Spontaneous purchase

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Typical range of goods in the queue area of ​​a supermarket

Impulse purchase (also pulse or stimulus purchase ) denotes a buying behavior , which spontaneously or impulsive , a sudden incentive following, apparently indiscriminately, expires.

General

However, an impulse purchase is not entirely unplanned. “ Every purchase is planned, including the impulse purchase. With him, the planning period has only shrunk to a minimum, sometimes to a fraction of a second. ”However, a planned purchase can also be an impulse purchase if an impulsive decision is made, but the purchase itself was planned. Spontaneous buying is an impulsive purchase decision that is characterized by poor intellectual control, combined with strong stimuli , emotional charge or affective enjoyment .

Goods that can easily trigger an impulse purchase, is called impulse goods or impulse items . With the exception of supermarkets , impulse goods are mainly to be found at petrol stations and kiosks , where customers usually only spend a very short time and should therefore be prompted to make a purchase decision quickly . Depending on the product category, spontaneous purchases make up between 40 and 80% of the total purchases made.

theory

Impulse buying is defined by the following criteria:

  • The purchase is spontaneous,
  • Consequences and purchase price are ignored,
  • a hedonistic desire for fulfillment through consumption goes hand in hand with the purchase.

Resisting impulse buying proves to be relatively difficult as the strong hedonistic desire for the product occurs during the decision period.

Factors

An impulse purchase is influenced or favored by several factors.

Dispositional factors

Dispositional factors are personality traits . They vary from person to person and indicate how susceptible a person is to impulse buying (e.g. degree of spontaneity).

Situational factors

Situational factors are influences that act on a person from outside and, as a rule, cannot be controlled by him. A certain set-up of a business can encourage impulse buying, e.g. B. when impulse goods are set up in places where many people pass in the respective shop (e.g. at the cash register ).

Sociodemographic Factors

Sociodemographic factors describe characteristics of certain population groups. Gender, age and income are frequently examined. So was z. For example, there was a slight connection between sex and impulse buying behavior.

Trigger of spontaneous purchases

Shelf notes

Signs that draw attention to the special quality of a product have a beneficial effect on impulse buying behavior. In particular, success is achieved with signs that are placed at eye level above freezers, as these draw attention to the advertised product without having to look into the freezer. Ceiling displays can also refer to a product or an offer and thus encourage spontaneous purchases. A coupling with a price reduction of the product is also beneficial.

placement

A further incentive arises from the clever arrangement of suitable goods: Since many people easily get “weak” when it comes to sweets, they can be found in the likely queue near the checkout, as close as possible to the immediate field of vision and at a convenient height and in pack sizes that make it easy should “treat yourself to a little something”. Goods that appeal to small children are accordingly aligned lower at the eye level of a child in the stroller and are referred to as whimsy goods (see also Pester Power ).

The same applies in principle to cigarettes, alcohol in very small containers and magazines, the sales of which are increased through clever placement. For the latter, the degree of scaling is relevant: the clientele should see as much of the title as possible, while the sales staff want to offer as many titles as possible in the space available.

Secondary placement

In the case of products that are offered in a shop at two locations at the same time, impulse purchases are also favored. In this way, products that are also offered in an assortment associated with the product achieve significantly higher sales figures compared to simple placement. For example, batteries are often also offered for electrical appliances in a store.

Research areas

With the psychology of impulse buying, which is important for trade management, i. H. Commercial management , especially its most recent branch of retail psychology , deals with the diverse, all-sensory incentive techniques, but also with their economic, legal and ethical limits .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SDI research market research: "[...] the impulsive purchase of goods, without long-term preparation, an upcoming need, more detailed consideration and detailed examination. The spontaneous purchase is a stimulus-controlled reaction to current signals from advertising, current offers (at the POS) or immediate, social motives. "
  2. ↑ Hans-Otto Schenk: Psychologie im Handel , 2nd edition, Munich / Vienna 2007, p. 116
  3. ↑ Joachim Hurth: Applied trade psychology , 1st edition, Stuttgart 2006, p. 42
  4. ↑ Thomas Foscht / Bernhard Swoboda, Buyer Behavior : Basics - Perspectives - Applications , 2005, p. 158
  5. ^ A b Clinton Amos, Gary R. Holmes, William C. Keneson: A meta-analysis of consumer impulse buying . In: Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services . tape 21 , no. 2 , March 2014, p. 86–97 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jretconser.2013.11.004 ( PDF ).
  6. ^ A b André Bebié: Buyer behavior and marketing decision: Consumer goods marketing from the perspective of the behavioral sciences , 1st edition, Wiesbaden 1978, ISBN 978-3-409-30781-9 , pp. 1001-1008