How Influencers Marketing Motivates Consumers’ Buying Behaviour : A focus group investigation of the impulse buying behaviour via Chinese millennials’ lens

Abstract: background:  Influencer marketing has become more and more popular nowadays. Companies collaborate with influencers to increase their popularity and hence, their market share. Instagram is one of the social media that influencers usually use. And because of the “tag” and “link” functions, it becomes easier to promote new products, which leads to the transition from followers to consumers. When millennials in China are making purchasing decisions, they focus more on spiritual and entertainment so that they will make more impulse buying. Besides, the easy access to digital devices makes it easier for people to purchase the products promoted by influencers. There are already existing researches about how influencers impact consumers’ impulse buying behaviour. They mainly focus on the development, pros and cons, and factors of impulse buying behaviour. However, there is a lack of research on how individuals’ impulse buying behaviour is affected by influencer marketing. So, this paper takes a look at how Instagram influencers motivate Chinese millennials to conduct impulse buying behaviour. Purpose: The thesis aims to study how influencers marketing motivates Chinese millennials consumers’ impulse buying behaviours, analysing through the social media platform of Instagram. Method: Based on a social constructionism philosophy, this qualitative study utilizes a focus group strategy. To acquire and analyse data through three steps of Gioia method. The first-order analysis is the integrity of 1st order (information-centric) terms is maintained, and the second-order analysis is that seeking similarities and differences among the many categories and reduce them. At the last step, the building of aggregate dimensions is distilled 2nd order themes into overarching theoretical dimensions. Conclusion:  The research has shown that when Chinese millennials are conducting impulse buying behaviour under the impact of the influencers, the characteristics of the influencers, consumer emotions and self-construal play a role on different levels respectively. The characteristics of influencers have a positive impact on consumers' impulse buying behaviour by excited emotions, while consumers’ self-construal plays a particular role in regulating them to different degrees.