consumers shop on impulse (see e.g.
Muruganantham and Bhakat, 2013; Pentecost and Andrews, 2010), and
in brick-and-mortar stores, fashion involvement and positive emotions
are defined as having the greatest effect on impulse behavior in-store
(Joo Park et al., 2006). Therefore, fashion retailers traditionally use
visual merchandising as a tool to strengthen positive emotions where
the product and/or brand are visually communicated to increase im-
pulse sales. However, fashion retailers online, focus on marketing cues
such as free deliveries, free returns, and special discounts in order to
attract unplanned purchases (Dawson and Kim, 2010), and recent stu-
dies indicate that boredom might have an effect on impulse behavior
online (Hjelm-Lidholm et al., 2017). This phenomenon regarding im-
pulse shopping indicates there are still questions that remain to be
answered regarding online shopping and the mood of the shoppers.
In a digitalized retailing context, both offerings and consumers are
changing (Hagberg et al., 2016) and new information technology tools
are enabling customers to gain fashion inspiration online (audio- and
visually displayed), in social media (e.g. Instagram, Pinterest etc.) and
in showrooms and temporary retail settings (Sundström et al., 2016).
With these changes the importance of visual merchandising in the store
is sometimes ignored and what actually stimulates the consumer online
in terms of buying fashion items on impulse is underexplored. This
research starts out on the presumption that positive feelings might not
always be the antecedent of fashion purchases on impulse. It is instead
suggested that boredom also affects consumers that buy fashion items
on impulse.
This paper, thus, deters somewhat from current approaches to ex-
amining impulse fashion buying behavior as driven by hedonic motives
(Joo Park et al., 2006; Yu and Bastin, 2010; Miao, 2011) or motivated
as extraordinary experiences (Tumbat and Belk, 2010; Pine and
Gilmore, 1998; Trevinal and Stenger, 2014). Instead the purpose is to
explore how feelings of boredom impact online impulse purchases of
fashion items. The research question guiding the study is formulated as:
Does boredom affect impulse buying of fashion online, and what di-
mensions of boredom are there to be found?

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: malin.sundstrom@hb.se (M. Sundström).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.11.006
Received 2 March 2018; Received in revised form 5 November 2018; Accepted 13 November 2018
Available online 30 November 2018
0969-6989/ © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).
M. Sundström et al.
2. Theoretical framework
In this paper we choose to give more detail on boredom, following a
micro-separate scale to understanding dimensions of boredom, and not
merely an aspect in order to escape boredom, or as a shopper typology
such as mood shopper or apathetic shopper. The literature on boredom
is examined from a retailing perspective.
2.1. Boredom as a theoretical phenomenon
Boredom is a phenomenon academically studied in many contexts
i.e. digital marketing and social media (Yazdanparast et al., 2015);
online shopping and flow (Yi Maggie and Klein, 2009); motivation (van
Hooff and van Hooff, 2017; Biolcati et al., 2018; Graf, and Landwehr,
2015; Phillips, 2008; Skowronski, 2012; Gkorezis and Kastritsi, 2017);
shopping (Mano, 1999; Yi Maggie and Klein, 2009); and fashion (Chater
and Loewenstein, 2016; Workman and Studak, 2007; Studak and
Workman, 2004). Boredom has also been studied in shopping behavior;
and has been a part of the marketing and retailing literature but often
used as an independent variable (Fogel and Schneider, 2010; Yi Maggie
and Klein, 2009). There is also research in the marketing literature
showing that boredom as a negative feeling affects consumer behavior
and experience (Hurlock, 1929; Fiske and Maddi, 1961; Bull, 1975).
Studies on boredom and shopping indicate that shopping also could be
an activity performed in order to avoid boredom (Faber et al., 1995;
Mano, 1999) or to have a mundane experience being part of their ev-
eryday life (Goolaup, 2018; Belk et al., 1989). However, little research
has elaborated on the idea with boredom as a motivator to shop on
impulse, even though willingness to shop can be enhanced by negative
feelings. That is, a consumer might know that a certain state of mood
(boredom) can be altered to a positive state of mood (happiness) when
shopping (Hirschmann and Holbrook, 1982). Also, little research from
an epistemological perspective, indicate individual levels of boredom
become concurrent with a socially contextualized totality. As such,
boredom as a social context and in relation to impulsive shopping for
fashion is severely underexplored with the very few exceptions of
Studak and Workman (2004) and (Hjelm-Lidholm et al., 2017).
2.2. Defining boredom
Boredom is broadly defined as feelings of low-arousal and un-
pleasant emotions induced by external factors (e.g., Mikulas and
Vodanovich, 1993) or individual differences (e.g., Farmer and
Sundberg, 1986). Not surprisingly, boredom can serve as a motivational
barrier, and has been studied within the field of learning (Pekrun, 1992;
Pekrun et al., 2002) and in that context often referred to as a state of
boredom (Vogel-Walcutt et al., 2012). A literature search and analysis
of boredom used in academic studies made by Vogel-Walcutt et al.
(2012) show that a vast majority of studies use the term trait boredom,
which refers to an individual's propensity to experience feelings of
disinterest (Farmer and Sundberg, 1986). Following the line of rea-
soning saying that individual levels of boredom is concurrent with a
contextualized totality, this paper choose to elaborate on trait boredom
as the theoretical tool for analysing impulse online shopping for
fashion.
Literature on boredom as trait shows that boredom involves at least
two conditions on an individual level: 1) the feeling of having too much
time and nothing to do, and 2) the feeling of lack of interest (Greenson,
1953). When a consumer meets these two conditions he/she usually
tries to change the mental state and alleviate whatever is causing the
negative condition, which guides us to the notion of meaning. De-
pending on individual experiences, contexts and sociocultural level,
boredom might mean different things, and is an interplay of influences
at the individual and social level that ultimately shapes the consumer.
Boredom might be seen as a network of culturally shared knowledge in
which the personal meanings of his or her experiences are formed
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 47 (2019) 150–156
(Thompson et al., 1994; Goolaup, 2018). Boredom might also be seen as
a mundane experience, something that people consume on a regular
basis (Goolaup, 2018).
According to this, we add to the notion of boredom as trait, also to
the notion of meaning and mundane experience, thus elaborating on
boredom as:
An individual level of boredom and a mundane experience is con-
current with a contextualized totality and is an interplay of influences
that shapes the consumer.
2.2.1. Boredom and sensory modalities
Researchers in social psychology argue that monotony in sensory
stimulation alone is not a sufficient cause of boredom but needs to be
complemented with a high degree of frustration. This means boredom
demands both cognitive and affective elements (Perkins and Hill,
1985). Applied to the context of impulsive shopping this means
boredom in terms of feeling monotony is not sufficient to start buying
on impulse, but needs to be causing frustration, which in turn is de-
pended on the individual level of engagement towards the object
(fashion). There are numerous research studies on fashion and en-
gagement (see e.g. Gutman and Mills, 1982; Darley and Johnson, 1993;
Trautmann-Attmann and Johnson, 2009; Rahman et al., 2016), and
according to Hirschmann and Holbrook (1982) consumer engagement
can be used to cluster fashion consumers in to fashion change agents (i.e.
fashion innovators, fashion opinion leaders and innovative commu-
nicators) and/or fashion followers. Innovators tend to be consumers with
high engagement using multiple sensory modalities such as sounds,
scents, tactile expressions and visual images, when they interact
(Hirschmann and Holbrook, 1982). Followers on the other hand use
only a few sensory modalities and as a response tend to perceive the
garment as boring (Studak and Workman, 2004). To capture the in-
creasing importance of boredom as a driver towards impulse online
buying behavior, we also base our literature framework on impulse
buying behavior and motivational research.
2.2.2. Boredom and impulsive buying behavior
Impulsive buying behavior has been on many consumer researchers’
agenda, and historically there has been a separation between un-
planned and pure impulse buying behavior (Wood, 2005). Definitions
on unplanned buying behavior usually refer to the number of articles
put in the basket compared to the shopping list (Bell, Corsten & Knox,
2011; Hui et al., 2013). Impulse buying behavior has been described as
a novelty or escape purchase that breaks the normal buying pattern
(Aruna and Santhi, 2015). Complementary studies on purchases that
break the normal buying pattern suggest that consumers tend to behave
more or less impulsively depending on what they are buying. Both
groceries and apparel are considered to be typical product categories
for engaging in impulsive buying behavior (Han et al., 1991; Joo Park
et al., 2006; Nordfält, 2009; Williams and Dardis, 1972). Another study
on impulsive buying behavior concluded that Generation Y is more
susceptible to “impulse buying” than other people (Aruna and Santhi,
2015). However, although a knowledge base on the factors influencing
impulse behavior is evident in the literature, impulsive purchases are
mainly based on studies in bricks-and-mortar stores. Studies have
shown that people spend less time visiting an online store than a bricks-
and-mortar store and that a delighted customer tends to buy more the
longer he or she stays in the fixed-store setting (Adelaar et al., 2003).
However, considering the vast Internet penetration in society due to
smartphones and the constant growth of e-commerce, the time that
consumers spend in online stores is increasing along with the number of
online stores visited (see e.g. Melis et al., 2015).
2.2.3. Boredom as shopping motivation
Historically, impulsive buying behavior has been viewed as driven
by a mix of external and internal factors, but also colored by attitudes,
norms and cultural needs such as easy access, and privacy
M. Sundström et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 47 (2019) 150–156

(Madhavaram and Laverie, 2004). The literature on shopping motiva- Table 1

tion and boredom has shown that such behavior encompasses the ex- Profile of the participants.
posure to stimuli (Piron, 1991), cognition such as monotony, and feelings Interviewees Gender Age Profession and past experience Interview time
such as frustration (Perkins and Hill, 1985). Several studies indicate that
strong emotions in general become a driver to impulse buying behavior Eric Male 23 Student 30 min
Karin Female 27 Student/purchase assistant 40 min
(c.f. Rook and Hoch, 1985; Rook, 1987; Dawson et al., 1990; Bayley and
Adam Male 25 Student 35 min
Nancarrow, 1998; Baun and Gröppel-Klein, 2003; Aruna and Santhi, Emelie Female 24 Student 35 min
2015), but there are differences depending on the type of product, and Emma Female 27 Student 40 min
depending of the context in total. When fashion-buying decisions are Fredrik Male 29 Student/wharehouse worker 40 min
governed by strong emotions described as boredom, the decisions tend Ida Female 21 Student 30 min
Jennie Female 22 Student 45 min
to be more guided on impulse then on rational behavior (Hjelm-
Johanna Female 24 Student 40 min
Lidholm et al., 2017). From other researchers, we also know online site Linda Female 25 Student/telemarketing 30 min
atmospherics together with engagement and responsiveness are im- Oskar Male 23 Student/banking 30 min
portant triggers of impulse decisions within e-commerce (Eroglu et al., Ulf Male 28 Student/wharehouse worker 35 min
Niklas Male 27 Student/retail clerk 30 min
2003). A major conclusion drawn from the above-mentioned research
Viktor Male 22 Student 35 min
on motives and boredom in an e-commerce context is that the online
store atmosphere does indeed contribute to the mechanisms of avoiding
boredom. Describe the environment when you did your purchase (where, when,
with whom) and 3) your feelings before browsing and during the pur-
3. Methodology chase.
The analysis of the data was conducted in an inductive way, more
In order to research impulse buying behavior of fashion items online emergent in its process, and with the aim of creating categories from
a qualitative approach was made based on semi structured in-depth the data, and then analysing relationships between categories
interviews face-to-face. The choice of in-depth interviews was based on (Dworkin, 2012). Firstly, the researcher grouped the respondents un-
the fact that emotions have strong connections to impulsive buying derstanding boredom in a similar way, and then comparing them both
behavior, and as such, opened up for a methodological tool that sup- within and between groups. This process enabled us to refine the co-
ported the aim of understanding consumers feeling (Fontana and herence of segments, and instead analyse the most important differ-
Prokos, 2016). Also, earlier research has found interviews to be effec- ences of boredom compared to what we knew from the literature. Fi-
tive in developing a deeper analysis from consumer buying stories nally, the findings were discussed with other researchers and further
based on a relatively small amount of respondents (c.f. Thompson, refined in communications with reviewers during the review process.
1996). The interviews were carried out as semi structured conversations One limitation of using interviews when talking about previous
aiming at collecting knowledge about impulse shopping online, and behavior is that the subjects might find it hard to remember their be-
narrowing it down to fashion purchases. havior, what they actually did, and what led to this behavior. To reduce
The sample was young consumers with a broad experience of online the risk of not remembering the purchase, respondents who had made a
shopping. Young consumers should be examined for several reasons; purchase recently were sought and preferred. The interviews were
they are recognized as a specialized market segment, young consumers performed in a semi-structured way with an interview guide. The aim
influence family purchasing decisions, young consumers shape con- was to allow the respondents to explore their own memories about the
sumption patterns and affect not only present but also future consumer buying situation and their feelings regarding the purchase. All the in-
behavior (Hafstrom et al., 1992). Finally, young consumers are brought terviews were transcribed, including both questions and answers.
up in a digitalized retailing context and are used to handling informa-
tion technology tools (Hagberg et al., 2016). Convenience samples of
students were judged as an appropriate choice, and respondents were 4. Empirical findings
selected and contacted by the interviewers and invited. In order to
guarantee a broad experience of online shopping among the students, All of the respondents had shopped online at least once on impulse,
invited respondents were asked about their shopping habits. Consumers but most of them bought fashion online on impulse regularly. When
with little or no online experience, and with little or no exposure to asked to estimate the amount of money spent on impulse shopping, the
online advertising, were left out of the study. Finally, potential re- answer was somewhere between 100 and 200 euros per month. The
spondents were asked whether they had recently made an impulse average time spent searching for clothes on the Internet ranged from 2
purchase online from a fashion website; if not, they were not selected. If to 3 h per day to 2–3 h per month. The purchases were made mostly on
the answer was yes, the respondent was asked when this behavior had laptops or on cellphones, at home, on the sofa, in front of the TV, and
taken place, and if it was within the last one or two weeks, the re- sometimes in the company of others. When describing the purchase
spondent was scheduled for an interview. situations, several of the respondents had no clear intent of shopping,
In total the sample consists of personal in-depth interviews with 14 whatsoever, rather the opposite. One eye was on the TV set and the
young Swedish consumers within the age of 20–30 years, 7 men and 7 other on the laptop while the respondent was still socializing with his or
women, presented in Table 1 below. Interviews stopped when theore- her boyfriend, girlfriend, or family. In situations like these the shopping
tical saturation was achieved, following the idea of grounded theory activity was expressed with feelings of disinterest. Alternatively, he or
(Glaser and Strauss, 1967). she was alone in bed before going to sleep or were awake in the middle
During the interviews, the respondents were asked to describe their of the night or at the kitchen table just hanging around doing nothing,
latest purchase of fashion products online made by impulse. It was up to checking the mail, and browsing. All respondents in this study de-
the respondent to categorize the purchase as an impulsive act, and scribed their buying behavior as digital, and being part of a new gen-
questions were raised in order to document how each respondent chose eration of multi-screen users. All quotations in the following section
to describe the impulsive behavior. All interviews were carried out at have been translated from Swedish into English.
the university and with the help of an interview guide, constructed in
order to understand the buying situation, the environment around the 4.1. Why shop on impulse
purchase, motives and feelings during and after the impulse purchase.
Questions like: 1) Describe your latest online impulse purchase 2) When asked why they shopped online, marketing cues were often

152
M. Sundström et al.
the first answer. Low price was considered a powerful trigger among all
respondents. The consumers made remarks about offerings such as “free
shipping” (Eric, 23; Karin, 27; Ida, 21; Oscar, 23; Viktor, 22) and “on
sale” (Karin, 27; Emelie, 24, Oscar, 23; Ulf, 28) and mentioned that they
often searched for sales/offers when browsing for fashion. Another
reason was the emotional kick resulting from an impulse purchase. It
was common to feel some kind of positive rush regarding the price,
illustrated by this respondent: ”…to find something you really want and
to make a bargain is totally awesome!” (Emelie, 24) or “…if I get a real
bargain offer” (Emma, 27). The respondents also referred to specific
communications that acted on scarcity, “only available now” or “dis-
count today” (Ulf, 28; Karin, 27; Emelie, 24)), which stimulated them to
actually follow through with the purchase. From the data it was clear
that “price,” free delivery, and “on sale” was words used in search
strings and also a trigger to shop on impulse. The respondents perceive
they are driven to online sites with the help of commercials, providing
easy access: "I seldom browse different fashion sites. It might be if I
have seen some commercial or ad. If I find something that I want, I buy
it and I think to myself: I do not shop that often so why not this time."
(Fredrik, 29)
Price as a marketing cue is complex and in some situations the re-
spondents discussed the perceived feeling of not making a real pur-
chase: “You do not think about the price in the same way online as
when shopping in a physical store. When shopping online, the prices
that would have seemed expensive in a physical store all of a sudden
feel a bit cheaper. I do not know how to explain this but it seems that
you have a totally different view on price when shopping online”
(Johanna, 24). Some of the interviewees gave an explanation for their
impulse purchases, framing it as “almost planned” (Viktor, 22). This
description made the impulse purchase changed into a rational beha-
vior, since the consumer could refer to making a good deal by taking
advantage of a cheap price and/or free shipping and returns, for in-
stance. However, as the lack of planning was evident, the respondents
chose to consider costs as relative, using qualitative values such as
pleasure vs. boredom in relation to the monetary price expressed as: “I
was bored so it was worth the money” (Fredrik, 29)
From a business perspective, communication on commercial sites
seems to support the act of buying on impulse when checking out. Free
shipping and free returns marked in bold are such examples. Karin, 27,
also underlined this, and stated that the order would never have been
executed if it was not for the free shipping and the free return.
Respondents also mentioned that marketing activities such as cross- and
up-selling influenced them to purchase more than they had initially
planned. Karin described such a scenario as follows: “On the website
when I found my shoes, it popped up: you might like this too … I
clicked there, browsed around there for a bit. It ended up with me
buying three pairs of shoes and two shirts – on pure impulse!”
(Dworkin, 2012).
The respondents also believe they are influenced by a close circle of
friends but also by public characters such as celebrities and tren-
dsetters, described as “I may look at what celebrities are wearing, and I
get inspired by fashion magazines” (Adam, 25) or as “Then I look at
what kind of clothes celebrities wear, and I read KING (a fashion ma-
gazine) and other magazines. If one finds something in there that one
finds fresh I guess I must admit, I get affected” (Dworkin, 2012). The
data also show that the respondents acted on stimuli on social media
(such as Facebook, Instagram, and blogs) where the trigger from pic-
tures seemed to be important: “I saw this jacket on Instagram that
someone had bought. I really liked it and just had to look it up. So I
went on Zara's website and found more stuff” (Emma, 27). In all the
samples, frequent use of social media is described as a trigger to per-
form impulse purchases.
Feelings of rewarding oneself are another important reason to shop
on impulse. Respondents in the study are aware of different stimuli that
might affect their behavior, but they reason with themselves and decide
that they deserve the act of purchasing: “I guess I thought about the
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 47 (2019) 150–156
price. 1.000 [Swedish Krona, SEK] is expensive, but I felt I had not
rewarded myself recently when it comes to clothing, so I was worth it”
(Ida, 21).
4.1.1. Boredom
The exposure to cues is evident when analysing and presenting the
respondents’ experiences from making impulse clothing purchases on-
line. However, there is also strong evidence that the role of boredom is
important and that advertising and offers help to spur the feelings and
to change them from negative to positive. When explaining why the
respondents performed this form of impulse behavior, they all talked
about breaking the normal pattern and doing something out of the
ordinary, where one of the respondents express it like: “I felt very
restless and bored and I wanted to have something else to do.” (Eric,
23), or as Emelie (24) expresses it: “Boredom, I felt bored. I probably
just felt that it would be fun with something new. It would improve my
situation right now”. The emotional reasons are often manifested in a
“must have” craving rather than a utility need. One girl described this
as: “New clothes and nice things make me happy” (Johanna, 24).
Another girl expressed this as: “That it feels affordable already on the
Internet since I am awfully bad at returning items, therefore I care less
about the right to withdraw etc. instead it has to feel right straight
away” (Emelie, 24).
When describing the situation around the purchase respondents
were asked what it looked like, the time of day when it took place, and
how the respondent's feelings of disinterest looked like at the time. One
of our informants described the level of boredom as a contextualized
totality:
“Often it's late at night. You have turned off the TV and are about to
check one final thing on the computer. Perhaps you are not that bright
at that moment, feeling tired and you know” (Niklas, 27). Other re-
spondents explained the situation as calm moments, when feeling bored
or experiencing a lack of energy, motivating them to seek experience
and fun online, which could be illustrated as follows: “As I remember I
was in my bed with the computer, it was at night, and I was alone” (Ida,
21). Another woman told us: “I was sitting alone in my mother's kitchen
around half past one at night. I had nothing to do so I went to check my
e-mail and responded to an e-mail from Ellos.se [a commercial fashion
site] offering me a 40% discount on curtains” (Jenny, 22). Similar de-
scriptions are: “I was home alone sitting on the sofa. It was night and I
was tired and a bit bored,” and “I sat for a long time just browsing, I
probably spent hours doing that” (Johanna, 24).
The moment of browsing around commercial websites can be seen
as a hunt for joy where the actual purchase is seen as one of the re-
wards. The hunt for joy can end up in an impulse purchase or just be a
source of inspiration and instant satisfaction. One of the respondents
pointed out that merely filling a shopping basket without completing
the purchase can give satisfaction and stimulation. Illustrations of an
online impulse purchase as clicking the boredom away is illustrated by
a young woman: ”I was very pleased, exhilarated I think. Pretty happy
that I had actually followed through and made a purchase. It is very
common that I just look at stuff, not clicking them home. You find
something, just a small something, but you never buy. So yes, I was very
pleased” (Emma, 27). A male respondent described the feeling as fol-
lows: “It was not like I was going to buy something, but since it was so
cheap I seized the moment” (Oskar, 23). The individuals' current state
of mind also triggers the purchase, and a negative state of mind is an
important reason to shop on impulse, described by one respondent as
follows: “I think I'm worth a little bit extra right now. I have allowed
myself a lot recently because I've had a difficult time. So, I do some
shopping to feel a bit happier” (Karin, 27).
When finding the right product or when filling the basket, the
consumer is filled with sudden happiness and excitement, which mo-
tivates him or her to continue the search for new products to repeat the
“kick of pleasure.” Another respondent expressed his feelings after or-
dering products and imagining wearing them: “I felt excited to get the
M. Sundström et al.
stuff home and start using them as well” (Emma, 24). The same re-
spondent continued: “But overall it's more emotional [to buy clothes]
and you are more hungry for that kind of stuff and do not actually need
it”. This is also supported by Niklas who explains his feeling after an
impulse online purchase: “Euforia. Is that ok to say? No, but I was very
happy, and in a good mood afterwards” (Niklas, 27). Also Jennie ex-
pressed the same feelings: “When I had bought the clothes I was really
in high spirits to have found something that made me happy, even
though I felt bored” (Jennie, 22).
From the data we also noticed that the intention to return products
bought on impulse seemed weak, illustrated by Fredrik saying: “I am
usually very naive. If something goes wrong I can live with that. Usually
on the Internet you have the right to return items, but it doesn’t matter
to me. If there is something that does not fit, I rarely return it“ (Fredrik,
29). This is also supported by Johanna: “And then I wanted to return it,
because it was expensive, but it was so hard understanding the return-
processes and everything, so I never did” (Johanna, 24), and Ulf: ”I
never check the possibilities of returning. I am usually sure of what I
want and seldom return things. I believe returning items is too an-
noying so I don’t care. Sometimes I have bought stuff that I have given
away or got rid of somehow” (Ulf, 28).
5. Conclusions
This research has examined feelings of boredom and its impact on
online impulse purchases of fashion items, using a small sample from
young Swedish consumers, thus following a qualitative tradition. The
empirical findings show that boredom affect impulse online shopping
for fashion, but the feelings of boredom are multi-dimensional in terms
of monotony and frustration, and impulse shopping for fashion can be a
remedy for those feelings (Guy and Banim, 2000), thus providing a very
strong motivator to act on impulse. It has been shown that there are
individual differences of boredom, and those differences are connected
to different dimensions in response to triggers, and a contextualized
totality of boredom in which the impulse purchase took place. This
study brings new light on the bored-state-of-mind's importance in im-
pulse shopping, and discuss below the two dimensions of boredom that
are identified:
5.1. Dimensions of boredom – response to triggers
When consumers are bored and feel monotony and frustration they
are easily triggered by stimulus like price and easy access. Elaborating
on boredom the respondents tended to browse to kill time rather than
engaging in specific objects. They are best described as fashion fol-
lowers, as they use few sensory modalities. This is a result supported by
Studak and Workman (2004) who studied university students and
found that they shopped fashion items while bored. Impulse purchases
are thus a way for the respondents to escape reality and seek satisfac-
tion in material things and the chance of getting a bargain. Respondents
escape everyday life boredom by shopping for fashion online, and on
impulse. The study also indicates that this kind of shopping behavior is
a coping mechanism to avoid boredom and monotony. Thus, the feeling
of being bored is replaced by positive emotions, such as pleasure,
during the purchasing process. This is best described as a mundane
experience, reflecting experiences that are part of everyday life.
It is also indicated that the feelings of boredom that consumers
explained as triggering their behavior are connected to wanting change,
in this case changing the contents of their wardrobe. However, the wish
for change is not on the level of extraordinary, but instead on an ev-
eryday life level, and in order to lower frustration. Impulse purchases in
the presented study also indicate that fashion consumers have a high
engagement towards the fashion goods, such as emotional feelings, and
identity.
154
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 47 (2019) 150–156
5.2. Dimensions of boredom – a contextualized totality
In this study boredom was also described as a contextualized to-
tality, where certain moments and/or situations were mentioned. The
consumers seemed to prefer evenings in order to shop on impulse,
looking for a moment of solitude before bedtime. The respondents in
the study belong to the generation of multi-screen users – looking at the
TV and answering text messages on the smartphone while browsing on
the laptop. Impulse purchases happened when they were not focusing
particularly on one screen but engaging in other activities at the same
time. They were not engaged or focused on the shopping activity per se,
but challenged by social identity through different social media. Our
data indicate that boredom interplayed with a contextualized totality,
shape the consumer and give feelings of meaninglessness. As such, it
becomes more important to manifest the identification with a certain
group (Barbalet, 1999; Van Tilburg and Igou, 2011). The driving force
in buying new clothes can therefore be connected to the feeling of being
unfit or the unwanted feeling of representing someone you do not want
to be or the wish to identify with a certain group, and purchasing new
clothes becomes the solution to this problem. In this state of boredom
and the need of belongingness, impulse buying behavior become urgent
and seen as a means to visually demonstrate the identity through
clothes.
6. Limitations and future research
There are some limitations to this study, the research design, with a
small sample, does not offer the opportunity to make generalisations
concerning the results. Therefore the results are mainly to be regarded
as insights for future research in young consumers’ impulse purchases
of fashion online. The purpose with the qualitative approach to the
study with semi-structured interviews was mainly to gather consumer-
buying stories that could be analysed with a relevant theoretical fra-
mework. However, the difficulty in collecting memories and stories
from interviewees is that there is the risk of misunderstandings between
the interviewer and the interviewee. There is also the possibility that
the interviewee feels uncomfortable and/or feels pressure during the
interview thereby telling consumer stories that are not complete. The
rich stories with detailed descriptions that were gathered though in-
dicate that the interviewees felt comfortable during the interviews and
wished to share the memory exactly as they encountered it.
The study focus on boredom as a motivator to online impulse
shopping for fashion and elaborate on individual levels of boredom, and
open up the scope for looking at boredom as dimensions that occur. In
doing so, the authors suggest a research gap pointing to where there is
further need to develop research questions. One suggestion is to extend
the scope and explore boredom and visual fashion consumption, i.e. not
consumption of an actual product, to view if the feelings evoked by
boredom that lead to impulse buying require an actual purchase or if
the feeling of boredom can be swayed with visual consumption stimu-
lants. Another suggestion for future research is to develop hypotheses
that can be investigated in a quantitative study regarding boredom and
impulse shopping online with a larger selection of participants. This
could establish results that are generalizable and usable to a larger
extent. It is also relevant for future research to use an ethnographic
method and participate when the informants find the urge to go online
to search the online stores. This would result in a material that has not
yet been processed into a memory but instead happens live and could
be considered more genuine.
7. Managerial implications
This study indicates that online customers might differ from offline
customers, as they try to escape boredom in specific occasions, and
therefore want something to do. These occasions are described as a
contextualized totality of boredom, and are important knowledge for
M. Sundström et al.
retailers when collecting customer insights. Online customers that shop
fashion on impulse are also easily triggered by marketing stimulus that
helps them to avoid monotony and frustration, indicating marketing
stimulus might not be too complex, and rather focused on rich supply.
Cues such as a low price work satisfactory in the online context, but it is
also suggested that online retailers should move beyond sales-driven
strategies towards strategies based on social communities and partici-
patory culture, in order to raise customer value and satisfaction. There
is a lot to win by leaving the price competition and satisfy customers
through an opportunity to be less bored, offering adventures and ex-
traordinary experiences during shopping. One way could be to use the
concept of gamification to stimulate the consumer in leveling up and
collecting items in the exchange for discounts. Another way of relieving
the consumer from boredom could be education such as how to re-
design clothes, or entertainment such as storytelling where different
characters evoke emotions and create curiosity. But certainly there are
also other not yet invented ways of how to inspire and stimulate a bored
customer in his/hers purchasing process – as long as the retailer is
successful in understanding consumer boredom.
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