A Nexus Between Online Shoppers’ Confusion and Shopping Cart Abandonment: A Moderated-mediation Approach

Abstract

This study intends to investigate how online shoppers’ confusion influences consumers’ decisions to abandon their shopping carts in online retailing, based on the ‘Approach–avoidance motivation theory’. This research also aims to investigate the moderating role of negative consumer reviews/electronic word-of-mouth and the mediating role of emotional exhaustion between online shoppers’ confusion and shopping cart abandonment. Three hundred seventy-seven relevant responses of online shoppers from northern Indian were obtained through the convenience sampling technique and analysed using SPSS 26 and SmartPLS 4.0. The study found that online shoppers’ confusion influences shopping cart abandonment directly and indirectly through emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, negative consumer reviews and/or electronic word-of-mouth moderates the direct correlation between online shoppers’ confusion and emotional exhaustion as well as the indirect correlation between online shoppers’ confusion and shopping cart abandonment via emotional exhaustion. The current study will help e-retailers in designing effective strategies that reduce cart abandonment rate and boost sales and profits.