A STUDY ON FACTORS INFLUENCING THE IMPULSE

BUYING BEHAVIOR AMONG YOUNG WOMEN

Mitali Madhusmita1 & Sampada Shah2

1
2nd M. Com IB (International Business), E-mail- mitalimishra972@gmail.com,
Contact No.: 7008621203
2
2nd M. Com (International Business), E-mail ID: shahsampada2@gmail.com, Contact No.:
9591448131, Mount Carmel College (Autonomous) Vasanth Nagar, Bangalore, 560052

ABSTRACT

The study focuses in understanding the factors influencing the impulse buying behavior among
young women. In this study a survey was conducted among women between the age group of 18 to
25 years. The study is based on primary data collected through questionnaires and also secondary
data collected from books journals and the internet. Impulsive buying behavior is better understood
by examining the impulsive buying tendency that shapes such behaviors. Due to globalization the
younger generations now have easy access in purchasing a wide variety of goods or products. Apart
from this there are wide varieties of psychological/social as well as marketing factors that pushes
impulsive buying.
Hence this study is made to find out more regarding such factors that pushes young women into
impulsive buying.

Keywords: impulse buying, buying behaviors, women buyers, psychological factors

INTRODUCTION

An impulse purchase or impulse buy is an unplanned decision to buy a product or service made just
before taking a buying decision. The one who makes purchase is called as an impulse buyer or the
impulse researcher. Research findings have concluded that emotions and feelings play a huge role
in purchasing and is triggered by seeing the product or at times at the exposure to a well-crafted
promotional message. Impulse buying disturbs the regular buying pattern or the normal buying
decision. The regular or logical sequence of the consumer’s action is replaced with an irrational
moment of self-gratification. Impulse items appeal to the emotional side of consumers. Preventing
impulsive buying involves techniques such as setting budgets before shopping and taking time to
make any purchase decision. If in case of purchasing automobiles or home appliances, are
considered as an emotional purchase. Automobiles in most of the cases are emotional purchase
rather than rational ones.
The multiplex malls hypermarkets and online shops or markets are the modern retailing
environment they have been developed as one of the major growing industry with several domestic
and international players entering into the market. The major objective of this study is to
understand the factors that pushes into impulsive buying.

LITURATURE REVIEW
Kacen & Lee (2002) Concluded that age is an important factor to be considered in case of
impulsive behavior as they feel less risky to spend money. Impulsive buying is higher between the
age of 18-39 years of age.

Priyanka & Robbie (2012) Concluded that individuals with different genders tend to have different
buying behavior so women are apt to impulsive buying more than men.
Wells et al (2007) Concluded that impulsive buying behavior highly depends upon the income level
of the family individual or their monthly allowance.

Block and Morwitz (1999) Concluded that impulsive buying is an item with no deliberation after
the result of powerful urge.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

 To study all the factors that influences impulsive buying behavior in women aged between
18-25 years.
 To examine the effect of the different variables of impulsive buying.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

 This study is based on the information of the representation sample group selected from a
total population of a smaller lot of people hence; it does not cover the factors influencing
impulsive buying behavior of the entire city or town but only a part of it.
 The analysis was conducted through questionnaire hence, there are chances that there may
be any other factor(s) that influences impulsive buying other than mentioned in the
questions.
 The study is only customer based. It completely ignores the marketers or sellers’ efforts to
attract the customers and result into impulsive buying.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This deals with description of methodology and the steps taken for collection and organization of
data and presenting the findings of investigation. The methodology of research indicates the general
pattern of organizing the procedures for gathering valid and reliable data or the purpose of
investigation (KOTHORI,1996). The methodology of the study includes the description of research
design, population, sampling technique, data collection procedures and methods of analysis.

QUESTIONNAIRE DEVELOPMENT

The data has been gathered through structured questionnaire, which has been designed on the basis
on the purpose of this study.

POPULATION AND SAMPLE SIZE

The target populations were women aged between 18-25 years.

EXTENT AND SAMPLE

The study was conducted among women studying in college. For this study it was relevant to
obtain a sample of about 100 respondents all them were women. All of them are between 18-25
years of age.
DATA COLLECTION

The method used for data collection was structured questionnaire. There are 13 questions. The
questions are based on the age the income level or the monthly allowances, marital status. The
questionnaires were thoroughly checked and edited.

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

QUESTION 1: AGE OF THE RESPONDENTS:

Through the questionnaire we can conclude that most of the respondents belong to the age group of
20-25 years of age. The minimum age of the respondents is 20 years while the maximum is 25
years. Age contributes as one of the major factor for influencing the buying behavior.

QUESTION 2: MONTHLY ALLOWANCE:

The respondents had been asked about their monthly allowances. As the survey was conducted in
a college, most of them are not earning. About 55% of respondents say that their allowance
monthly is below Rs5000. Monthly salary or incomes or allowances directly affects the buying
pattern or the impulsive buying behavior of the people.

QUESTION 3: HOW OFTEN DO YOU SHOP? (ANYTHING RANGING FROM

CLOTHES TO FOOD ITEMS):

It is important to understand how often a person shops. Here majority of people have mentioned
that they shop once or twice a week.

QUESTION 4: DO YOU BUY SOMETHING ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT?

(ANYTHING RANGING FROM CLOTHES TO FOOD ITEMS):
About 75% of respondents have agreed that they do buy something on the spur of the moment.
Followed by 15% how say that yes they do and 8% who do not. Buying on the spur of the
moment without planning itself serves as impulsive buying.

QUESTION 5: WHAT PUSHES YOU TO BUY THINGS?

Here, most of the respondents (53%) have agreed that they buy things according to their need
which is opposite of impulsive buying. The rest 20% agree to attractive prices which is one of
the major causes of impulsive buying and the rest 26% say its according to any offers on the
product.
QUESTION 6: HAVE YOU EVER CONTINUED TO BUY PRODUCTS IN SPITE OF
THE FINANCIAL AND FAMILY PROBLEMS YOUR PURCHASE CAUSED?

About 53% of the respondents have agreed that they sometimes have bought products or have
continued buying products in spite of financial or family problems their purchase caused. This
means that they are more likely to go for impulsive buying.
QUESTION 7: CAREFUL PLANNING OF PURCHASES:

About 55% of the respondents have agreed that they carefully plan their purchases while among
the remaining 37 % and 6% admit they sometimes do and they never respectively.

QUESTION 8: I BUY THINGS ACCORDING TO HOW I FEEL AT THE MOMENT

(ANYTHING RANGING FROM FOODS TO CLOTHES):

About 51% of the respondent have clearly mentioned that they buy things according to their
mood or how they feel at that time or the moment. While 42% say they sometimes which may
also mean they are into impulsive buying.
QUESTION 9: "BUY NOW THINK LATER" DESCRIBES ME:

About 48% of the respondents have agreed that “buy now think later” describes them these many
people are more likely to buy things anytime of the moment while 8 % agree to it and the
remaining say never.

QUESTION 10: I HAVE OFTEN BOUGHT A PRODUCT THAT I DO NOT NEED

About 8% of the people gave agreed that they often buy products that do not need while 55%
think sometimes they do and the rest 35% says never.
QUESTION 11: I HAVE OFTEN BOUGHT PRODUCTS BECAUSE OF CELEBRITY
ENDORSEMENT OR BECAUSE MY FRIENDS HAVE IT:

About 40% of the people believe that they sometimes they buy products because of celebrity
endorsements or because their friends have it. This shows that it is one of the important factors
for impulsive buying while 53% say no and the remaining have agreed on it.

QUESTION 12: DO YOU SHOP TO KILL YOUR LEISURE TIME:

About 35% of people have agreed that sometimes they do shop to kill their leisure time while
57% have said no and the remaining 6% have said yes.
QUESTION 13: Are you aware of impulsive buying while shopping?

About 80% of the respondents have agreed that they are aware of impulsive buying while the
rest 20% agree that they do not. Lack of awareness can also lead to impulsive buying.

FINDINGS
 In the analysis, it is seen that most of the students have the knowledge of what is
impulse buying, while there are still quite a number of students who are not aware of
impulse buying behavior.
 More number of the students are seen to be having 5000 or less than 5000 monthly
allowance as they are not yet working and the rest are seen to be having more than
5000 monthly allowances.
 To analyze the shopping pattern, it can be seen that a larger proportion of the students
shop once or twice a month, while a reasonable lot of students shopping more than
twice a month followed by a few numbers of students shopping once almost every day.
 More than half of the students agree to be shopping sometimes or rarely in the spur of
the moment while, a smaller number of students responded positively towards buying
impulsively almost every time they shop.
 Among all the respondents, most of them responded positively towards impulse buying
because of the need of the product. Whereas, a similar number of students responded
equally towards impulse buying because of attractive prices and discounts and offers.
 A considerable number of students have agreed to buying impulsively sometimes even
if though they have financial problems while a smaller number of students disagreed to
it.
  Most of the students responded positively towards buying things according to their
mood and how they feel at the time of buying without considering the prices and
offers. While, others responded negatively towards buying according to their moods
which can be concluded as the latter lot is more into impulsive buying than the former.
 The chart shows considerably similar lot of students agreeing to have been buying now
and think later as well as others disagreeing to the fact of buying now and think later.
 Most of the responses for things bought that they do not need are positive while there
are students who responded negatively towards buying things that they do not need.
 A considerable number of students responded positively towards shopping to kill their
leisure time, while, a majority of the students responded against it.

CONCLUSION

Based on the study of the impulse buying behavior in young women, it can be seen that
women intend to shop in the spur of the moment if they get special offers and discounts.
Impulse buying is usually seen with the small things like every day essentials that are kept
near the billing counter that the customers pickup impulsively while billing all of the other
planned products. Here, in the study we can see that many of the students prefer buying
products even if they are having financial issues, this shows that impulse buying might also
lead to financial break downs among the youngsters as they tend to buy more in order to go
with the trend. Creating awareness about the negative impacts of impulse buying specially
among the young adults is very important in order to make them plan their expenses
accordingly.

DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES

The research carried on could be further analyzed in the future for research purposes by other
researchers and marketers through a marketer’s point of view in order to understand the
challenges that they often face in the marketing of a product and the ways that they follow in
order to gain the attention of the customers and provide them products with reasonable
pricing.

REFERENCE

Kacen & Lee (2002) The influence of culture on consumer impulsive buying behavior.
Journal of consumer psychology 12(2), 163-176.
Priyanka & Robbie (2012) The gender factor influencing impulsive buying behavior.

Wells, L. E., Farley, H., & Armstrong, G. A. (2007). The importance of packaging design
for own-label food brands. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 35 (9),
677- 690.
Block and Morwitz (1999) A review of impulse buying behavior. International Journal of
Marketing Studies, 5(3).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329013866_Factors_influencing_Consumer_Behavior
_ toward_Impulse_Buying
https://m.barnesandnoble.com/b/free-ebooks/nook-books/marketing/consumer-
behavior/_/N- ry0Z8qaZtp5
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244016645638