Factors influencing the impulse buying behaviour of apparel consumers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH
1.2.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
1.3 RATIONALE FOR THE CHOSEN TOPIC
1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH 11 1.4.1. CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION
1.4.2. CHAPTER2- LITERATURE REVIEW
1.4.3. CHAPTER 3- METHODOLOGY
1.4.4. CHAPTER 4- ANALYSIS& FINDINGS
1.4.5. CHAPTER 5- DISCUSSION
1.4.6. CHAPTER 6- CONCLUSION
1.4.7. CHAPTER 7- RECOMMENDATIONS
1.5 CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 2
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
2.2.1. CONSUMER BUYING PROCESS
2.3 IMPULSE BUYING
2.3.1. DEFINITIONS
2.3.2. TYPES OF IMPULSE BUYING
2.3.3. FACTORS DETERMINING IMPULSE BUYING
2.3.4. IMPULSE BUYING IN APPARELS AND OTHER PRODUCTS
2.4 CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 3
3.1 INFLUENCING VARIABLES
3.1.1. INFLUENCE OF PRICE& OTHER PROMOTIONAL DEALS
3.1.2. INFLUENCE OF IN-STORE DISPLAYS& STORE ATMOSPHERE
3.1.3. INFLUENCE OF FASHION& OTHER EXTERNAL INFLUENCING FACTORS
3.1.4. SECTION IV
3.2 SURVEY DEVELOPMENT
3.3 DATA COLLECTION& ANALYSIS
3.4 LIMITATIONS
3.5 SUMMARY

CHAPTER 4
4.1 SECTION I- BUYER PROFILE
4.1.1 SEX
4.1.2 AGE
4.1.3 ETHNICITY
4.1.4 EMPLOYMENT STATUS
4.1.5 ANNUAL INCOME
4.1.6 PURPOSE FOR BEING DOWN TOWN
4.2 IMPULSE BUYING AWARENESS
4.3 SECTION II
4.4 SECTION III
4.4.1. PRICE OF THE PRODUCT
4.4.2. PRICE & CUSTOMER ATTITUDE
4.4.3. PRICE, PLANNING AND BRAND
4.4.4. STORE DISPLAYS & IMPULSE BUYING
4.4.5. STORE ENVIRONMENT & IMPULSE BUYING
4.4.6. IMPULSE BUYING & OTHER FACTORS
4.5 SECTION IV

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7
7.1 LIMITATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Research Study, done as part of my final dissertation work, was a great learning experience for me. So, first of all I thank University of Wales Lampeter and College of Technology London, especially its dean Dr. Audsin Dhass, for giving me this opportunity and support for doing such a valuable research, in world’s one of the greatest city, London. Then I would like to show gratitude and respect to my dissertation supervisor Prof. Teddy Foster for devoting this much time, knowledge and effort for me, guiding me the proper way throughout my studies. At this stage I would like to remember his moral support and significant role for completing this dissertation in such a good way. Now, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the participants of my survey for contributing their valuable time for me and helping me to reach the best result of this study. I thank all those persons who helped me, in any way, to make this study a success. I show here my immense affection to my beloved family and all other well wishers for giving me such a moral all other supports in my studies. Above all, I would like to express my thanks and deep respect to the Almighty for his endless mercy in my studies.

Thanking You, Yours Sincerely, Samkhyan Malliyoor Mana

ABSTRACT

Consumer behaviour is always a very interesting and complex subject for all marketers and retailers. This study is also about a part of this complex subject- Impulse Buying Behaviour found among Apparel Buyers and the influence of special prices and other factors on it. The study dealt with a very important topic in the modern fierce competition scenario, because impulse buying tendency spread all over the world and it is no more crazy habits of Americans. The income from impulse purchases phenomenally increasing every year and that’s why the subject getting more and more importance these days. The tendency is more intense as far as apparel purchases are concerned. Here the author did an effort to understand the causes and factors for impulse buying in apparels. Commonly special price is considered to be the most influential factor of impulse purchases. This study was comparative study between the influence of special prices and other variables. The methodology used for primary data collection was a combination of a questionnaire survey and a personal interview after that, with the customers of a leading retailer store for apparels in London. About 60 customers were surveyed. The result was pretty interesting, the variables studied in the research found to be more or less equal influential on customers though special prices top the list with a very little margin. The study concluded that most of the impulse purchases happen due to a combined influence of various factors. The impulse generated when a customer see an in- store display indicating a special price of a product can be taken as an example. So, for marketers, in order to make good results in impulse purchases they should coordinate various variables in an effective way, instead of concentrating only on a particular factor. The small size of sample and uncontrollable condition of current world economic condition could be taken as limitations for this study; otherwise the study was pretty general and standard in nature and was very useful and informative for practical applications.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Jim Blythe et. al (2005) tells us a story: “A consumer is on a shopping trip to buy a new jacket for a weekend party. In the shop he notices a rack of bow ties, and buys one because he has never owned one before (pure impulse). Next he remembers that he has not got a suitable summer shirt, so he picks up one from the counter (reminder impulse), and near it he sees a rack of cotton trousers which are on offer (suggestion impulse). Finally he sees a safari jacket which, although it is not the style he was thinking of, is actually ideal for the job so he buys it (planned purchase).” This is how exactly impulse purchases happen for apparel consumers. This is an age of fierce competition for retailers in all aspects, where, marketers, especially in apparel business, are desperately trying to find out new ways and tools to attract customers and sometimes even to, at least, sustain in the market. The discovery of Impulse Buying Behaviour happened as part of such an intensive study on the consumers’ behaviour patterns while in the store.

According to American Marketing Association (2008), impulse buying is “a purchase behaviour that is assumed to be made without prior planning or thought”. “The early studies viewed impulse purchasing strictly similar to unplanned purchasing (Clover 1950, du Pont studies 1945- 51) and were conducted with managerial interests in mind (i.e. for retailer’s benefit). The purchases, not the consumer, were investigated”. A more comprehensive definition for impulse buying brought by Piron F. (1991) as; “Impulse purchasing is formally defined as a purchase that is: 1) Unplanned, 2) the result of an exposure to a stimulus 3) decided ‘on-the-spot”.

Usually a customer undergoes a complex decision making process before making a purchase decision, which includes steps like Problem recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of alternatives, Purchase decision and Post Purchase behaviour. But in contrast Impulse buyers never go through such a complex decision making process and instead make blind purchase decisions which involves no intellectual thinking but supported by a sudden urge that he or she cannot control. According to Kotler& Armstrong (2007), usually, two factors, attitude of others and unexpected situational factors come between the purchase intention and the purchase decision which makes a change in consumer’s preferred purchase choice. According to Rook& Fisher (1995) impulse buying is a trait and they termed it as ‘buying impulsiveness’.

USA is the country with more impulse buyers, about 40% of the consumers, than any other country, where almost $4 billion sales is generated through impulse purchases (Kacen et. al; 2002). Now, retailers and marketers understood the importance of impulse purchases and its contributions and have developed various strategies and tools to tackle this behaviour of consumers. Different researchers discovered different factors influencing impulse purchase behaviour like Rook proposed hedonic and normative factors, Dittmar’s (1995) demographic factors, Beatty& Ferrell’s (1998) individual difference variables, Hirschmann’s (1978) product category factor and in-store influential factors like special price or other discount offers, sound, smell, temperature, lighting, position, in-store display etc. Retailers are using and developing new techniques and strategies to stimulate this special consumer behaviour. Many supermarkets have installed wider aisle to encourage browsing and the interior of the store will be designed in such a way that the consumer spend more time in the store. They believe that, the longer the time customer stay in the store, the more chances of impulse purchases. That’s the reason they place milk and bread in two different corners of the store. Chocolates, Gums, Candies etc. are placed at the check-out point as part promoting impulse purchases. Integrated Merchandising by grocery sellers is part of such an effort from the side of sellers in order to influence the impulse buying traits of buyers, where, most of time, the merchandiser tries to influence the reminder impulse buying behaviour of the customer. The latest development of ‘Portable Shopper’ by Albert Hejin, grocery chain in Netherlands, is a part of such an effort to encourage impulse purchase among their customers, which allows customers to ring up their own purchases as they shop (Solomon; 2003). According to a survey done in the USA, during 1990s, impulse purchases have been increased by 10%, when appropriate displays were used.

1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH

In this research paper, this is tried to understand that how far ‘price’ is a major factor which stimulates the impulse buying behaviour of apparel purchasers. There are numerous factors which cause unplanned purchases like price of the product, position or place of the product in the shop, lighting and sound arrangements inside the shop, smell and other environmental factors like heating arrangements, packing and colour of the product and special promotional schemes like free delivery, buy-one-get- one-free, seasonal importance of the product, demographic variables and various other hedonic and normative factors. These factors act, collectively or separately, on the consumer which ultimately results in unplanned purchases. Nowadays, the retailers are trying to influence the customers, mainly, through special (and psychological!) pricings and massive discount sales due to the speciality of current economic conditions and fierce competition. At this scenario, this research tries to evaluate the importance and influence of impulse purchase promotions through special pricings.

1.2.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

So the main research questions tried to be solved in this research paper are:

1) What strategies and tools apparel marketers and retailers use to encourage the impulse buying behaviour among consumers?
2) Can ‘special price’ of apparels be taken as the most influential variable, as far as impulse buying considered? If not, which other variable?
3) How does these variable(s) act upon a customer, separately? Or collectively?
4) How far price alone is an influential factor for apparel impulse buyers?
5) Is there any other variable(s), that have influence over the impulse buying behaviour of consumers, and not been studied (or identified) in researches yet? This research also tries to make a comparison study of the antecedents of impulse buying with other industries.

1.3 RATIONALE FOR THE CHOSEN TOPIC

“Between 1945 and 1959 impulse purchases, those purchases which a shopper makes but did not plan in advance, rose from 38.2 percent to 50.9 percent of the total purchase in supermarkets” [Scott A. Jeffrey et al; 2007]. But what makes the consumers to buy something without going through actual decision making process? “In the survey conducted by The Yankee Group and Earnst& Young (November, 2000) 75% of the respondents indicated that a ‘special sale price’ motivated them to make a spontaneous purchase and the second most influential factor was free shipping (49%).” [User Interface Engineering; 2002]. But the studies of User Interface Engineering on the causes of impulse buying behaviour show that only 8% of the impulse purchases were related to price! This conflict says that there are various other important factors which significantly influence the impulse purchase behaviour of consumers and the importance of price on this scenario is to be reviewed. More over due to today’s fierce competition scenario marketers and retailers are developing and using latest methods and technologies for exploiting this buying disorder of their customers. Thus, finding out the exact cause for this behaviour became more and more important in modern apparel industry. Here the researcher tries to study the actual influence of price, on apparel purchasers, compared to other factors for making purchase which was not planned.

1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH

1.4.1. CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION

This chapter gives an overview about the concept of Impulse Buying tendency within the consumers and then it explains about the current scenario of ‘Apparel Impulse Purchases’, its scope and future and the reasons for this phenomenon. The chapter also deals with recent developments and strategies used by the retailers and marketers. Here the researcher explains briefly the intention of this study, the research questions, rationale for chosen topic, structure of the research and its implications.

1.4.2. CHAPTER2- LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter explains about the studies so far done by various experts in the past. Here the researcher tries to explain the need for this study by linking it to the past studies. The researcher used this chapter to highlight the importance and scope of this study lending the words from past experts on the subject. This chapter of the research seems to be very helpful in understanding the concept in a more scientific way.

1.4.3. CHAPTER 3- METHODOLOGY

Chapter of Methodology explains how the researcher practically did the study. It describes how he developed and used the tools to answer the research questions. This chapter broadly explains the reasons for using tool and its limitations. From this chapter, we can get details about data collection and data analysis techniques used.

1.4.4. CHAPTER 4- ANALYSIS& FINDINGS

Chapter of Analysis& Findings give explanations after analysis and its findings from the research. The actual data analysis takes place here. It depicts data collected and analysed in various diagrammatic formats.

1.4.5. CHAPTER 5- DISCUSSION

This chapter exactly discusses about the findings from the analysis. The above chapter has been discussed thoroughly here to meet reach the intention of the study and provide information for conclusion.

1.4.6. CHAPTER 6- CONCLUSION

This chapter gives a proper conclusion of this research study. Here the researcher explains the final result of the study and its implications. This chapter is the summary of the result of the entire study and it gives a proper message about the concerned subject.

1.4.7. CHAPTER 7- RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter deals with the implication of and recommendation for the study. Here the researcher talks about the advantages and limitations of the study conducted and scopes for any extended study.

1.5 CONCLUSION

Impulse buying, in the modern competitive marketing scenario, is hot topic. The marketers are trying to find out different ways for maximising sales and bring down competition. Marketers discovered impulse buying to be a very effective and profitable tool to maximise sales increase profit. The buying behaviour first found within US customers and now this syndrome spread to all over the world and thus this part of business getting more and more importance day by day. Solomon et.al (1999) says “Despite all efforts to ‘pre-sell’ to consumers through advertising, marketers increasingly are recognising the significant degree to which many purchases are influenced by the store environment”. According to Evan et.al (2006), certain retail environments, such as airports and casinos, are particularly suitable for impulse buying, and marketers can take a number of steps to improve the probability of impulse purchasing happening. Children and teenagers can be considered as the most important segment of consumers who have great influence in the impulse purchasing market (Engel J et.al; 1990), because children don’t sign the cheques, but they do have big influence on spending and teenagers urge their parents to buy products and services for their home. “Traditional’ marketer- controlled stimuli such as the product itself, the product’s position on the shelf, atmospherics (Kotler, ’72), salesman, tie-ins have been identified by consumer researchers as prompts for unplanned or impulse purchases”. But “Settle& Alreck (’86) contended that, the whole purchase decisions process for impulse goods takes place at the point of sale and may take only a few seconds times”. Modern marketer recognised the scope and future of this area and try new ideas and technology and to tackle this phenomenon. The invention of the portable shopper is the result of such an effort. This area growing in all aspects and this study is a humble effort to provide catalyst for these efforts by researching into various influential factors on apparel impulse purchases and the consumers’ in- store decision making criteria.

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Consumer behaviour is a very complex subject as well as a very important subject for marketers. du Pont was the one who made earlier studies on the impulse purchasing behaviour, during 1940s. People like Rook, Bellenger, Stern, Fisher, Hirschmann etc had done more intense and thorough studies on buying impulsiveness and made significant contributions. “Generally speaking, human beings are usually quite rational and make systematic use of the information available to them. People consider the implications of their actions before they decide to engage or not engage in a given behaviour” (Fishbein M. et.al; 1980).

2.2 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

The American Marketing Association defines consumer behaviour as “the dynamic interaction of affect and cognition, behaviour, and the environment by which human beings conduct the exchange aspects of their lives”. “In other words, consumer behaviour involves thoughts and feelings people experience and their actions they perform in consumption process” (Peter J.P. et al; 2008). “The study of consumer behaviour builds on an understanding of human behaviour in general”. (Kurtz et.al; 2006; p.158).

Basically, for the first time, a book on ‘consumer behaviour’ has been written by the combined effort of Mr. James F. Engel, Roger D. Blackwell and Paul W. Miniard in 1960s. They define consumer behaviour as “those activities directly involved in obtaining, consuming and disposing of products and services, including the decision processes that precede and follow these actions” (Engel J.F. et.al; 1995; p.4).

People like marketers and manufacturers are very keen to understand how consumers behave in different situations and to different products because it helps organisations and firms to formulate and improve their marketing tactics and strategies. “The understanding of consumer needs and wants is one of the major underpinning constructs of the marketing concept” (Martin Evans et al; 2006).

In order to understand the decision making process and criterion of consumers scholars mainly resort to psychology and sociology. Kurt Lewin, a major psychologist, forwarded a proposition in the following manner:

B= f (P, E)

Where, ‘B’ is consumer behaviour, ‘P’ is personal influences and pressures and ‘E’ is external environmental forces. The statement can be rewritten as

B= f (I, P)

“Consumer behaviour (B) is a function (f) of the interactions of interpersonal influences (I) - such as culture, friends, classmates, co-workers and relatives- and personal factors (P) - such as attitudes, learning and perception”. (Kurtz D. et.al; 2006). It means that, in order to understand consumers’ behaviour, it is very important to consider how both personal and interpersonal determinants affect the consumer decision making process.

Kurtz D. et al (2006; p.158) differentiates between consumer behaviour and customer behaviour as follows:

“Customer behaviour’ is mental and physical activities that occur during selection and purchase of products, whereas ‘Consumer behaviour’ is mental and physical activities of individuals who actually use the purchased goods and services”.

Basically, the behaviour pattern of consumers is very dynamic. It changes according to constant changes in the thinking, feeling, and actions of individual consumers, targeted consumer groups and society at large. Peter J.P. et al (2008) say that, “this dynamic nature of consumer behaviour makes development of marketing strategies an exciting yet difficult task”.

2.2.1. CONSUMER BUYING PROCESS

Consumers’ decision to buy or not buy something is usually considered as problem solving process. “A consumer perceives a ‘problem’ because the desired consequences have not been attained (I am hungry, I need a car, I want to lose weight). Consumers’ make decisions about which behaviours to perform to achieve their goals and thus ‘solve the problem’. In this sense, then, consumer decision making is a goal-directed, problem-solving process” (Peter J.P. et.al; 2008). The generic model of consumer decision making process/ consumer problem solving process is explained below:

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure2. [medicalspamd.com; 2009]

The generic model of consumer problem solving model has 5 steps, but, Mr. James F. Engel et.al (1968) explains the following 7 step model of consumer decision making process:

1. Need recognition- a perception of difference between the desired state of affairs and the actual situation sufficient to arouse and activate the decision process
2. Search for information- search for information stored in memory(internal search) or acquisition of decision-relevant information from the environment (external search)
3. Pre-purchase alternative evaluation- Evaluation of options in terms of expected benefits and narrowing the choice to the preferred alternative
4. Purchase- acquisition of the preferred alternative or an acceptable substitute
5. Consumption- use of the purchased alternative
6. Post-purchase alternative evaluation- evaluation of the degree to which the consumption experience produced satisfaction
7. Divestment- disposal of the unconsumed product or its remnants Schiffman et.al (2000) explains another four different views of consumer decision-making: -An Economic View -A Passive View -An Emotional View -A Cognitive View

2.3 IMPULSE BUYING

2.3.1. DEFINITIONS

“Impulse products are products that are bought quickly- as unplanned purchase- because of a strongly felt need” (Cannon et.al; 2008). “Impulse buying is defined purchases that result from an urge that arises spontaneously within the consumer to buy. In impulsive purchasing, the desire to purchase is unreflective (Strack, Werth& Deutch, in press) and not based on any careful considerations of why the product should be acquired (Rook& Fisher, 1995)” (Curtis P.H. et.al, 2008).

“Beatty and Ferrell (1998, p.170) define impulse buying as a sudden and immediate buying without intention of preliminary purchase, neither of the specific product, nor the category of the product”.

Consumers engage in impulse buying when they experience a sudden but powerful and persistent urge to buy a product offering immediately, with diminished regard to the consequences of buying the offering(Rook, ’87).

“The term ‘impulse buying’ is generally considered to be synonymous with ‘unplanned buying’- that is it describes any purchases which a shopper makes but has not planned in advance” (Britt S.H. et.al; 1966). Blackwell et al; 2007 defines impulse buying as “an unplanned, spur-of-moment action triggered by product display or point-of-sale promotion”. “Impulse goods are purchased without any planning or search effort. Candy bars and magazines are examples for impulse goods” (Kotler et al; 2007). “It is often an unplanned decision, which may happen in less than a second and is a common and prevalent feature of the marketplace” (Rook; 1987).

Solomon et.al (1999) says that, “when a shopper is prompted to buy something while in a shop, one of two processes may be at work: unplanned buying may occur when a person is unfamiliar with a store’s layout or perhaps when under some time pressure, or a person may be reminded to buy something by seeing it on the shelf”.

Rook (1987), one of the authoritative persons in impulse buying says that, “impulse buying occurs when a consumer experiences a sudden, often powerful and persistent urge to buy something immediately. Also, impulse buying is prone to occur with diminished regard to its consequences”. All of these definitions convey the same picture about impulse buying and in that the most prominent and important factor about impulse buying is that it is a spur-of-the moment action which done without any consideration to its consequences.

So, to summarise, the five crucial elements of impulse buying as follows:

1. “A sudden and spontaneous desire to act accompanies by urgency
2. A state of psychological disequilibrium in which a person can feel temporarily out of control
3. The onset of conflict and struggle that is resolved by an immediate action
4. Minimal objective evaluation- emotional considerations are dominant
5. A lack of regard for consequences”. (Engel et.al 1995& Rook; 1985)

According to the research of Rook et.al (1987), impulse buying has all or any of the following characters:

1. “Spontaneity: It is unexpected and motivates the consumer to buy now, often in response to direct point-of-sale visual stimulation
2. Power, compulsion and intensity: There can be motivation to pull else aside and act immediately
3. Excitement and stimulation: These sudden urges to buy are often accompanied by emotions characterized as ‘exciting’, ‘thrilling’ or ‘wild’
4. Disregard for consequences: The urge to buy can be so irresistible that potentially negative consequences are ignored”.

2.3.2. TYPES OF IMPULSE BUYING

Impulse buying is such a complex and interesting topic that different experts in this subject have identified and distinguished different types of impulse buying.

The common type of classification, identified by Stern (1962), of impulse buying is as follows:

i). Pure Impulse Buying- “based on the novelty of the product. Seeing something new may prompt the consumer to buy it to just try it” (Blythe J; 2005).

ii). Reminder Impulse Buying- “it occurs when a shopper sees an item and remembers that the stock at home is exhausted or low, or recalls an advertisement or other information” (Britt H.S. et.al; 1966). But Del Hawkins et.al (2007) considers reminder purchases and impulse purchases as two different subdivisions of Unplanned Purchases.

iii). Suggestion Impulse Buying- “which occurs when a shopper sees a product for the first time and visualises a need for it, even though she has no previous knowledge of the item; product quality , function and the like must be evaluated at the point-of-sale” (Philips C.F. et.al; 1968).

iv). Planned Impulse Buying- “it occurs when the consumer has gone out to meet a specific need, but is prepared to be swayed by what is on special offer” (Blythe J; 2005). Philips& Duncan (1968) termed this impulse buying as ‘Expected Impulse Buying’. “The special offers in stores such Lidl provide an example of how some consumers know in advance that something form that range will be bought” (Evans M. et.al; 2006).

Bayley and Nancarrow (1998) differentiated the impulse buying into 4 types in a different way and she says, “We can assume that pre-purchase stages are relevant for some of these”:

i). Accelerator Impulse- driven by a desire to stock up for a future need. For example, a house wife may buy on impulse to confirm that she is a good carer for her family.

ii). Compensatory Impulse- it occurs when the shopper feels down or when he decides reward themselves for achieving something or so. Cadbury’s Diary Milk produced some advertisements in order to promote compensatory impulse purchases.

iii). Breakthrough Impulse- is intriguing. It can include some high- value products such as cars and even houses! It appears that the purchaser suddenly decides that whatever underlying emotional conflict with which they have been wrestling can be resolved by a step change in their lives. ‘A few years ago Winnie went out to buy a spare set of car keys and signed up for a new car’ was how one respondent described an impulse purchase in this category.

iv). Blind Impulse- is probably what we tend to think of as impulse buying: buying with no underlying purpose and no regard for fulfilment of any needs of either a functional, social or psychological nature.

2.3.3. FACTORS DETERMINING IMPULSE BUYING

Kollat et.al (1967) explains about a very important aspect of this study- the Intentions Typology. “The intentions typology consists of the major stages of planning that presumably exist before the customer is exposed to in-store stimuli”. The major intentions are:

1. Product and brand- Before entering the store the shopper has idea about both the product and the brand to be bought

2. Product only- Before entering the store the shopper knows which product she wants and has no idea about which brand, e.g. a plan to buy a cola drink but a particular brand

3. Product class only- Before entering the store the shopper idea about which class of the product needs to be bought, but has not decided on the products in that class, e.g. intention to buy a drink; but a tea or a cola?

4. Need recognised- Before entering the store the shopper recognises the existence of a problem or need, but has not decided which product class, product or brand she intends to purchase, e.g. a need for something for dinner.

5. Need not recognized- Before entering the store the shopper does not have any idea of a problem or need, or the need is latent until he/ she is in the store and has been exposed to its stimuli.

The application of intentions typology helps the marketer to understand the consumers’ pre- purchase planning for shopping or to understand the extent of in- store decision making.

Researchers are continuously trying to determine the factors influencing the impulse buying. At first, the studies were mainly concentrated on distinguishing between the impulse and non-impulse buying. “Many researchers have provided theoretical frameworks for examining impulse buying related to psychological variables (e.g. personality, self-regulation), hedonic experiences (e.g. shopping enjoyment, emotional state, mood) and situational variables (e.g. available time, money) in a shopping context (Beatty and Ferrell, 1998; Burroughs, 1996; Rook and Fisher, 1995)” [Park E J. et.al; 2006].There are varieties of variables and arguments in relation to impulse buying ranging from hedonic or emotional factors, normative influences described by Rook& Fisher, type of products, and store lay-out to individual difference variables. Vohs& Faber (2005) says that “impulses to buy would arise and be acted upon more often when people’s self- regulatory capacity is reduced than when it is fully intact. The results of empirical work support this idea”.

“Buying on impulses is also an apparently unreasoned action that has attracted considerable attention. Impulse buying appears to bypass reasoning, to be based on more emotions than on rational factors” (Curtis P.H. et.al; 2008).

Buying something, in normal cases, is considered as a very complex problem solving process for consumers. “Buying and consumption generally reflect a mixture of both utilitarian and hedonic decision makings.” (Engel J. F. et.al; 1986). But in the case of impulse buying the situation is totally different. “The impulse to buy is hedonically complex and may stimulate emotional conflict” (Rook, 1987). Buying on impulse also can be personality trait (called ‘impulsiveness trait), which refers to person’s tendency to buy spontaneously, unreflectively, immediately and kinetically (Rook & Fisher,’95). “That is, a consumer with high impulsiveness trait is likely to be more repetitive and open towards buying more spontaneously” (Evans M. et.al; 2006).

Churchill et.al (1998) explains that, the impulse buying behaviour of consumers is influenced by, basically, two types of factors- Internal factors such as need, mood, desire, hedonic pleasure, cognitive/ affective evaluation etc and External factors like store lay-out, external environment, accessibility, availability etc.

“Certain retail environments such as airports, funfairs, casinos and even car boot sales appear to be particularly suitable for impulse buying. For instance, while waiting at the airport, consumers can engage in impulse buying for variety of reasons” (Evan M. et.al.; 2006).

Foxall et al (2006), says about the importance of the basic concept of ‘motivation’ for purchase. He describes it as the driving force within individuals to take a particular action. “This driving force is produced by a state of tension, which exist as a result of an unfulfilled need that moves us away from psychological equilibrium or ‘homeostasis”.

NEEED SATISFACTION DEPRIVATION

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HOMEOSTASIS

Figure3: The Homeostasis See- Saw

“Impulse buying is influenced by a variety of economic, personality, time, location and even cultural factors. These vary not only among different shoppers, considering the purchase of same item, but also for the same shopper purchasing the same item, but under different buying situations” (Britt et.al; 1966).

The study of Stanford Research Institute revealed that the major factors contributing to impulse buying are these:

1. Low price of item
2. Marginal need of them
3. Mass distribution
4. Self-service
5. Mass advertising
6. Prominent store display
7. Short product life
8. Small size or light weight
9. Ease of storage (Philips C.F. et.al; 1968) But, according to Bellenger et.al (1978), the impulse buying varies by product and environment. The form factors for an online purchase are:

1. “Effect of size of advertising or banner; bigger the banner, greater the advantage

2. Effect of animation; animated banners catch the eye better than the non animated ones, and, thus, attract more attention

3. Effect of picture’s presence

4. Action Relative Mention: Several studies show that Internet specific variables, notably the mention ‘click here’ as well as the presence of ‘trick banners’ have very large effect on the click- through rate” (P.H. Curtis et.al; 2005)

Hawkins D.I. (2007) believes that the ‘variety-seeking behaviour’ of some consumers may be the prime reason for brand switching and impulse purchases. They say, “People often seek variety and difference out of a need for stimulation”. Mullins et.al (2008) also reflects a similar view about the relationship between variety seeking behaviour and impulse buying. He says that, “impulse buying is a low involvement purchase process, where their motivation for switching usually is not dissatisfaction but a desire for change and variety”.

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