THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL DEPENDENCY, ONLINE IMPULSE BUYING, AND SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT ON PURCHASE INTENTION: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF CONSUMER TRUST

This study aims to investigate the relationship between digital dependency, online impulse buying tendency and purchase intention mediated by consumer trust as a mediator. The study is based on Stimulus-Organism-Response framework and trust-transfer theory; and is conducted on adult online consumers in Sindh province in Pakistan. The quantitative cross-sectional survey design is applied with the help of well-established multi-item measures and SPSS analysis. Descriptive statistics, reliability testing, Pearson correlations, hierarchical regression and mediation analysis using Hayes' PROCESS Model 4 are included in the analysis. The results show that digital dependency positively influences purchase intention, as does the tendency to buy online impulsively and social media engagement. The three predictors also significantly impact consumer trust, with social media engagement having the greatest impact on trust (β = .307, p < .001). The final regression model accounts for 37.2% of the variance in purchase intention and consumer trust significantly predicts purchase intention (β = .261, p < .001). Mediation analysis also reveals that the relationships between digital dependency and online impulse buying tendency, social media engagement and purchase intention are mediated in part by consumer trust. Social media engagement has the highest mediation effect in terms of indirect effects, mediated by consumer trust (indirect effect = .091, 95% CI [.057, .130]). Overall, the findings reflect the critical role of consumer trust in increasing their online purchasing intentions among online consumers in Sindh based on their digital engagement and online purchasing tendency.