Abstract
Impulse buying behaviour has been recognised as a key research concern amongst academic researches and marketers. At one time or another a large amount of consumers purchases on impulse. Evidence from the literature indicates that external factors, such as in-store atmosphere, in-store browsing, in-store layout, salespersons, promotions and reference groups are important antecedents of impulse purchases. The cognitive response to act on impulse purchase is triggered by external factors to buy on impulse. This paper reports on a study undertaken to determine the external factors influencing the cognitive response of impulse buying behaviour amongst Generation Y students. Generation Y are labelled as individuals born between 1986 and 2005. The study employed a quantitative method, whereby a structured, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a non-probability convenience sample of 349 students (aged 18 to 24 years), across two South African public higher education institutions’ campuses located in the Gauteng province. The collected data was examined using descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability, correlation analysis and regression analysis. The coefficient of multiple determination (R2) was 0.070 that implies that in-store atmosphere, in-store browsing and promotions can predict seven percent of the variance in Generation Y students’ cognitive response to buy on impulse, which proposes that other variables influence Generation Y students’ cognitive response to buy on impulse.
Highlights
Impulse buying is a powerful marketing tool to increase retail sales, as it aids to a vast number of products sold in the retail environment (Das & Das, 2015)
Questionnaires were rejected if the students were younger than 18 or older than 24, if the student was a non-South African and if there was more than 10 percent missing values on the questionnaire
In an attempt to fill a gap in research in the South African context, this study has determined that in-store atmosphere, in-store browsing and promotions were significant, these factors are not sufficient to be determinants of Generation Y students’ cognitive response of impulse buying behaviour
Summary
Impulse buying is a powerful marketing tool to increase retail sales, as it aids to a vast number of products sold in the retail environment (Das & Das, 2015). Impulse buying accounts for almost 80 percent of purchases (dot Activ, 2016). Impulse products are characterised as products that are priced at a low-cost, are purchased frequently and which require minimum planning from consumers (Rook & Hoch, 1985). Evidence from the literature suggests that, 88 percent of impulse purchases are made due to items being offered on sale or promotion and impulse buys increase by 23 percent when the shopping trip itself is unplanned (Beta Bait, 2013). In 2013, on average, R13.5 billion a month was spent on impulse items by South African consumers (Times Live, 2014). Different types of buying decision behaviour include habitual buying behaviour, variety-seeking buying behaviour, dissonance-reducing behaviour, complex buying behaviour and impulse buying (Mäkinen, 2015)
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