Conceptualizing Single-Cell Consumption and AI Decision Reliance in the Context of Online Fashion Platforms

Online fashion platforms increasingly provide consumers with abundant product information, extensive product assortments, and rapid purchasing opportunities, which impose substantial cognitive burdens on them. As consumers pursue instant gratification, processing all available information becomes costly and inefficient, motivating them to simplify their decision-making processes. To capture this emerging shopping pattern, this study conceptualized single-cell consumption as dependent consumption, spontaneous consumption, and avoidance of decision-making. We examined how perceived information overload in online fashion platforms and instant gratification of fashion consumers jointly shape single-cell consumption, which in turn promotes AI reliance. Survey data from 199 consumers who recently used fashion shopping platforms were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results indicated that information overload increased all three dimensions of single-cell consumption, whereas instant gratification strengthened dependent and spontaneous consumption, and only these two dimensions significantly increased AI reliance. By empirically demonstrating how digital information environments and gratification motives interact to simplify consumer judgment and promote AI-dependent decision-making, this study offers timely theoretical and managerial implications for online fashion platforms.