Social Effects on Unplanned In-store Buying

Abstract

While numerous studies have demonstrated the impact of out-of-store marketing (e.g. shopping trip goals and price promotion) and in-store marketing (e.g. shelf design) on customer buying behavior, few studies have investigated the influence of social effects on unplanned in-store purchasing. In store-social influences refer to purchase behavior arising from a recommendation or advice from a closely connected and important person to the customer. The current study conducted two focus group interviews with respect to research participants’ grocery shopping experiences. The first focus group composed of 6 university staff and 8 university students were recruited for the second group. Most focus group participants are female. This is salient for the Thai cultural context whereby shopping is still considered the domain for females or housewives particularly for the university staff group. Research findings revealed that both groups mostly prepared shopping lists before going to the store. However, the list could be an unwritten note. Unplanned purchases were driven by economic value, such as discounted price and sales promotion. However it was found that an accompanying person could alter the research participant's planned buying list and even loyal brand purchases. Specifically, a customer's friend and/or relative may affect the respondent's purchasing pattern. For example, a friend or spouse or relative may give information about defects or the quality of products during in-store shopping. As a result, a customer's unplanned buying decision may be affected by social effect in terms of buying or not-buying even though the customer is motivated by purchase impulses from shelf-exposure. Based on the current research's findings, there is a need to develop the current theoretical models for the unplanned buying by including the social effect. Furthermore, logical explanations why and how social effect has an impact on unplanned in-store buying are required and resulted in relevant construct development. Social media that is an important route of social effects on in-store buying behavior should be investigated. Strategic management implication is that market practitioners are required to consider the marketing program investments on the customer's social effect for enhancing the in-store unplanned product performance.