Touristic Consumers’ Compulsive Buying and Post-Purchase Regret: The Moderating Influence of Social Media Use Frequency

Abstract This study examines the effect of potential tourists’ compulsive buying tendencies on post-purchase regret after vacation purchases and investigates whether daily time spent on social media moderates this relationship. The research sample consisted of residents of Turkey who had purchased vacations. Data were collected online. Responses were received from 288 participants selected by judgmental sampling. Analyses indicated that compulsive buying tendencies have a statistically significant effect on “regret stemming from foregone alternatives,” “regret stemming from changes in importance,” “regret stemming from inadequate evaluation,” and “regret stemming from excessive thinking.” Another finding of the study is that time spent on social media daily moderates the association between the tendency toward compulsive buying and the dimensions of “regret stemming from changes in importance,” “regret stemming from inadequate evaluation,” and “regret stemming from excessive thinking”.