Digitalization and technological advancement affected the current economy and business ecosystem with the rise of modern markets such as online marketplace. This evolution leads to an ease of access to shopping, which then resulted in an increase in impulsive buying.1 Khan, M. T., Humayun, A. A., & Sajjad, M. (2015). Factors Affecting Impulse Buying and Percentage of Impulse Buying in Total Purchasing. International Journal of Information, Business and Management, 7(1), 254. Many researches and literature came up with different definitions of impulse buying. Manning et al. (2001) define impulsive buying behavior as a purchase decision that is acted out without prior planning and is carried out spontaneously at the time of the purchase. 2Manning, G. L., Ahearne, M., & Reece, B. L. (2011). Selling Today. Pearson Education. According to Merugu and Vaddadi (2017), impulsive buying behavior is a purchase that is done without much thought and evaluations of different aspects, namely affordability, needs, and prices among other things 3Merugu, P., & Vaddadi, K. M. (2017). Visual Merchandising : A Study on Consumer Impulsive Buying Behaviour in Greater Visakhapatnam City. International Journal of Engineering Technology Science and Research, 4(7. Currently, a large proportion of sales within the modern retail industry is due to impulse buying 4Sundström, M., Hjelm-Lidholm, S., & Radon, A. (2019). Clicking the boredom away – Exploring impulse fashion buying behavior online. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 47. In Indonesia itself, the amount of impulsive buying is greater compared to other countries in Southeast Asia. According to a research conducted by Mastercard in 2015, 50 percent of the millennial generation in Indonesia are the most impulsive customers in Asia Pacific, where at least half of luxury goods purchases are made spontaneously. This number is higher than the regional average of 26 percent.
Other than digitalization, the change in consumer behavior also further encourages the increase of impulse buying. As the economy grows, consumer spending behavior patterns change, aligning with the change of needs and want behavior. The rise in purchasing power due to economic growth led modern Indonesians’ spending behavior orienting towards recreation, pleasure, enjoyment, and entertainment 5Wahyuni, D. F., & Rachmawati, I. (2018). Hedonic Shopping Motivation Terhadap Impulse Buying. Jurnal Riset Bisnis Dan Manajemen, 11(2).. This shift in behavior highlights the characteristics of hedonic shopping value. Hedonic shopping value is the fulfillment of pleasure or pleasure acquired while doing shopping activities. Often consumers carried out impulse buying when driven by hedonic desires or causes other than economic reasons, such as pleasure, fantasy, social, or emotional influence 6Darma, L. A., & Japarianto, E. (2014). Analysis of the hedonic effect of shopping value on impulse buying with shopping lifestyle and positive emotions as intervening variables at Mall Ciputra World Surabaya. Jurnal Manajemen Pemasaran, 8(2).. This behavior contradicts utilitarian shopping value, in which purchases are encouraged by the rational consideration of functional benefits and objective characteristics of the product. Hedonic behavior is reflected in intrinsic value or intrinsic factors that an individual experienced in shopping.
In intrinsic factors or consumer-related factors, the influence mainly came from personality traits, cultural traits, shopping enjoyment tendency, materialism, and impulsive buying tendency. In personality traits, the Big Five Model proposes five personality dimensions, which are agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Neuroticism is the tendency for an individual to have emotional instability. Study shows that consumers with high neuroticism characteristics are more likely to do impulse buying due to its tendency to experience psychological distress and are emotionally unstable. These symptoms create a strong desire for a person to buy something as a way to relieve negative emotions. As a consumer purchases a good spontaneously without reflection, it gives them an immediate gratification 7Pradhan, D., Israel, D., & Jena, A. (2018). Materialism and compulsive buying behaviour: The role of consumer credit card use and impulse buying. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 30(5)., which could result in them feeling better emotionally.
Conscientiousness allows a person to be more careful and think more before acting, therefore they are able to make effective and efficient plans, as well as being less rushed when making a decision. A person who is low in conscientiousness is more likely to do impulse buying. Other than personality traits, another important intrinsic factor is shopping enjoyment tendency, which is the pleasure that is received throughout the buying process. For example, someone who has a high shopping enjoyment tendency will look at marketplaces longer as it is enjoyable and entertaining. Therefore, they are likely to encourage impulsive shopping behavior. Consumers also tend to act on impulse buying due to materialism. A consumer with high materialism will make purchasing decisions of products that they think will help increase their status or impress others. For instance, if a consumer sees a product as exclusive, the pride in possessing the product will stimulate the consumer to purchase it.
By understanding the psychology behind impulse buying, businesses in today’s modern retail industry are incorporating those factors to their marketing strategy. Marketers and retailers will utilize external stimuli to trigger consumers’ impulse shopping. One example of this is the usage of a “limited time offer” strategy. This marketing strategy utilizes the conscientiousness factor in which the consumers are urged to buy the product now before the offer expires. This pressure would then rush the consumer to act hastily and purchase the product without much consideration with the justification of securing the promotion offer. Creating a great outlet ambience with a comfortable atmosphere is also able to ignite consumers’ impulse buying. Store atmosphere can trigger impulse buying by its ability to generate positive emotions of pleasure, shopping enjoyment, and hedonic motives in consumers 8Hashmi, H. B., Shu, C., & Haider, S. W. (2020). Moderating effect of hedonism on store environment-impulse buying nexus. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 9Nghia, H. T., Olsen, S. O., & Trang, N. T. (2021). A dual process on shopping well-being across shopping contexts: the role of shopping values and impulse buying. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 34(3).
Impulse buying has a strong relationship with a person’s personality and intrinsic natural tendencies. With the ever-developing technologies and rising digitalization that facilitates consumers to purchase more products enjoyably and effortlessly, the percentage of impulse buying might become more prominent in the future. Current businesses in retail industries are also adjusting to this consumer behavior and are further taking advantage of it. While it is known that an excessive level of this impulsive behavior could lead to financial and psychological hardships, our current economy and industries seem to be orchestrated to feed into this consumer desire for instant satisfaction and pleasure.
Foto oleh Justin Lim
Editor: Muhammad Rafly Fadhly Putra
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