Impulse buying generates over $4 billion in annual sales volume in the United States. With the
growth of e-commerce and television shopping channels, consumers have easy access to impulse
purchasing opportunities, but little is known about this sudden, compelling, hedonically
complex purchasing behavior in non-Western cultures. Yet cultural factors moderate many aspects
of consumer’s impulsive buying behavior, including self-identity, normative influences,
the suppression of emotion, and the postponement of instant gratification. From a multi-country
survey of consumers in Australia, United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, our
analyses show that both regional level factors (individualism–collectivism) and individual cultural
difference factors (independent –interdependent self-concept) systematically influence
impulsive purchasing behavior.