The Mediating Role of Perceived Relevance in Impulse Buying Behaviour in University Students

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_21How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Social media community; Impulsive buying behaviour; Perceived relevance; Interactivity; Informativity

Abstract

This research investigates the mediating role of perceived relevance in impulsive buying behaviour in university students. A latent variable structural model was designed, with predictor variables: Community in social networks, Informativity, and Interactivity. The study was conducted with 118 university students who volunteered to participate. The study was conducted in Arequipa, Peru. The study will employ a quantitative, non-experimental cross-sectional design. The instrument was initially applied to perform an exploratory factor analysis and make necessary adjustments. Data processing and analysis were performed using structured variance-based equation modelling to explore indirect or mediating effects. The most important result of the study is that it demonstrates that only informative content—when perceived as highly relevant—activates impulsive buying in students; community membership and interaction have no effect unless they provide informative value. In contrast, the social media community activated impulsive behaviour directly without going through the relevance filter: group identity and social validation appear sufficient to encourage unplanned purchases in this segment. The conclusion is that perceived relevance acts as the decisive cognitive switch: when messages genuinely help the user, they transform exposure into spontaneous purchase. Therefore, marketing must focus on offering useful and personalised information, avoiding reliance exclusively on peer pressure or eye-catching features.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - G. Gallegos-Salas
AU  - S. Ura-Perez
AU  - O. Gutierrez-Aguilar
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/10/22
TI  - The Mediating Role of Perceived Relevance in Impulse Buying Behaviour in University Students
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Communication and Applied Technologies 2025 (ICOMTA 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 219
EP  - 229
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_21
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_21
ID  - Gallegos-Salas2025
ER  -