Influence of Design and Social Factors of Store Atmospherics on Impulse Buying Behavior in Sports Goods Retailing

Abstract

Researchers have been very much interested in the field of store atmospherics for the past several years. According to Sharma and Stafford (2000), store atmosphere can be defined as the ability of retailers to attract prospective customers to the store repeatedly and prompt them to do purchase. Another definition by Greeland and McGoldrick (2006) is that all the physical appearance of a store can be coined into a term known as store atmospherics. According to JooPark,Eun ,Eun Young Kim,Judith Cardona Forney(2006) Impulse buying is an unplanned,sudden,compelling behavior of a customer to buy a product. Impulse buying can occur due to the persistent urge and emotions of a customer at the time of purchase (Sultan, Abdullah J,JeffJoireman and David E.Sportt (2012)) The study mainly focuses on the influence of design and social factors on impulse buying behavior. Store atmospheric factors has been classified into ambient factors, design factors and social factors(Baker, Grewal&Parasuraman, 1994)(Baker, Parasuraman, Grewal& Voss, 2002) on the basis of previous studies conducted by various researchers. This study focuses on the influence of design and social factors of store atmospherics on Impulse Buying Behavior.lighting, music, and color are the variables considered under design factors .Social factors are nothing but appearance and behavior of personnel and other customers at the store . This study will be useful for sports goods retailers because impulse buying can helps in increasing sales. The study also discusses on the comparative influences of individual constructs within design and social factors specifically to sports goods retailing