Determinants of Impulsive Buying During Shopee Flash Sales: Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior Approach

This research investigates the psychological elements that affect consumers’ impulsive buying behavior during Shopee flash sale events using the TPB. This inquiry employs a quantitative causal approach using survey data from 154 Shopee users engaged in flash sale purchases. Data were analyzed using a variance-based structural equation modeling approach with SmartPLS. The findings indicate that AT, SN, and PB jointly demonstrate significant effects on impulsive buying intention (β = 0.401; β = 0.395; β = 0.161), jointly explaining 59.9% of its variance. In addition, impulsive buying intention demonstrates a strong influence on actual impulsive buying behavior (β = 0.656, p < 0.001), accounting for 43.1% of the behavioral variance. Among the antecedents, attitude represents the most dominant predictor of intention, followed by subjective norms. A key advancement of this research stems from the integration of the TPB framework within flash sale contexts, positioning impulsive buying intention as a central psychological mechanism under conditions of time pressure. from a practical standpoint, the findings suggest that Shopee sellers and digital marketers should emphasize benefit-oriented messaging, urgency cues, and social validation features such as reviews, real time purchase indicators, and influencer endorsements to strengthen consumers’ impulsive buying intention during flash sale campaigns.