How online shopping festival atmosphere promotes consumer participation in China

Despite the immense success of China’s Double Eleven online shopping festival (OSF), research on how OSFs’ unique atmosphere relates to customer behavior has been scarce. This study investigates the influence of the OSF atmosphere on consumers’ participation behavior based on the stimulus–organism–response framework. Based on the data from 239 young Chinese consumers (in their 20 s and 30 s) and using structural equation modeling, this study explores the influence of three OSF atmosphere types—promotional, entertaining, and social interaction—on consumers’ continuous participation intention. All three types are found to influence consumers’ excitement, which strengthens their continuous participation intention. Additionally, the moderating effect of perceived time pressure is the highest for the relationship between entertaining atmosphere and excitement, followed by that between social interaction atmosphere and excitement. The greater the time pressure perceived by consumers, the stronger is the relationship between entertaining/social interaction atmosphere and excitement. This study bridges the gaps in the literature on atmosphere, consumer sentiment, and festival consumption.