buying behavior research definition

The goods on consumer behavior

Research by consumer psychologists aims to promote consumers’ well-being in sustainability, health, and money management

Vol. 52 No. 4

Applied Psychology
Marketing and Advertising

people walking on a city sidewalk in front of clothing storefront

People’s decisions about how to spend their money can have a huge impact on their own lives and on the planet. Credit card debt, climate change, plastic pollution, dietary choices—all these and more, to some extent, depend on companies’ decisions about what to sell and consumers’ decisions about what to buy.

That’s why some consumer psychologists and researchers in related fields, like marketing and business, are interested in tackling these social issues through the lens of consumerism. Consumer researchers are working to understand how and why consumers make beneficial choices in areas including sustainability, health, and financial well-being. They’re also studying how to convince companies of the value of improving their supply chains or offering customers healthier, more responsible choices.

“Good, responsible scholars are trying to think about not only what is good for individuals but also what is good for society,” said Lynn Kahle, PhD, a consumer psychologist and director of the sports marketing program at Pace University in New York City.

Sustainable consumption

One big challenge facing society is switching over to a more ecologically sustainable way of life. Making sustainable choices can be a tough sell for consumers, said Katherine White, PhD, a consumer psychologist at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia in Canada. “It’s this really interesting trade-off between some kind of cost to the self in order to do something for others,” White said. (A trade-off not dissimilar to many of the public health interventions enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.) The potential benefits of individual sustainable behaviors—recycling, choosing reusable goods, installing solar panels, eating less meat—are fuzzy and in the future, White said, and the status quo is largely set up to enable less-sustainable choices. But to tackle problems like climate change and environmental degradation, both systems and individuals will have to change, she said. “It’s probably the most challenging behavior-change question of our time.”

When consumer psychologists first began studying sustainable behavior in the 1970s, their focus was largely on how to identify consumers who were already prone to go green, said Remi Trudel, PhD, an associate professor of marketing at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. Over time, though, researchers have begun to focus on how to influence more people. “The biggest question is, how do we nudge people into behaving more sustainably?” Trudel said.

In a 2019 review, White and her colleagues organized research on the topic into a framework they call SHIFT ( Journal of Marketing , Vol. 83, No. 3, 2019 ). SHIFT stands for social influence, habit formation, individual self, feelings and cognition, and tangibility—each a key factor in whether a consumer makes green (or not-so-green) choices. Social influence is one of the most powerful tools available, White said. For example, a study in California led by New York University Stern School of Business associate professor of marketing Bryan Bollinger, PhD, found that every installation of solar panels on a home in a given ZIP code increased the likelihood of another install by 0.78 percentage points ( Marketing Science , Vol. 31, No. 6, 2012 ).

Habits refer to everyday behaviors, like getting coffee every morning in a disposable cup rather than bringing one’s own mug, White said. Any way to make the greener choice easier can help break unsustainable habits, she said. Individual self refers to what resonates with any given person. It’s relatively easy to connect with individuals who already care about sustainability, White said. But sometimes advertisers, marketers, and companies need to work a little harder to link a person’s preexisting values to sustainability.

For example, religious and cultural values can play a role in how people approach environmental values, said Elizabeth Minton, PhD, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Wyoming. “Western consumers view what’s important as sustaining the family unit, sustaining the community, and sustaining the loved ones,” Minton said. Framing sustainability—protecting the environment—as a way to protect family and community, then, becomes a way for marketers to encourage demand for sustainable products.

Research into feelings and cognition has found complex patterns. Some research suggests that while negative emotions such as guilt can prompt environmentally friendly actions, guilt should be deployed with care. For example, after the United Kingdom instituted a policy of charging a small sum for disposable plastic grocery bags, mass communications researcher Sidharth Muralidharan, PhD, of Southern Methodist University, conducted an online survey that found that women who reported high guilt over forgetting to carry reusable bags were more likely to carry them more consistently, but men with high levels of guilt weren’t, suggesting women were more susceptible to “green guilt” than men. In a follow-up experiment, Muralidharan and his colleagues exposed consumers to guilt-inducing advertisements based around either saving the environment or saving money by carrying reusable bags. They found that the environment-based ads were less effective at inducing guilt than the savings-based ads ( Journal of Advertising Research , Vol. 58, No. 3, 2018 ). In other words, guilt must be directed toward an effective target—which is not always related to sustainability—to work.

Finally, tangibility in the SHIFT framework refers to the need to link an action to real consequences, given that the outcome of any behavior is uncertain, White said. Focusing on the near-term benefits of sustainability, such as preventing current environmental degradation, can help, according to research led by Audhesh Paswan, PhD, a professor of marketing at the University of North Texas ( Journal of Consumer Marketing , Vol. 34, No. 5, 2017 ).

One big question is how younger generations of consumers will approach sustainable consumption. Gen Z—the colloquial term for anyone born between the late 1990s and around 2010—tends to hold consumer brands to high standards, said Brent Coker, PhD, a lecturer in marketing at the University of Melbourne. They’re savvy to marketing strategies and don’t like empty platitudes, he said, which can lead to anger at brands they perceive as doing social (or environmental) harm. However, social media marketing can lead to impulse purchasing in Gen Z, according to research by marketing lecturer Elmira Djafavora, PhD, of Northumbria University Newcastle ( Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , Vol. 59, 2021), which could feed overconsumption.

Promoting health

Another area where consumers might need to put aside their immediate impulses for long-term benefits is when making health choices. As with sustainability, consumers may well be aware that a choice—such as buying a sugary beverage—isn’t in their ultimate best interest, but still make that choice nonetheless.

“We know that incentives and information don’t always work as well as we would hope them to,” said Leslie John, PhD, who has a doctorate in behavioral decision research and is an associate professor at Harvard Business School. “What I’ve been trying to do is use insights from psychology to make these tools much more effective at actually changing behavior.”

In one study, John and her colleagues explored whether putting warning labels on sugary beverages discourages their purchase. In a real cafeteria setting, the researchers tested three different types of warning labels: One label simply listed the caloric content of the soda. Another read, “Warning: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay.” A third label contained the same text but with accompanying images of an obese abdomen, a person self-injecting insulin, and rotten teeth. The researchers found that only the graphic warnings had a statistically significant impact, reducing the share of sugary beverages purchased from 21.4% to 18.2% ( Psychological Science , Vol. 29, No. 8, 2018 ). At the same time, in a result that could incentivize firms as well as policymakers, the study also showed that the warning labels didn’t reduce drink sales overall, as consumers chose to buy bottled water instead.

“They’re still buying something; they’re just buying something healthier,” John said of the consumers in the study.

Food-labeling research often lands at the intersection of politics and science. Christina Roberto, PhD, the director of the Psychology of Eating and Consumer Health (PEACH) Lab at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, focuses her research on what she calls “strategic science,” which means that she collaborates with policymakers to develop research questions. For example, in 2018, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health approached Roberto for insights on what kind of label they could use to educate consumers about foods high in salt. Roberto and her colleagues tested a variety of label options for the department, including a saltshaker inside a triangle as required on New York City menus, and a traffic light option with red representing high-salt items. The saltshaker performed the worst in tests of consumer understanding of the symbols, while the traffic light was the clearest. Unfortunately, the traffic light was a legal no-go, Roberto said, because the interpretation of which items got the red light could easily be challenged by food companies in court.

The researchers were also able to show in their data that putting text that read “sodium warning” next to the saltshaker symbol significantly boosted consumer understanding of the label. “We basically said, ‘Look, if you have to compromise and you have to use the saltshaker triangle, at least get the words ‘sodium warning’ next to it,’” she said.

That labeling strategy went into effect in September 2019 in Philadelphia restaurant chains with 15 or more locations. Boosting the potential effectiveness of the warning was a win, Roberto said, because if Philadelphia had used New York’s symbol without changes, that symbol likely would have become the standard for any other cities or states planning to institute sodium warning labels. Now, she said, there is an existing label with a stronger evidence base that new cities can choose to adopt in the future.

Money matters

Consumer psychologists are also tackling big-picture issues in the realm of money management, an area of great interest since many Americans are in precarious financial positions. According to a Congressional Research Service report, unemployment was elevated throughout 2020, peaking at 14.8% in April ( Unemployment Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic: In Brief, 2021 ). Savings rates rose sharply, however, hitting 33% of people’s disposable incomes that same month as Americans halted their spending. As of February 2021, the savings rate had declined to 13.6% ( Bureau of Economic Analysis , 2020 ).

Researchers tackle consumer spending and saving in multiple ways. One strategy is to study what types of spending make people happiest. On that front, the research is clear: Buying experiences generally makes people happier than buying stuff. Experiential consumption also seems to trigger a greater sense of gratitude than material consumption, and it can even make people more generous to others in lab-based economic games, according to research led by psychologist Jesse Walker, PhD, an assistant professor of marketing at The Ohio State University ( Emotion , Vol. 16, No. 8, 2016 ).

“This is kind of cool because it suggests that these social benefits of experiential consumption don’t just apply to the consumers themselves but to those around them as well,” said Amit Kumar, PhD, a psychologist and assistant professor of marketing at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, who coauthored that research.

Experiential consumption seems to make people happier because it strengthens social ties, Kumar said. People tend to bond over conversations about their trips to Italy more than they do about that new furniture set they bought at Ikea. That’s an important thing to know when weighing how to spend your hard-earned money, Kumar said.

But there can be a dark side to the glow of experiential purchases. People are more willing to go into debt for experiential purchases than for material purchases, according to research by Eesha Sharma, PhD, an associate professor of business administration at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business ( Journal of Consumer Research , Vol. 44, No. 5, 2018 ). This seems to be because experiences are often time-dependent, Sharma said. If you decide to delay the purchase of a dining room table from July until December, it doesn’t feel like you’ve missed out on owning the table. If you delay your summer beach trip from July until December? Well, then you’ve missed summer vacation altogether.

In general, consumers tend to maintain positive illusions about their own money management, said Emily Garbinsky, PhD, a psychologist and assistant professor of marketing at the University of Notre Dame. Garbinsky is researching ways to “gently shatter” these illusions at the point at which people make savings decisions, perhaps during the use of banking apps. There is evidence from other research that software nudges can boost real-world savings. For example, a field experiment using TurboTax’s free edition led by Duke University professor of psychology and behavioral economics Dan Ariely, PhD, nudged low- and middle-income tax filers to save a portion of their tax refunds. Compared with a control group that received no messaging, the taxpayers who were presented a message about the importance of emergency savings and given choices of ways to save their refund increased deposits to their savings accounts by 50% ( Behavioral Science & Policy , Vol. 3, No. 2, 2017 ).

Garbinsky’s work also zeroes in on how emotions affect money management decisions. She and her colleagues have found, for example, that couples who share bank accounts are more likely to make utilitarian purchases than hedonic ones, in contrast with couples who keep separate bank accounts ( Journal of Consumer Psychology , Vol. 29, No. 3, 2019 ). These results held in both lab and field experiments, as well as in analyses of real banking transactions. Other research under review suggests that couples who pool finances may have more relationship satisfaction, though the findings are correlational.

Often, consumer researchers study single decisions, such as how much money people save or how much debt they’re willing to take on—but money decisions don’t occur in a vacuum, Sharma said. If you’re borrowing money to save more for retirement, for example, it might look beneficial from a savings perspective but disastrous from a debt perspective.

“It’s really important for future research to look at multiple financial decisions together,” she said. “Research that integrates multiple financial decisions, looks at trade-offs, looks at decisions over time, will lead to a more nuanced and better understanding of these choices.”

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Buyer behavior

Last updated: 7 April, 2023

Types of buyer behavior

Buyer behavior patterns.

Model of buyer behavior

Buyer behavior analysis

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Buyer behavior refers to the decision and acts people undertake to buy products or services for individual or group use. It’s synonymous with the term “consumer buying behavior,” which often applies to individual customers in contrast to businesses.

Buyer behavior is the driving force behind any marketing process. Understanding why and how people decide to purchase this or that product or why they are so loyal to one particular brand is the number one task for companies that strive for improving their business model and acquiring more customers.

Buyer behavior is always determined by how involved a client is in their decision to buy a product or service and how risky it is. The higher the product price, the higher the risk, the higher the customer’s involvement in purchase decisions. Based on these determinants, four types of consumer buyer behavior are distinguished:

Complex buying behavior

This type is also called extensive. The customer is highly involved in the buying process and thorough research before the purchase due to the high degree of economic or psychological risk. Examples of this type of buying behavior include purchasing expensive goods or services such as a house, a car, an education course, etc.

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior

Like complex buying behavior, this type presupposes lots of involvement in the buying process due to the high price or infrequent purchase. People find it difficult to choose between brands and are afraid they might regret their choice afterward (hence the word ‘dissonance’).

As a rule, they buy goods without much research based on convenience or available budget. An example of dissonance-reducing buying behavior may be purchasing a waffle maker. In this case, a customer won’t think much about which model to use, chousing between a few brands available.

Habitual buying behavior

This type of consumer buying behavior is characterized by low involvement in a purchase decision. A client sees no significant difference among brands and buys habitual goods over a long period. An example of habitual buying behavior is purchasing everyday products.

Variety seeking behavior

In this case, a customer switches among brands for the sake of variety or curiosity, not dissatisfaction, demonstrating a low level of involvement. For example, they may buy soap without putting much thought into it. Next time, they will choose another brand to change the scent.

Each consumer may have unique buying habits. Still, there are typical tendencies, which allows distinguishing the following buyer behavior patterns:

Place of purchase

If customers have access to several stores, they are not always loyal to one place. So even if all items are available in one outlet, they may divide their purchases among several shops.

Items purchased

There are two things to consider: the type of the product customers purchase and its quantity. As a rule, people buy necessity items in bulk. In contrast, luxury items are more likely to be purchased in small quantities and not frequently. The amount of goods people buy is influenced by such factors:

Product durability
Product availability
Product price
Buyer’s purchasing power
Number of customers for whom the product is intended

The analysis of a buyer’s shopping cart may bring many valuable insights about buyer behavior.

Time and frequency of purchase

With the development of e-commerce , purchases have become only a few clicks away. Anyway, marketers should understand how often and at what time of the year or day people tend to buy more goods. The product purchase frequency may depend on the following factors:

Product type
Customer’s lifestyle
Product necessity
Customer’s traditions and customs

Method of purchase

People buy goods in different ways: some go to the store, while others prefer ordering items online. Some pay cash, while others use a credit card. Among customers who buy goods in online stores, some pay on delivery, while others are ready to pay right after they place an order. The way customers choose to purchase products tells a lot about their buyer persona .

Model of consumer buying behavior

The buyer behavior model is a structured step-by-step process. Under the influence of marketing stimuli (product, price, place, and promotion) and environmental factors (economic, technological, political, cultural), a customer understands the need to make a purchase.

The decision-making process they undergo afterward is affected by their characteristics, such as their beliefs, values, and motivation, resulting in the final decision to either buy or not to buy.

Most buyers go through several stages when making a purchase decision:

1. Need recognition

At the first stage, the buyer recognizes that there is a need for a product or service. For instance, they might realize that, since their company is growing, manual email outreach is no longer effective, so they need an email automation solution .

2. Information search

After understanding the need for a product or service, the buyer starts looking for information. They might obtain it from different sources (friends, commercials, mass media). For example, a prospect may start browsing email automation solutions, read reviews, etc.

3. Evaluation of alternatives

Once all the necessary information has been gathered, the buyer starts to evaluate a choice. They might compare key features and pricing, looking for advantages of one tool over all others.

4. Purchase decision

After evaluation, the buyer makes a purchase decision. For example, they start their free trial or purchase a paid plan.

5. Post-purchase evaluation

After purchasing the product or service, the buyer assesses whether it has met their expectations. At this stage, they might also leave an online review about the purchase or share their feedback with subscribers, colleagues, or friends.

There are cases, however, when some stages of the decision-making process are skipped. For example, the customer already knows a lot about a product and does not need to search for information. Another situation is when the buyer might see a product in the store and decide to buy it impulsively. Besides, there are situations when, after evaluating alternatives, the customer goes back to the information search step.

To offer relevant products and services to the target audience, marketers should analyze what and how people buy. Companies adhere to several ways of monitoring consumer buying behavior:

Using computer software

Computer software provides companies with valuable information about the customers’ purchase experience. This allows analyzing what products or services are preferable among certain groups of buyers, how the customers’ location influences their purchase habits, etc.

Analyzing customers’ reviews

Another way of analyzing buyer behavior is to study the customer’s feedback. Online reviews can often reveal more than just people’s feelings about the purchase. They might also share some information about how they choose items or the way they prefer buying goods.

Conducting online surveys

Some companies also conduct online surveys , which gives them an opportunity to research the buyer behavior at any angle they need. Surveys allow requesting direct information about what people like to buy, what product qualities they value the most, what determines their purchase decision, and so on.

The analysis of buyer behavior tendencies will help companies find the right marketing strategies to attract potential customers and convert them.

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Consumer Behavior

Advertising, Consumerism, Materialism, Marketing

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Consumer behavior—or how people buy and use goods and services—is a rich field of psychological research, particularly for companies trying to sell products to as many potential customers as possible. Since what people buy—and why they buy it—impacts many different facets of their lives, research into consumer behavior ties together several key psychological issues. These include communication (How do different people respond to advertising and marketing?), identity (Do our purchases reveal our personality ?), social status, decision-making , and mental and physical health.

Why Consumer Behavior Matters
The Psychology of Buying and Spending
How Advertising and Marketing Work
How to Appeal to Consumers

Corporations, political campaigns, and nonprofit organizations all consult findings about consumer behavior to determine how best to market products, candidates, or issues. In some cases, they accomplish this by manipulating people's fears, their least-healthy habits, or their worst tendencies. And consumers themselves can be their own worst enemy, making rash purchasing decisions based on anxiety , faulty logic, or a fleeting desire for social status. But consumers aren’t powerless: Learning more about the different strategies companies employ, as well as the explanations for people's often confusing purchasing decisions, can help individuals more consciously decide what, why, and whether to buy.

In developed countries, people spend only a portion of their money on things they need to survive, and the rest on non-essentials. Purchasing decisions based on want, rather than need, aren’t always rational ; instead, they are influenced by personality , emotion , and trends. To keep up, marketers continuously investigate how individuals and groups make buying choices and respond to marketing techniques.

Political marketing is, in many ways, similar to product marketing: it plays on emotions and people’s desire for compelling stories , rather than pure rationality, and aims to condense complex issues into short, memorable soundbites. Smart politicians use marketing research to tailor their messages, connect with voters who share their values, and counter their opponents’ narrative.

Humans are social animals. We rely on a group to survive and are evolutionarily driven to follow the crowd . To learn what is “correct,” we look to other people—a heuristic known as the principle of social proof . Fads are born because a product’s popularity is assumed to signal value, which further bolsters its popularity.

Natural or man-made disasters can trigger panic buying or hoarding behaviors, either before the disaster or after it has passed, usually of products deemed necessary for survival. In the weeks and months after a disaster, some evidence suggests that “hedonic purchases”—such as alcohol or unhealthy foods —rise as victims of the disaster attempt to cope.

After large-scale recessions, such as the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, consumers typically become more frugal and sensitive to price. These changes become permanent for some consumers, especially for those who were particularly hard-hit; for others, behaviors revert back to baseline once the economy has stabilized and any personal financial challenges have been overcome.

It already has. Consumers are buying less , shifting more purchasing online, and spending less on travel and in-person events. Whether those changes will endure, though, is unclear. Some experts predict that most people will revert back to old habits post-COVID; a small few, it’s predicted, will become more frugal and less materialistic in the long term.

Much of what people purchase—like food, shelter, or medical care—is necessary for their health and security. But what compels someone to buy things that aren’t necessary, like the latest iPhone or an impractical pair of high-heeled shoes? The study of why people make such purchases—which are often irrational—is closely related to the field of behavioral economics , which examines why people deviate from the most rational choice available.

Behavioral economists, marketing professionals, and psychologists have concluded that extraneous purchases may be driven by a need to display one’s social status, or in response to an emotion like sadness or boredom . In other instances, retailers may successfully manipulate the desire for a “good deal” by making an unneeded item seem especially affordable or portraying it as being in limited supply.

Learning how to recognize common manipulation tactics may help individuals and families save money—and stress —in the long term.

Many human behaviors are driven by reward. Purchasing a new gadget or item of clothing triggers a surge of dopamine , which creates pleasurable feelings. Though the glow of a new purchase may not last long, the desire to once again be rewarded with a burst of dopamine drives us to buy more .

It depends. Some research suggests that experiential purchases like vacations bring more happiness than material goods, in both the short- and long-term . However, this rule may not apply universally. For lower-income people, spending on material goods that meet basic needs is often more conducive to happiness, especially if the items remain useful over time.

Consumers are often irrational. Instead of only buying things they need, they also buy unnecessary items—often because the purchase makes them feel good, soothes negative emotions, or boosts social status. A consumer may also buy something that has been framed by a marketer as especially attractive; “buy one get one free” offers, for instance, are hard to resist and encourage people to buy things they don’t need.

Certain buying impulses can ultimately be harmful , but they often serve a psychological purpose. Purchasing unhealthy foods or excessive alcohol, for instance, can temporarily offer comfort from painful emotions; buying a new pair of designer jeans might break the bank, but can also help the purchaser prominently display their social status.

Dissonant buying impulses—or purchases that conflict with one’s resources, needs, and goals —can be difficult to manage, especially when they’re driven by negative emotions. Learning emotional regulation skills —such as naming any negative feelings, redirecting attention to productive activities, or practicing mindfulness —or creating physical “barriers” (such as freezing credit cards so they can’t be used impulsively) can help.

Anxiety is known to spur impulsive purchases —in part because buying things offers a sense of control and can be used to self-soothe. Anxiety can also lead someone to prioritize products that promote safety or a sense of security—such as toilet paper, hand sanitizer, or canned goods.

In a word, panic. Anxiety and fear make the world appear frightening and senseless; stocking up on certain items like toilet paper is one way to restore a feeling of control. Panic buying is also driven in part by herd mentality; if people see that others are hoarding hand sanitizer, they assume they should too.

Impulse buying may be motivated by negative emotions, as purchasing something often temporarily boosts mood. It may also be driven by personality—the naturally more impulsive or less conscientious may be driven to more frequently purchase items on a whim. Marketing strategies, like advertising products as “limited time offers,” can increase the tendency to impulse buy.

Two vast, interrelated industries—advertising and marketing—are dedicated to introducing people to products and convincing them to make purchases.

Since the public’s desires tend to change over time, however, what works in one product’s campaign won’t necessarily work in another’s. To adapt messages for a fickle audience, advertisers employ focus groups, market research, and psychological studies to better understand what compels people to commit to purchases or become loyal to brands.

Everyone has heard the advertising maxim “sex sells,” for instance—but exactly what, when, and why sex can be used to successfully market a product is the subject of much debate among ad makers and behavioral researchers. Recently, some evidence has suggested that pitches to the perceived “lowest common denominator” may actually inspire consumer backlash.

Marketers regularly use psychology to convince consumers to buy. Some common strategies include classical conditioning —training consumers to associate a product with certain cues through repeated exposure—creating a scarcity mindset (suggesting that a product only exists in limited quantities), or employing the principle of social proof to imply that everyone is buying a product—so you should, too.

Marketers often exploit cognitive shortcuts , known as heuristics, to convince consumers to make purchases. One example of this is the anchoring bias , or the brain’s tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information it learns. A savvy marketer may say, for instance, that a car costs $20,000, then quickly offer to take $1,000 off. Since the consumer “anchored” on to the initial $20,000 price tag, a $1,000 discount seems substantial and the consumer may leap at the offer. But if the car was truly worth $15,000, it would still be overpriced, even with the supposed discount factored in.

Renowned marketing researcher Robert Cialdini found that advertisements are perceived very differently depending on consumers’ state of mind. Fearful consumers, for instance, are more likely to respond negatively to ads that promote standing out from the crowd. However, consumers in a positive state of mind respond well to ads encouraging uniqueness; thus, timing and context are often critical to an ad’s success.

Limited time offers trigger a sense of urgency and force consumers to make quick decisions. A product only being available “for a limited time” (either at all or at a lower price) creates a sense of scarcity. Scarcity—whether real or manufactured—increases a product’s perceived value, heightening the chance of an impulsive purchase.

Because the majority of humans desire and seek out sex, sexual stimuli naturally capture attention; thus, marketers often make use of attractive models or erotic imagery simply to make consumers take notice. Being “primed” with erotic content can change behavior, too; research has found that sexual priming can lead consumers to make riskier financial choices.

The effectiveness of sex in advertising likely depends on several factors, including gender and context. Women appear to respond more negatively to sexual ads than men, research finds. When the product is unrelated to sex, using erotic imagery in ads can trigger dissonance and trigger negative feelings about the brand.

In a crowded marketplace, anyone hoping to sell a product or service will need to stand out. To succeed at this, marketers often turn to psychological research to identify and target their most likely consumers, grab their attention, and convince them that a product will fill a specific need or otherwise better their life. Aiming to inform and persuade consumers—rather than manipulate them—is widely considered to be the most ethical approach, and is likely to help build brand loyalty more than cheap marketing tricks.

Both the message and the messenger matter for persuasion . Marketing researcher Robert Cialdini has found that first impressions matter greatly—a company (or individual) that appears trustworthy and warm is more likely to gain their audience’s trust. Cialdini also coined the term “pre-suasion” to argue that marketers must grab consumers’ attention before making an appeal—by offering free samples, for instance, or couching a product pitch in an amusing commercial.

Turning to psychology can help. Appealing to consumers’ emotions and desire for connection with others are often powerful marketing strategies, as long as they’re not interpreted by consumers as manipulative. Introducing novelty, too, can be effective—research shows that consumers respond to surprising ads, humorous ads, or even “experiential” ads (such as parties or events designed to promote a product). Repeating an ad enough times so that a consumer remembers it—but not so much that they become frustrated—is also a critical part of any effective ad campaign.

Humans are creatures of habit and slow to adapt to change. To spread a new message or idea, advertisers have learned that simplicity is key; overcomplicated appeals can be frustrating or confusing for consumers. Summarizing the benefits of a new product, service, or political campaign in pithy, memorable phrases or images—and then repeating the message as often as possible—is more likely to grab consumers' attention and convince them to take a chance on a new object or idea.

Customers trust businesses that are honest with them, sharing accurate information about everything from the benefits of using their products to how they run their business. Other guidelines for ethical marketing include clearly distinguishing ads from other types of content (news, entertainment, etc.), prioritizing the interests of children or other vulnerable groups (by not marketing unhealthy products to children, for example), avoiding negative stereotypes, and respecting consumers’ intelligence and privacy.

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3.1 Understanding Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

1 Define consumer buying behavior.
2 Explain the nature of the buyer’s black box.
3 Describe how consumer behavior is characterized into types.

Consumer Markets and Consumer Buying Behavior Defined

How many buying decisions did you make today? Perhaps you stopped on the way to work or class to buy a soft drink or coffee, went to the grocery store on the way home to get bread or milk, or ordered something online. You likely make buying decisions nearly every day and probably don’t give most of those decisions much thought. But the way you make those decisions is significant for marketers, because if they can understand why you buy what you buy and when you buy it, they can use that information to boost revenue.

Consumer buying behavior refers to the decisions and actions people undertake to buy products or services for personal use. In other words, it’s the actions you take before buying a product or service, and as you will see, many factors influence that behavior. You and all other consumers combine to make up the consumer market .

The Buyer’s Black Box

It stands to reason that the hundreds of millions of people who make up the global consumer market don’t all buy the same products and services. Why do certain people prefer different items than others? The answer lies in the factors that influence consumer buying behavior. One model of consumer buying behavior is what’s known as the buyer’s black box , which is named as such because little is known about what goes on in the human mind. It’s also known as the stimulus-response model.

As illustrated in the model shown in Figure 3.2 , consumer buying behavior is based on stimuli coming from a variety of sources—from marketers in terms of the 4Ps (product, price, promotion, and place) , as well as from environmental stimuli, such as economic factors, legal/political factors, and technological and cultural factors.

These stimuli go into your “black box,” which consists of two parts: buyer characteristics such as beliefs and attitudes, motives, perceptions, and values, and the buyer decision-making process, which is covered later in the chapter. Your response is the outcome of the thinking that takes place in that black box. What will you buy, where, when, how often, and how much?

Types of Consumer Buying Behavior

Buying behavior is not influenced solely by the external environment. It’s also determined by your level of involvement in a purchase and the amount of risk involved in the purchase. There are four types of consumer buying behavior, as shown in Figure 3.3 .

Complex buying behavior occurs when you make a significant or expensive purchase, like buying a new car. Because you likely don’t buy a new car frequently, you’re highly involved in the buying decision, and you probably research different vehicles or talk with friends or family before reaching your decision. By that time, you’re likely convinced that there’s a significant difference among cars, and you’ve developed your own unique set of criteria that helps you decide on your purchase.

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior occurs when you’re highly involved in a purchase but see little difference among brands. Let’s say you’re replacing the flooring in your kitchen with ceramic tile—another expensive, infrequent purchase. You might think that all brands of ceramic tile in a certain price range are “about the same,” so you might shop around to see what’s available, but you’ll probably buy rather quickly, perhaps as a result of a good price or availability. However, after you’ve made your purchase, you may experience post-purchase dissonance (also known as buyer’s remorse) when you notice some disadvantages of the tile you purchased or hear good things about a brand you didn’t purchase.

Habitual buying behavior has low involvement in the purchase decision because it’s often a repeat buy, and you don’t perceive much brand differentiation. Perhaps you usually buy a certain brand of organic milk, but you don’t have strong brand loyalty. If your regular brand isn’t available at the store or another brand is on sale, you’ll probably buy a different brand.

Variety-seeking buying behavior has the lowest customer involvement because brand switching is your norm. You may not be unhappy with your last purchase of tortilla chips, but you simply want to try something new. It’s a matter of brand switching for the sake of variety rather than because of dissatisfaction with your previous purchase.

Link to Learning

The 4ps and consumer behavior.

Watch this short, humorous 4Ps video as a way to help you remember the concept. This video also includes several examples of target markets and how a marketer might respond.

Consumer behavior is an important marketing topic, and depending on the marketing program at your institution, you may have the opportunity to take a consumer behavior course and learn more about the topics covered above. Studying consumer behavior is important in marketing because it will teach you how to best know your customer, an integral aspect to marketing a product or service. You can also watch this selfLearn-en video to get a stronger grasp of consumer behavior.

As mentioned, environmental factors have an impact on consumer behavior. Can you think of a recent environmental influence that has had a significant impact? The coronavirus pandemic has probably been the most influential in recent years, and for many reasons! We still have a lot to learn about the impacts of the pandemic, and new information is being released daily about changing human behavior and the impact on marketing. For example, in this Google article, the author shares a cultural anthropologist’s insights for understanding consumer behavior and how it relates to three core needs all people experience—self-care, social connection, and identity—and how these needs correlate to recent YouTube video trends. Learn about how marketers can respond to this trend.

Continually trying to understand environmental influences will keep you on the cutting edge and ahead of the competition. It’s a great practice to always be looking for the latest information so that you can shift your strategies as needed. Bain & Company is an example of one company that wanted to understand how the pandemic changed consumer behavior. The company ran a survey in 2021 to better understand the impact of the pandemic, and it found five trends from the data.

A survey from Accenture , one of the top-ranked consulting firms in the world, found that the pandemic caused 50 percent of consumers to evaluate their purpose and what’s important to them. Read more about the findings in this article.

Always be looking for information to be the best marketer you can be!

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior
Variety-seeking buying behavior
Complex buying behavior
Habitual buying behavior
technological
Product choice
Brand choice
Social stimuli
Purchase timing
the consumer market
the buyer’s black box
consumer buying behavior
complex buying behavior

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Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
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The Psychology of Consumer Buying Behavior: Understanding How and Why People Buy

Kate Williams

Last Updated: 16 August 2024

31 min read

Table Of Contents

Consumer Buying Behavior: Definition and Significance

The evolution of consumer buying behavior research, factors affecting consumer behavior.

The Consumer Decision-Making Process

Types of Buying Decisions

The influence of marketing and advertising on consumer behavior, the impact of technology on consumer behavior, understanding consumer behavior in different cultures, consumer behavior research methods, ethical considerations in consumer behavior, wrapping up.

As a business owner or marketer, it’s essential to understand the psychology behind consumer buying behavior. By understanding how and why people make purchasing decisions, you can tailor your marketing strategies and improve your chances of success.

In this blog post, we’ll:

Understand the definition and significance of consumer buying behavior
Chart the evolution of consumer buying behavior research
Delve into the factors that influence consumer buying behavior
Explore the consumer decision-making process
The types of buying decisions
The influence of marketing and advertising
The impact of technology
Understanding consumer behavior in different cultures
Consumer behavior research methods
Ethical considerations in consumer behavior

Consumer buying behavior studies how and why individuals purchase goods or services. Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for businesses to create effective marketing strategies that appeal to potential customers and lead to increased sales.

Consumer behavior is influenced by a range of factors, including psychological, cultural, social, and economic. These factors vary greatly depending on the individual, background, and circumstances. Also, you can divide these consumers based on their behavior to further personalize every customer touchpoint, known as behavioral segmentation .

In this guide, we will explore the psychology of consumer buying behavior in depth, including the different models of consumer behavior and how they can be applied to create effective marketing strategies.

The study of consumer buying behavior has a rich history that spans over a century. The first research on the topic was conducted by John Dewey in the early 1900s, who examined how advertising affects consumer behavior. Since then, consumer buying behavior research has expanded significantly, with scholars exploring a range of factors that influence consumer behavior.

In the 1950s, researchers began exploring the psychological factors that affect consumers, including motivation, perception, and attitudes.

This led to the development of several influential theories, including Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which suggests that consumers are motivated by a range of needs, from basic physiological needs to higher-level needs like self-actualization, to buy products.

In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers began to explore the impact of social factors on consumer behavior, including the role of reference groups and social class.

This period also saw the development of several models of the consumer decision-making process, including the Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) and the Howard-Sheth models.

In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers began to explore the impact of situational factors on consumer behavior, including the role of time and location in shaping purchase decisions.

This period also saw the development of several models of consumer behavior that integrated the various factors that influence consumer decision-making.

In the 21st century, consumer buying behavior research has continued to evolve, with researchers exploring the impact of technology on consumer behavior, including the rise of e-commerce and social media, and mobile devices on the shopping experience.

Researchers have also continued to explore the impact of cultural factors on consumer behavior, including the role of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory in shaping cross-cultural consumer behavior.

Overall, the evolution of consumer buying behavior research has been characterized by a growing understanding of the complex factors that influence consumer behavior and the development of new research methods and theories to understand better and explain consumer decision-making.

Personal Factors

Personal factors play a crucial role in influencing the different types of buyers. These factors include age, income, gender, lifestyle, personality, etc.

Age: Different age groups have different needs and preferences. Younger consumers may prioritize the latest technology and fashion trends, while older consumers may value practicality and durability.
Income: Higher-income consumers may have more purchasing power and be willing to pay more for high-quality products and services. On the other hand, consumers with lower incomes may prioritize affordability and may be more price-sensitive.
Gender: Men and women may have different preferences regarding products and services. For example, men may be more interested in sports and technology, while women may be more interested in beauty and fashion.
Lifestyle: A consumer’s lifestyle can affect their complex buying behavior. For example, someone who lives an active lifestyle may be more interested in fitness products and services. In contrast, someone who prioritizes relaxation may be more interested in spa treatments and luxury vacations.
Personality: Consumer personality traits can also affect their buying habits. For example, extroverted people may be more interested in social activities and events, while introverted may be more interested in solitary activities like reading and watching movies.

These personal factors can influence a consumer’s decision-making and buying behavior. As a result, businesses should consider these factors when developing marketing strategies and creating products and services that appeal to their target audience.

Psychological Factors

Psychological factors are crucial in shaping consumer behavior. These factors are mainly internal and subjective, involving how consumers perceive, interpret, and process information about a consumer purchase.

Key psychological factors affecting consumer behavior include motivation, perception, learning, beliefs, and attitudes.

Motivation refers to the internal drive or desire that prompts consumers to take action, such as buying a product. Various factors, including personal needs, desires, and goals, can influence motivation.
For example, a consumer motivated by the need for security may be more likely to purchase insurance or invest in a secure financial product.
Perception refers to how consumers interpret and make sense of information about a product or service. Various factors can influence perception, including the consumer’s past experiences, expectations, and cultural background.
For example, a consumer who has had a positive experience with a particular brand may have a more favorable perception of that brand than a consumer who has not had any experience with the brand.
Learning refers to how consumers acquire new knowledge, skills, or attitudes about a product or service.
Learning can occur through various channels, including personal experience, observation, and communication. For example, a consumer who has had a positive experience with a particular product may be more likely to purchase it again.
Beliefs refer to consumers’ cognitive frameworks or assumptions about a product or service. Beliefs can be based on personal experience, cultural values, or social influence. For example, consumers who believe organic products are healthier may be more likely to purchase organic foods.
Attitudes refer to the consumer’s overall evaluation or perception of a product or service. Attitudes can be positive, negative, or neutral and can be influenced by various factors, including personal experience, social influence, and marketing messages.

For example, a consumer with a positive attitude towards a brand may be likelier to recommend it to others or purchase from it again.

Understanding these psychological factors and their impact on consumer behavior can help businesses develop effective marketing strategies that resonate with their target audience. By appealing to consumers’ motivations, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, businesses can build stronger connections with their customers and drive more sales.

Social Factors

Social factors significantly shape consumer behavior. Here are some key social factors that influence buying decisions:

Culture refers to shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that define a group or society. Culture shapes consumer behavior by influencing what people buy, how they buy it, and why they buy it. For example, in some cultures, it is customary to haggle over prices, while in others, fixed prices are the norm.

Family members can significantly influence each other’s buying decisions. Children often influence what their parents buy, and spouses often make joint purchase decisions. Family roles and dynamics, such as who has the final say in purchasing decisions, also play a role.

Reference groups: A reference group is a group of people that an individual looks to for guidance on social norms, values, and behaviors. Reference groups can include family members, friends, coworkers, or celebrities. The opinions and actions of these groups can influence a person’s buying decisions.

Social class:

Social class refers to people with similar income levels, education, occupation, and lifestyle. Social class can influence consumer behavior by shaping what products people buy, where they shop, and how they make purchase decisions.

Understanding these social factors can help businesses develop marketing strategies that resonate with their target audience. For example, a business that caters to a high-income social class may want to market its products as exclusive or high-end, while a business targeting a younger demographic may want to focus on social media and influencer marketing.

Situational Factors

Situational factors refer to external conditions that affect consumer behavior, including the purchase timing, location, and the buying occasion. These factors can influence a consumer’s purchase decision and include the following :

Time is a situational factor that can impact consumer behavior. Time-related situational factors include the time of day, day of the week, and time of year. For example, consumers may be more likely to purchase ice cream during the summer months or holiday-themed items during the corresponding holiday season.

The purchase location can also influence consumer behavior. For instance, consumers may be more likely to purchase luxury items in upscale department stores or shopping centers.

Buying Occasion:

Buying occasions can also impact consumer behavior. A buying occasion could be a special event or holiday, such as Valentine’s Day or a wedding, that may trigger a purchase.

Situational factors can significantly impact consumer behavior and create opportunities for businesses to tailor their marketing strategies to specific situations or occasions. For example, a retailer may offer holiday-themed promotions or discounts during the Christmas season to capitalize on the increase in consumer spending.

The Five Stages of the Consumer Decision-Making Process: An Overview

The consumer decision-making process is a five-stage process consumers go through before purchasing. The first stage is problem recognition, where consumers identify their needs or want. The second stage is information search, where consumers gather information to make informed decisions. The third stage is the evaluation of alternatives, where consumers weigh the pros and cons of different options. The fourth stage is the purchase decision, where consumers decide to buy. The fifth and final stage is post-purchase evaluation, where consumers assess their satisfaction with the purchase. Understanding these stages is essential for businesses to tailor their marketing strategies and meet consumers’ needs and wants.

Problem Recognition:

The first stage in consumer decision-making is problem recognition, where consumers become aware of a need or want they want to fulfill. These needs or want can be triggered by internal factors, such as hunger or thirst, or external factors, such as advertising or a friend’s recommendation. Once consumers recognize a need or want, they begin seeking information to fulfill that need or want.

Information Search:

Once the consumer has recognized a problem or need, the next step in the decision-making process is to gather information. Consumers seek information from various sources, including personal sources such as family and friends, commercial sources such as advertisements and salespeople, and public sources such as online reviews and ratings.

The amount and type of information consumers gather can vary depending on the complexity and cost of the product or service they are considering. For example, a consumer may spend more time researching a high-ticket item like a car or a house while making a quick decision for a low-ticket item like a pack of gum.

During this stage, consumers may also create a list of criteria that they will use to evaluate different options. These criteria could include price, quality, brand reputation, features, and other factors important to the consumer.

Businesses must understand where consumers search for information and what information they seek. By providing accurate and helpful information through various channels such as websites, social media, and customer service, businesses can influence decision-making and increase the likelihood of purchasing.

Evaluation of Alternatives:

Consumers consider the options available during the evaluation stage based on their information search. They evaluate each option and compare them against each other to determine which option will best meet their needs and preferences. Consumers use different criteria to evaluate products, such as price, quality, features, brand reputation, and availability. They may also seek recommendations from others or consult reviews and ratings to gather more information. Ultimately, consumers aim to select the option that offers them the most value and benefits.

Purchase Decision:

Consumers purchase the product or service after evaluating the alternatives. At this stage, consumers may still experience doubts or uncertainty, so businesses can take steps to reduce the risk and reassure consumers. This includes offering warranties, money-back guarantees, and excellent customer service.

Besides reducing risk, businesses can use marketing tactics to encourage purchase decisions, such as limited-time offers , discounts, and promotions. Consumers may also consider convenience, availability, and delivery options when deciding.

Once the decision is made, consumers move on to the final stage of the decision-making process, post-purchase evaluation.

Post-Purchase Evaluation:

After purchasing a product, consumers will evaluate their level of satisfaction with the purchase. This evaluation can be positive or negative, influencing their future purchase behavior. Customers are more likely to repurchase the product or even recommend it to others if they are satisfied. On the other hand, if the customer is dissatisfied, they are less likely to repurchase the product. They may even share their negative experience with others, harming the company’s reputation.

Post-purchase evaluation can also include cognitive dissonance, discomfort or doubt arising after purchasing. Consumers may question whether they made the right choice or if they should have chosen a different product or brand. Companies can reduce cognitive dissonance by providing reassurance and support after purchasing, such as follow-up communication, warranties, and return policies.

Habitual Buying Behavior:

Habitual Buying Behavior is a buying decision where consumers make purchases without much thought or effort. This is common when consumers buy low-cost, frequently purchased items like groceries or personal care products. Habitual buying behavior is driven by experience, brand loyalty, and convenience. Consumers in this category may not actively seek information or evaluate alternatives before purchasing. Instead, they rely on habit and convenience to guide their decision-making.

Limited Decision-Making:

Limited decision-making occurs when consumers already have some prior knowledge of the product or service but still need to gather more information to make an informed decision. In this stage, consumers consider a few alternatives before purchasing. They may rely on personal experience, recommendations from friends and family, or online reviews to narrow their choices. This type of decision-making is common for products or services that are moderately important and require some research but are not considered high-risk purchases. Examples include buying a new smartphone, choosing a restaurant for dinner, or selecting a new brand of laundry detergent.

Extensive Decision-Making:

Extensive decision-making occurs when a consumer faces a high level of risk or investment in a product or service. The consumer will devote significant time and effort to researching and evaluating multiple options. They may seek information from multiple sources, such as online reviews, recommendations from friends or family, and expert opinions. The decision-making process may take several days or even weeks, and the consumer will carefully weigh the pros and cons of each option before making a final decision. Examples of products or services that may require extensive decision-making include buying a house or a car or choosing a university to attend.

Impulse Buying:

Impulse buying refers to making purchases on a whim without prior planning or decision-making. Consumers engage in this type of buying behavior due to various reasons, such as a sudden desire or need for a product, emotional state, or attractive sales promotions. Impulse buying is often associated with low-priced products or readily available services, such as snacks, magazines, or cosmetics. However, it can also occur with high-priced items like electronics or luxury goods. Retailers often use various marketing techniques, such as product placement or in-store displays, to encourage impulse buying and increase sales.

Advertising and Persuasion:

Advertising significantly shapes consumer behavior. Businesses use this powerful tool to influence consumer preferences and promote their products or services.

Advertising and other marketing forms use various strategies to persuade consumers to make purchases, including emotional appeals, fear appeals, humor, and celebrity endorsements.

One of the most critical aspects of advertising is creating a solid brand identity. A brand represents the personality and values of a company, and it helps consumers identify with a particular product or service.

Effective branding and advertising can create a sense of trust and loyalty in consumers, increasing sales and revenue for the company.

Advertisements also shape consumer attitudes and perceptions about products and services.

By highlighting the benefits and features of a particular product, advertising can create a positive perception in the minds of consumers. This can lead to increased demand for the product and a competitive advantage over other brands.

Additionally, advertising can create a sense of urgency or FOMO (fear of missing out) in consumers, encouraging them to purchase quickly. This is often done through limited-time offers, sales, or discounts. By creating a sense of urgency, advertising can help drive sales and increase revenue.

Advertising and marketing play a significant role in shaping consumer behavior. Businesses can influence consumer decision-making and drive sales by creating strong brand identities, shaping consumer attitudes and perceptions, and creating a sense of urgency.

The Role of Social Media:

Social media has become a powerful tool in shaping consumer behavior. With the rise of social media platforms, businesses have gained new opportunities to connect with their customers and potential customers.

Social media platforms allow businesses to target specific audiences with personalized messages, making reaching their target market easier. For example, a business selling fitness equipment can target people interested in fitness and health-related topics on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Include TikTok likes in your list to reach out to audiences. Increase your TikTok follower count and request them to share your content on their profiles.

Social media also allows customers to share their experiences with products and services, whether positive or negative. These reviews and comments can influence the purchasing decisions of others considering the same product or service.

In addition, social media influencers have become a popular way for businesses to promote their products. Influencers are people who have a large following on social media and can impact the opinions and behaviors of their followers. Businesses can reach a wider audience and potentially increase sales by partnering with influencers.

Overall, social media significantly impacts consumer behavior, and businesses should use it to connect with their customers and promote their products or services.

Branding and Brand Loyalty:

Branding is essential to a business marketing strategy. The brand represents the company’s identity and helps create a loyal customer base. A strong brand can influence consumer behavior in many ways, including creating brand loyalty.

Brand loyalty is when customers repeatedly purchase products from a particular brand due to their positive experiences with the brand. Brand loyalty results from consistently delivering quality products or services, excellent customer service, and positive customer experiences.

Effective branding can create a unique identity for a business, differentiate it from its competitors, and create a strong emotional connection with customers. Businesses can achieve this by developing a brand that aligns with their target audience’s values, needs, and interests. This emotional connection leads to brand loyalty, where customers become committed to the brand and often choose its products over its competitors.

Brand loyalty can also be influenced by brand extensions, where a company expands its product line to include related products. This strategy can reinforce brand loyalty by offering customers more choices within the brand they already trust.

Branding plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining a loyal customer base. By developing a strong brand that resonates with customers, businesses can influence consumer behavior and create lasting relationships with their customers.

The Power of Endorsements and Influencers:

Celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing are powerful tools businesses use to persuade consumers to buy their products or services. When a celebrity or influencer endorses a product, it can greatly influence consumer behavior.

Celebrities and influencers often have a large following on social media, and their fans tend to trust and admire them. Endorsing a product can create a sense of credibility and trust in the product or service, leading followers to consider buying it.

Influencers also use their platforms to create engaging content that showcases the product or service in a relatable and appealing way. This content can range from product reviews to tutorials, influencing consumer behavior and leading to more purchases.

In addition to social media, celebrities and influencers are often featured in traditional advertising campaigns, such as print ads or television commercials. This exposure can also influence consumer behavior and create a sense of trust and credibility in the brand.

Celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing can be effective strategies for businesses to increase brand awareness, build consumer trust, and drive sales.

Online shopping trends:

The rise of e-commerce has revolutionized how consumers shop and have significantly impacted consumer behavior. Online shopping has made it easier and more convenient for consumers to browse and purchase products anywhere and anytime. This has led to several changes in consumer behavior, including

Increased price sensitivity: With easy access to online shopping, consumers can quickly compare prices from multiple retailers and choose the most cost-effective option. As a result, many consumers have become more price-sensitive and are more likely to search for the best deals before purchasing.

Greater product variety:

E-commerce platforms offer a wide range of products, from niche items to popular brands, which has led to greater product variety and selection for consumers.

Convenience and speed:

Online shopping allows consumers to shop anytime and from any location, eliminating the need to visit a store physically. Additionally, many e-commerce platforms offer fast and convenient delivery options, making it easy for consumers to receive their purchases quickly.

Increased trust in online reviews:

Many consumers rely on reviews and ratings to make informed purchase decisions. This has led to a greater emphasis on transparency and authenticity in product reviews and has given rise to the importance of influencer marketing and user-generated content.

Mobile Commerce:

Mobile commerce, or m-commerce, has revolutionized how consumers purchase. With the rise of smartphones and mobile apps, consumers can now shop anywhere and anytime. This has led to a significant shift in consumer behavior, as more and more people prefer to shop using their mobile devices.

One of the main benefits of m-commerce is convenience. Consumers no longer have to visit physical stores to purchase; they can use their mobile devices to order products online. This has made shopping more accessible and efficient for consumers and has contributed to the growth of e-commerce.

Another critical aspect of m-commerce is mobile payments. Many consumers now use mobile payment services such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet to make purchases, eliminating the need for cash or credit cards. This has made the checkout process faster and more streamlined, increasing online transactions’ security.

Mobile devices have also enabled retailers to provide personalized shopping experiences for their customers. Using data analytics and location-based technology, retailers can send targeted promotions and offers to consumers based on their preferences and location. This has helped to increase customer engagement and loyalty.

Overall, the rise of e-commerce has significantly impacted consumer behavior and fundamentally changed the way we shop. As technology evolves, m-commerce will likely play an increasingly important role in retail.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR):

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have revolutionized the shopping experience by enabling consumers to visualize products more effectively. AR allows customers to view products in their real-world surroundings through their mobile devices. At the same time, VR offers a more simulated experience, allowing customers to interact virtually with products and environments.

These technologies can increase customer engagement, reduce product returns, and provide a more personalized shopping experience. They also provide retailers with valuable data on customer behavior and preferences. As AR and VR continue to advance, they are expected to significantly impact the future of consumer behavior and the retail industry.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Personalization:

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly prevalent in the retail industry, with many companies leveraging it to provide a personalized shopping experience for consumers. AI can make personalized product recommendations and create customized marketing messages tailored to each consumer by analyzing past purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographic information. This level of personalization can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty and drive sales for retailers.

AI is also being used to improve the efficiency of online shopping, with features such as chatbots and virtual assistants helping customers navigate the buying process and answer their questions.

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior:

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior studies how culture influences consumer behavior across cultures and societies. Culture significantly shapes people’s values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors towards products and services. As such, companies operating in multiple countries or with a diverse customer base must consider the cultural differences of their target audience and adapt their marketing strategies accordingly.

For example, in some cultures, bargaining is an essential part of the purchasing process, while it is considered inappropriate in others. Similarly, the concept of time varies among cultures, with some cultures placing a high value on punctuality while others prioritize flexibility and social relationships.

Moreover, cultural differences can also impact the interpretation and perception of marketing messages, leading to potential misunderstandings or offensive content. Therefore, companies need to conduct thorough research on their target audience’s cultural norms and values to create effective and culturally sensitive marketing campaigns.

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory:

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory is a framework for understanding how culture influences behavior. Developed by social psychologist Geert Hofstede, the theory identifies six cultural dimensions that can help explain differences in consumer behavior across different cultures:

Power Distance: This dimension refers to the degree to which people in a culture accept and expect power to be distributed unequally. In cultures with high power distance, there is a strong hierarchy; people in positions of authority are respected, and deference is expected. There is a more egalitarian approach in cultures with low power distance; people expect to be treated fairly regardless of their position.

Individualism vs. Collectivism: This dimension describes how people in a culture prioritize individual vs. group needs. In individualistic cultures, people tend to be more independent and prioritize personal goals and achievements. In collectivistic cultures, people tend to value the needs and goals of the group or community over individual desires.

Masculinity vs. Femininity: This dimension refers to the degree to which a culture values stereotypically masculine or feminine traits. Cultures that score high on masculinity tend to value competition, assertiveness, and success. Cultures that score high on femininity value cooperation, caring for others, and quality of life.

Uncertainty Avoidance: This dimension describes how a culture is comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. People prefer structure, rules, and predictability in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance. In cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, people tend to be more open to change and uncertainty.

Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation: This dimension describes the degree to which a culture values long-term vs. short-term thinking and planning. In cultures with a long-term orientation, people prioritize values such as perseverance, thrift, and respect for tradition. People tend to value immediate rewards and results in cultures with a short-term orientation.

Indulgence vs. Restraint: This dimension refers to the degree to which a culture values indulgence and pleasure-seeking vs. restraint and self-control. Cultures that score high on indulgence tend to prioritize enjoyment and fun, while cultures that score high on restraint value self-discipline and responsibility.

Understanding these cultural dimensions can help businesses tailor their marketing and advertising strategies to better resonate with consumers in different cultures.

Localizing Marketing Campaigns:

Localizing marketing campaigns refer to adapting marketing strategies and messages to specific cultures and markets. This involves considering cultural norms, values, and beliefs to create marketing messages that resonate with the local audience.

Brands that successfully localize their marketing campaigns can build stronger connections with consumers, increase brand awareness, and drive sales.

Brands can localize their marketing efforts by translating content into local languages, using local celebrities or influencers in advertising, and incorporating local customs and traditions into campaigns.

However, it’s important to note that localization is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Each market and culture is unique, and brands must conduct thorough research and analysis to create effective localized campaigns.

Qualitative Research Methods:

Qualitative Research Methods: Focus Groups, Interviews, and Observational Research

Qualitative research methods collect non-numerical data to gain insights into consumer behavior. These methods are used to understand consumer attitudes, opinions, and beliefs.

Focus Groups:

Focus groups are small group discussions led by a moderator. Participants are chosen based on their demographics or buying behavior and are asked questions about their attitudes toward products, brands, or marketing messages. Focus groups provide rich qualitative data, allowing marketers to understand the motivations behind consumer behavior better.

Interviews:

Interviews are one-on-one conversations between a researcher and a consumer. Like focus groups, interviews can provide deep insights into consumer attitudes and behaviors. Interviews can be conducted in person, over the phone, or through video conferencing.

Observational Research:

Observational research involves observing consumers in their natural environment without intervening. This method is useful for understanding how consumers behave in real-life situations rather than how they say they behave in a survey or focus group. Observational research can be conducted in person or through video recordings.

Qualitative research methods can provide valuable insights into consumer behavior, but they have limitations. These methods are time-consuming and expensive, and the results may not be generalizable to the broader population. Therefore, quantitative research methods are often necessary to confirm qualitative research findings.

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Quantitative Research Methods:

Quantitative research methods gather numerical data and measure consumer behavior on a large scale. Surveys and experiments are two commonly used quantitative research methods in consumer behavior research.

Surveys involve collecting data from a large sample size using standardized questionnaires. Surveys can be conducted through various methods such as phone calls, mail, or online. Surveys can help researchers gather data on consumer preferences, behavior, and attitudes toward products or services.

Experiments involve manipulating one or more variables to measure the impact on consumer behavior. These experiments can be conducted in a controlled environment or real-life situations. For example, a company may test different pricing strategies in certain stores to see how it impacts consumer behavior.

Qualitative and quantitative research methods are essential in understanding consumer behavior and developing effective marketing strategies.

Observational Research:

Observational research involves observing and analyzing consumer behavior in a natural or controlled environment.

This method can gain insights into how consumers interact with products, make purchase decisions, and behave in different situations. Observational research can be conducted in various settings, such as stores, online, or in people’s homes.

Observational research is particularly useful in situations where consumers may not be able to articulate their behavior or attitudes or when they may be influenced by social desirability bias in their responses. By observing consumers in a natural or controlled environment, researchers can gather more objective data on their behavior and make more accurate predictions about their future actions. However, it can be difficult to draw definitive conclusions from observational research alone, as it may not provide insights into the underlying reasons for consumer behavior.

Neuromarketing:

Neuromarketing is a relatively new field that seeks to understand how consumers’ brains respond to marketing stimuli. It combines neuroscience with marketing research to identify what consumers truly want and how they respond to marketing messages.

Using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and eye-tracking, neuromarketing can measure consumers’ subconscious reactions to marketing stimuli, including ads, product packaging, and even store layout. This allows companies to create more effective marketing campaigns and improve customer experience.

While there is still some controversy around the ethics of using neuromarketing to influence consumer behavior, it is becoming increasingly popular among companies looking to gain a deeper understanding of their customers and stay ahead of the competition.

Marketing Ethics:

Ethical considerations are crucial when marketing and advertising to consumers. Unethical marketing practices can negatively affect both the brand and the consumer.

Some ethical considerations businesses should consider:

Marketers should be honest in advertising and not make false claims about their products or services. Misleading advertisements can harm the consumer and damage the brand’s reputation.

Transparency:

Marketers should be transparent about their products or services, including their features, benefits, and limitations. This helps consumers make informed decisions and builds trust with the brand.

Marketers should respect consumers’ privacy and not use their personal information without their consent. This includes not sharing or selling consumer data to third parties.

Social Responsibility:

Marketers should consider the impact of their advertising on society and ensure that their messages do not promote harmful behaviors or stereotypes.

Sustainability:

Marketers should consider the environmental impact of their products or services and promote sustainable practices.

Marketers should treat all consumers fairly and not discriminate based on race, gender, or socioeconomic status.

Regulation:

Marketers should comply with all applicable laws and regulations related to advertising and marketing.

By incorporating these ethical considerations into their marketing practices, businesses can protect the consumer, enhance their brand reputation, and build a loyal customer base.

Deceptive Advertising:

Deceptive advertising is intentionally or unintentionally misleading, false, or deceptive advertising. This is a serious ethical issue as it can harm consumers and damage a company’s reputation. To avoid deceptive advertising, companies should ensure their claims are truthful, accurate, and not likely to mislead consumers.

Here are some ways to avoid deceptive advertising:

Be truthful:

Advertisements should not make false claims or exaggerate a product’s or service’s benefits.

Disclose important information:

Companies should provide accurate information about their products or services, including risks or limitations.

Use clear and understandable language:

Advertisements should use language that is easy for consumers to understand, avoiding complex or technical terms.

Avoid stereotypes and discrimination:

Advertisements should not use stereotypes or discriminatory language that may offend or alienate certain groups.

Respect consumer privacy:

Companies should respect consumers’ privacy by obtaining consent before using their personal information for marketing purposes.

Comply with regulations:

Companies should comply with advertising regulations and laws related to false advertising, unfair competition, and privacy.

By following these ethical principles, companies can build a reputation for honesty and integrity, leading to greater consumer trust and loyalty.

The Dark Side of Consumer Behavior:

Consumer behavior can negatively affect individuals and society through addiction, materialism, and environmental harm. To mitigate these adverse effects, companies and policymakers can take several steps:

Promote responsible consumption: Encourage consumers to make responsible choices and sustainably use products and services.

Promote education:

Educate consumers about the impacts of their choices and behaviors and how they can make more informed and responsible decisions.

Regulate marketing practices:

Governments can regulate marketing practices to prevent deceptive or harmful advertising and ensure that companies are transparent about their products and services’ environmental and social impacts.

Encourage ethical practices:

Companies should prioritize ethical practices and transparency in their operations, including supply chains, environmental impact, and labor practices.

Encourage conscious capitalism:

Businesses can embrace conscious capitalism, prioritizing business decisions’ social and environmental impacts alongside financial gains.

By taking these steps, companies and policymakers can help mitigate the adverse effects of consumer behavior and promote a more responsible and sustainable approach to consumption.

Consumer behavior studies how and why consumers make purchasing decisions.

Factors that affect consumer behavior include personal, psychological, social, and situational factors.

The consumer decision-making process includes problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post-purchase evaluation.

Types of buying decisions include habitual buying behavior, limited decision-making, extensive decision-making, and impulse buying.

Marketing and advertising, technology, and culture all influence consumer behavior.

Research methods for studying consumer behavior include qualitative and quantitative methods and neuromarketing.

Ethical considerations in consumer behavior include avoiding deceptive advertising and mitigating negative effects.

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Buying behavior: What it is + Complete Guide

Understanding consumer behavior is important for marketing and commercial success. Understanding buying behavior is critical whether you are a business owner, marketer, or simply someone interested in human psychology.

In this blog, we’ll get into the details of buying behavior, why it matters, and how you can use this information to improve your marketing tactics.

Let’s go on an adventure to discover the wonders of consumer decision-making!

Content Index

What is buying behavior?

Importance of Buying Behavior

Four types of buying behavior

Factors affecting buying behavior, five stages of consumer behavior.

Buying behavior is the series of actions and interactions a consumer performs before, during, and after a commercial transaction. Experts usually study this process in market research and business owners to detect areas of opportunity that allow them to improve their processes and how they market their products or services.

Consumers usually develop well-defined customer behavior patterns that, when analyzed, yield highly valuable insights that allow decision-making based on data.

Importance of buying behavior

Marketing campaigns have a large impact on purchasing decisions. Decoding consumer buying behavior and building products based on it will guarantee successful products and services in any industry.

Buying behavior defined:

How a person thinks while choosing a product.
What is influencing people?
How do their friends and family influence the decision?
Reason for discarding a particular product.

And if a product maker knows the above, they can easily figure out the trick to sell their product.

Four buying behaviors are common while making purchases. These purchase behavior patterns depend on brand or product differences and involvement. Let’s take a closer look at each one:

1. Extended decision-making.

It is also called complex buying behavior. This buying behavior can be observed for expensive products, which involve high investment and a group of people. It involves in-depth research as the customer won’t buy these kinds of high-end products daily, and high monetary risk is involved.

2. Limited decision-making.

Limited decision-making is buyer decision-making that is used when purchasing products that require a moderate amount of time and effort, where the buyer compares models and brands before making a final choice for the purchase decision.

3. Habitual buying behavior.

Habitual buying is the buying behavior of buyers/consumers where they make repeat purchases several times of an already known brand without the process of high involvement and decision. The product here is perceived as a commodity and doesn’t provide much difference from its rivals or competitors.

4. Variety-seeking buying behavior.

Variety-seeking or variety-seeking buying behavior is when a buyer desires to search for an alternative product even if the buyer is satisfied with a current product. In this case, the cost of switching products is mostly low, so the consumer may perhaps simply move from one brand to another.

Several factors affect purchase decisions. Businesses must understand these characteristics to create efficient marketing strategies and meet target audience needs. Key buying factors include:

Psychological factors.

This is one of the major influences on customer buying behavior. These factors are powerful enough to influence a buying decision for a buyer but are very difficult to measure.

Factors like motivation to buy a product, perception of the other people towards the product, learning about the product (pros and cons), Attitudes and beliefs of previous consumers and other people also have an impact on influencing a buying decision

Social factors.

We are social beings, and we live around many people and influence each other’s buying behavior. We try to imitate other people and wish to be socially accepted. Hence their buying behavior gets influenced by other people around them. Family, reference groups, roles, status, etc., are some factors that influence buying behavior.

Cultural factors.

We are associated with a set of values and ideologies that belong to a particular community. Whenever a person comes from a particular community, his/her behavior is highly influenced by the culture relating to that particular community, influencing the buying behavior. Culture, subcultures, castes, religion, and other factors influence buying behavior culturally.

Personal factors.

Factors that are personal to the buyers influence their buying behavior. These personal factors always differ from person to person, thereby producing different perceptions and consumer behavior. Some factors that influence buying behavior are age, personal beliefs, income, lifestyle, etc.

Consumer behavior can be explained by a five-step model that shows how people make decisions about what to buy and in what order. Let’s examine each step:

Stage 1: Problem recognition.

The buying behavior starts with the buyer having requirements with the product/service and with the problems they had with the previous product/service, which was either offered to them or bought by them. This is visible or obvious in several ways from the PV of a seller.

For example:

In some cases, the buyer might not know the product/service they are looking for or are unsure of the requirements they want in the product/service.

In some cases, the buyer knows what they are looking for in the product/service and are well prepared with the requirements they want to have in the product/service.

Ask yourself these questions to understand buying behavior:

What scenarios or incidents will push people to look for your offerings?
What are the different ways to create a demand for your products?
How do you get people to realize a need you can fulfill?

Stage 2: Information gathering.

This might seem simple at first, but as soon as any potential buyer realizes they have a problem/issue with the service/product they use, the number one tool they turn to is Google.

This is where the brand comes in, targeting the buyers through SEO and ensuring the brand come into the sight of the right buyers whenever they google their problems/issues with a product.

For example:

For an office worker whose computer is slowing down, in this scenario, the office worker will most likely reach his colleagues. If the issue is not resolved, he will revert to Google to find different ways to get the issue resolved.

Stage 3: Evaluating solutions.

After researching, buyers typically shortlist brands or products for their needs. At this stage, the buyers look at specific solutions to their problems regarding the product they seek.

The objective here is to position your product as the best choice for the shopper. One of the best ways is to allow the consumers to ask questions through Q&A or FAQ on the brands’ website.

Someone dealing with a slow computer would decide whether to hire an IT expert, purchase software or buy a new one.

Stage 4: Purchase phase.

All the efforts have led buyers to choose your brand at the purchase phase of the customer journey. It is where the buyer is ready to get the credit card and buy the product.

It’s an excellent position, but don’t get in a hurry or be too happy.

You can still lose the prospect if you don’t offer them a smooth checkout experience. Always strive to make the process as quick and painless as possible for the buyer or consumer.

Stage 5: The Post-purchase phase.

Congratulations! You have now converted a looker into a buyer who is now a customer. Now is the time to gather feedback regarding the customer’s onboarding experience and their experience with the product and services offered, and ask them to leave a review and rating on the Google platform.

This will help increase incoming traffic and help in optimizing SEO. The more the lookers, the more the chances of converting them into a buyer! Online surveys are the most efficient method of conducting buyer behavior studies.

You can create a survey using survey software and send it to your target audience. You can also customize the survey flow to ask only relevant questions to respondents.

LEARN ABOUT: Consumer Decision Journey

Buying behavior is a complicated and multifaceted component of customer psychology critical to creating marketing strategies.

Businesses can obtain a competitive advantage and long-term customer connections by diving into the psychological, social, personal, and situational elements influencing consumer decision-making. With this complete guide, you now know how to handle the complicated world of purchasing behavior and use its power to make your business successful.

QuestionPro CX can help you learn more about your potential customers and conduct research studies. Connect with us if you need help designing a survey and collecting data. We’d be happy to help!

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The consumer’s mood, social context, time, and purchase purpose affect their buying behavior. Your personality describes how other people see you. Market researchers believe people buy things to improve their self-esteem.

Customer behavior prediction has many methods. Primary or secondary research methods include internet actions, feedback analysis, focus groups, conversational marketing, and more.

When making a purchase, a buyer is surrounded by four important factors: the goods, the price, the promotion, and the sales channel.

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OPINION article

Factors affecting impulse buying behavior of consumers.

$\nRosa Isabel Rodrigues$

Instituto Superior de Gestão, Lisbon, Portugal

In recent years, the study of consumer behavior has been marked by significant changes, mainly in decision-making process and consequently in the influences of purchase intention ( Stankevich, 2017 ).

The markets are different and characterized by an increased competition, as well a constant innovation in products and services available and a greater number of companies in the same market. In this scenario it is essential to know the consumer well ( Varadarajan, 2020 ). It is through the analysis of the factors that have a direct impact on consumer behavior that it is possible to innovate and meet their expectations. This research is essential for marketers to be able to improve their campaigns and reach the target audience more effectively ( Ding et al., 2020 ).

Consumer behavior refers to the activities directly involved in obtaining products /services, so it includes the decision-making processes that precede and succeed these actions. Thus, it appears that the advertising message can cause a certain psychological influence that motivates individuals to desire and, consequently, buy a certain product/service ( Wertenbroch et al., 2020 ).

Studies developed by Meena (2018) show that from a young age one begins to have a preference for one product/service over another, as we are confronted with various commercial stimuli that shape our choices. The sales promotion has become one of the most powerful tools to change the perception of buyers and has a significant impact on their purchase decision ( Khan et al., 2019 ). Advertising has a great capacity to influence and persuade, and even the most innocuous, can cause changes in behavior that affect the consumer's purchase intention. Falebita et al. (2020) consider this influence predominantly positive, as shown by about 84.0% of the total number of articles reviewed in the study developed by these authors.

Kumar et al. (2020) add that psychological factors have a strong implication in the purchase decision, as we easily find people who, after having purchased a product/ service, wonder about the reason why they did it. It is essential to understand the mental triggers behind the purchase decision process, which is why consumer psychology is related to marketing strategies ( Ding et al., 2020 ). It is not uncommon for the two areas to use the same models to explain consumer behavior and the reasons that trigger impulse purchases. Consumers are attracted by advertising and the messages it conveys, which is reflected in their behavior and purchase intentions ( Varadarajan, 2020 ).

Impulse buying has been studied from several perspectives, namely: (i) rational processes; (ii) emotional resources; (iii) the cognitive currents arising from the theory of social judgment; (iv) persuasive communication; (v) and the effects of advertising on consumer behavior ( Malter et al., 2020 ).

The causes of impulsive behavior are triggered by an irresistible force to buy and an inability to evaluate its consequences. Despite being aware of the negative effects of buying, there is an enormous desire to immediately satisfy your most pressing needs ( Meena, 2018 ).

The importance of impulse buying in consumer behavior has been studied since the 1940's, since it represents between 40.0 and 80.0% of all purchases. This type of purchase obeys non-rational reasons that are characterized by the sudden appearance and the (in) satisfaction between the act of buying and the results obtained ( Reisch and Zhao, 2017 ). Aragoncillo and Orús (2018) also refer that a considerable percentage of sales comes from purchases that are not planned and do not correspond to the intended products before entering the store.

According to Burton et al. (2018) , impulse purchases occur when there is a sudden and strong emotional desire, which arises from a reactive behavior that is characterized by low cognitive control. This tendency to buy spontaneously and without reflection can be explained by the immediate gratification it provides to the buyer ( Pradhan et al., 2018 ).

Impulsive shopping in addition to having an emotional content can be triggered by several factors, including: the store environment, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and the emotional state of the consumer at that time ( Gogoi and Shillong, 2020 ). We believe that impulse purchases can be stimulated by an unexpected need, by a visual stimulus, a promotional campaign and/or by the decrease of the cognitive capacity to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of that purchase.

The buying experience increasingly depends on the interaction between the person and the point of sale environment, but it is not just the atmosphere that stimulates the impulsive behavior of the consumer. The sensory and psychological factors associated with the type of products, the knowledge about them and brand loyalty, often end up overlapping the importance attributed to the physical environment ( Platania et al., 2016 ).

The impulse buying causes an emotional lack of control generated by the conflict between the immediate reward and the negative consequences that the purchase can originate, which can trigger compulsive behaviors that can become chronic and pathological ( Pandya and Pandya, 2020 ).

Sohn and Ko (2021) , argue that although all impulse purchases can be considered as unplanned, not all unplanned purchases can be considered impulsive. Unplanned purchases can occur, simply because the consumer needs to purchase a product, but for whatever reason has not been placed on the shopping list in advance. This suggests that unplanned purchases are not necessarily accompanied by the urgent desire that generally characterizes impulse purchases.

The impulse purchases arise from sensory experiences (e.g., store atmosphere, product layout), so purchases made in physical stores tend to be more impulsive than purchases made online. This type of shopping results from the stimulation of the five senses and the internet does not have this capacity, so that online shopping can be less encouraging of impulse purchases than shopping in physical stores ( Moreira et al., 2017 ).

Researches developed by Aragoncillo and Orús (2018) reveal that 40.0% of consumers spend more money than planned, in physical stores compared to 25.0% in online purchases. This situation can be explained by the fact that consumers must wait for the product to be delivered when they buy online and this time interval may make impulse purchases unfeasible.

Following the logic of Platania et al. (2017) we consider that impulse buying takes socially accepted behavior to the extreme, which makes it difficult to distinguish between normal consumption and pathological consumption. As such, we believe that compulsive buying behavior does not depend only on a single variable, but rather on a combination of sociodemographic, emotional, sensory, genetic, psychological, social, and cultural factors. Personality traits also have an important role in impulse buying. Impulsive buyers have low levels of self-esteem, high levels of anxiety, depression and negative mood and a strong tendency to develop obsessive-compulsive disorders. However, it appears that the degree of uncertainty derived from the pandemic that hit the world and the consequent economic crisis, seems to have changed people's behavior toward a more planned and informed consumption ( Sheth, 2020 ).

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Aragoncillo, L., and Orús, C. (2018). Impulse buying behaviour: na online-offline comparative and the impact of social media. Spanish J. Market. 22, 42–62. doi: 10.1108/SJME-03-2018-007

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Kumar, A., Chaudhuri, S., Bhardwaj, A., and Mishra, P. (2020). Impulse buying and post-purchase regret: a study of shopping behavior for the purchase of grocery products. Int. J. Manag. 11, 614–624. Available online at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3786039

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Platania, S., Castellano, S., Santisi, G., and Di Nuovo, S. (2017). Correlati di personalità della tendenza allo shopping compulsivo. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia 64, 137–158.

Pradhan, D., Israel, D., and Jena, A. (2018). Materialism and compulsive buying behaviour: the role of consumer credit card use and impulse buying. Asia Pacific J. Market. Logist. 30,1355–5855. doi: 10.1108/APJML-08-2017-0164

Reisch, L., and Zhao, M. (2017). Behavioural economics, consumer behaviour and consumer policy: state of the art. Behav. Public Policy 1, 190–206. doi: 10.1017/bpp.2017.1

Sheth, J. (2020). Impact of Covid-19 on consumer behavior: will the old habits return or die? J. Bus. Res. 117, 280–283. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.059

Sohn, Y., and Ko, M. (2021). The impact of planned vs. unplanned purchases on subsequent purchase decision making in sequential buying situations. J. Retail. Consumer Servic. 59, 1–7. doi: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102419

Stankevich, A. (2017). Explaining the consumer decision-making process: critical literature review. J. Int. Bus. Res. Market. 2, 7–14. doi: 10.18775/jibrm.1849-8558.2015.26.3001

Varadarajan, R. (2020). Customer information resources advantage, marketing strategy and business performance: a market resources based view. Indus. Market. Manag. 89, 89–97. doi: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.03.003

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Keywords: consumer behavior, purchase intention, impulse purchase, emotional influences, marketing strategies

Citation: Rodrigues RI, Lopes P and Varela M (2021) Factors Affecting Impulse Buying Behavior of Consumers. Front. Psychol. 12:697080. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.697080

Received: 19 April 2021; Accepted: 10 May 2021; Published: 02 June 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Rodrigues, Lopes and Varela. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Rosa Isabel Rodrigues, rosa.rodrigues@isg.pt

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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buyer and buying behaviour

Quick reference.

Buyer and buying behaviour is one of the more fervently studied subjects in marketing. To understand buyer behaviour is the ultimate goal of all marketers. Buyers are crucial in managing the relationship between an organization of the company, the enterprise, and its suppliers. Effective marketing plans and programmes must be based upon a sound and thorough understanding of the buyer, the buyer's behaviour, and the buyer's values. While complete knowledge of buyer behaviour is unattainable, this has not prevented many marketers, academics, and psychologists from attempting to model repeatable buyer behaviour.

Buyers in consumer markets

Philip Kotler (in his book Marketing Management ) identified several types who can play a role in an overall buying decision in a consumer market: • The Initiator who can first suggest the idea of buying a product or service; • The Influencer whose personal authority or knowledge can influence the outcome of the buying decision; • The Decider who eventually decides on whether to buy, what to buy, where to buy from, and how to buy; • The Buyer is the person who actually makes the buying transaction; • The User is the person who actually uses the product or consumes the service.

• The Initiator who can first suggest the idea of buying a product or service;

• The Influencer whose personal authority or knowledge can influence the outcome of the buying decision;

• The Decider who eventually decides on whether to buy, what to buy, where to buy from, and how to buy;

• The Buyer is the person who actually makes the buying transaction;

• The User is the person who actually uses the product or consumes the service.

A marketer, equipped with knowledge of the various roles that people play in the buying process, can shape his marketing programmes around these buyer types. We see, for example, huge effort expended on marketing toys to children during children's television commercial breaks, in the complete knowledge that the child is unlikely to be either the decider or buyer, but is most certainly going to be the initiator, possibly the influencer, through pestering the parent, and certainly the final user.

Kotler also outlined a five-stage model for the buying process: • problem recognition, the first stage of the buyer's decision process in which the consumer recognizes a problem or need. The recognition of the need becomes a drive to satisfy that need. The task for the marketer at this stage is to identify the circumstances and stimuli that trigger that particular need and use this knowledge to develop marketing strategies and plans to develop consumer interest. • information search, the stage of the buyer decision process in which the consumer is aroused to search for more information. The intensity of the information search is partly determined by the level of the consumers' drive to satisfy their need. For example, the consumer may simply have heightened attention or may conduct an intensive information search. The task of the marketer is to decide which major information sources the customer will use at this stage: for example a) personal sources (such as friends, family, neighbours, workmates), who may be the most trusted sources but may not be the most expert; b) commercial sources (such as salespeople, websites, dealers, advertising or marketing information), which may be the most expert sources but not necessarily the most trusted; c) public sources (such as published studies that evaluate various products on behalf of consumers); d) experiential (such as personal use of the product during a demonstration or a trial period); this could be the final stage when the buyer decides to ‘see for himself’. • alternative evaluation, the stage of the buyer decision process in which the consumer searches out and uses information to evaluate alternative brands. It is vital for the marketer to know what attributes are important to the buyer during this stage. In fact it is possible, if the knowledge is deep enough, to segment buyers according to the importance they place on each product or service attribute. Also, some marketers attempt to predict, using statistical probabilities and game theories, what the buyer will actually choose given a set of options and variables. The actions that professional marketers might follow at this stage in the buying process are to obtain as much information directly from potential buyers about what attributes that they value in specific branded products and services. Having analysed the responses, the marketer can: a) modify the existing brand by altering beliefs about the brand ( repositioning ); b) alter beliefs about the competitor's brands ( competitive depositioning ); c) alter the buyers' weighting of attributes by trying to persuade the buyer to attach more importance to the key attributes of their company's brand; d) call attention to attributes that have been neglected, perhaps because of imperfect information or knowledge, or, most difficult of all; e) attempt to shift the buyer's ideas, beliefs, and perceptions of the brand ( psychological repositioning ). • purchase decision, the final stage in the buying process. The purchase decision follows from the evaluation of alternatives stage during which a purchasing intent is made. Between the formation of a purchasing intent and the completion of a purchasing decision the buyer can again change course and make different choices. Another party can influence the buyer, either positively or negatively, and this can result in a changed choice of brand. Unanticipated factors can also occur that did not exist when the purchasing intent was made, such as a change in financial circumstances. Kotler points out that a buyer making a final purchasing decision actually makes five decisions, or sub-decisions: they choose a brand; they choose a retailer or dealer; they make a decision on quantity; then the timing of the purchase; finally the payment method. • post-purchase behaviour, the stage of the process in which the buyer takes further action after purchase based on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their purchase. If they are dissatisfied, they may return the product, complain, or else avoid repurchase; if they are satisfied, or if their initial expectations are exceeded, then they may repeat the purchase, or, in a best case for a marketer, become a living advert for the product and spread the word to their friends and associates. Buyer satisfaction depends upon the alignment of initial expectations and the perceived product or service performance. In some cases the buyer expectation could have been set too high (for example by the salesman ‘overselling’ the product or service). The marketer's role must extend into this period, as it is a crucial determinant of the buyers' repurchase decisions. They ought to be aware of the ways in which buyers express dissatisfaction and be prepared to handle the various ways in which a buyer will demonstrate dissatisfaction. Post-purchase communication with the buyer is vital.

From: buyer and buying behaviour (industrial and consumer) in A Dictionary of Marketing »

Subjects: Social sciences — Business and Management

Consumer Psychology and Behavior

What is consumer psychology.

Science of Consumer Behavior
Role of Consumer Psychologist
Education and Training

Career Options

Are you interested in why and how people buy some products and not others? Have you ever wondered how media messages influence a shopper's buying choices? If so, then you might be interested in the growing field known as consumer psychology.

Consumer psychology is a specialty area that studies how our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions influence how we buy and relate to goods and services. In the United States, widely considered a highly consumerist society, this area of study is particularly relevant.

One formal definition of the field describes it as "the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society."

Consumer psychologists investigate how the decision-making process, social persuasion , and motivation influence why shoppers buy some things but not others.

In this overview of the profession, learn more about what consumer psychologists do and where they work.

The Science of Consumer Behavior

According to the Society for Consumer Psychology, Division 23 of the American Psychological Association , consumer psychology "employs theoretical psychological approaches to understanding consumers."

This field is often considered a subspecialty of industrial-organizational psychology and is also known as the psychology of consumer behavior or the psychology of marketing. Consumer psychologists study a variety of topics including:

How consumers choose businesses, products, and services
The thought processes and emotions behind consumer decisions
How environmental variables such as friends, family, media, and culture influence buying decisions
What motivates people to choose one product over another
How personal factors and individual differences affect people's buying choices
What marketers can do to effectively reach out to their target customers

What Consumer Psychologists Do

So what exactly does a typical consumer psychologist do? These professionals play a critical role not only in helping businesses understand what their customers want and need but also in helping sellers promote and market their products and services to buyers.

Conduct Market Research

Because businesses need to understand their consumers in order to develop products and marketing campaigns that appeal to their target audience, consumer psychologists often spend a great deal of time learning more about what makes shoppers tick. This often involves first figuring out the target audience for a particular product, including the gender, age, and socioeconomic status of the typical shopper.

Next, the consumer psychologist might begin researching the types of products and marketing messages that appeal to these types of buyers.

Develop Marketing Messages

Other consumer psychologists might focus on social marketing, or how ideas and messages spread among groups. Researchers might be interested in getting out information about a product or an important public health message.

Learning how beliefs and attitudes spread among groups can help organizations learn how to better get their message out and encourage word-of-mouth marketing.

Research Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors

Consumer psychologists often conduct research to learn more about buyer behavior. Common research methods used by these professionals include experiments, phone surveys, focus groups, direct observations, and questionnaires.

Chances are good that you have participated in at least one market research survey in your life. These are often conducted by phone, but they may also be done online or through direct mail. In a survey , consumers are often asked to describe their past shopping behavior, factors that influenced their decision-making , and their future buying plans.

Researchers also typically gather details about each respondent's sex, age, race, educational history, and current financial situation. This type of information can be very useful since it allows researchers to look for patterns and learn more about who buys certain products.

For example, using a survey might allow researchers to discover that women between the ages of 30 and 45 who have a household income between $50,000 to $100,000 are most likely to buy a particular product or service. By knowing this, they can then begin designing marketing campaigns aimed at this target audience.

Education and Training Requirements

So what kind of training do you need if you want to be a consumer psychologist? Most entry-level jobs in consumer psychology require at least a bachelor's degree in psychology .

Entry-level jobs with a bachelor's degree typically involve planning, conducting, and interpreting the results of market research campaigns.

Those interested in more advanced positions or in teaching at the university level will need a master's or doctorate degree in an area related to consumer psychology. Such degree options include general psychology, industrial-organizational psychology , marketing, and consumer studies.

If you are interested in becoming a consumer psychologist:

Focus on taking courses that will build your understanding of human behavior, marketing, social psychology , personality, and culture
Take courses in advertising and marketing
Take courses in experimental methods , particularly experimental design and statistics

The career path you ultimately choose will depend a great deal upon your interests and educational background. For example, if you have an interest in conducting theoretical research and teaching, consider earning a doctorate degree so that you can teach courses and perform original research at a university. If you prefer to work in an area like market research, advertising, or sales, a bachelor's degree might be sufficient.

Other job options include acting as a consultant for private businesses or working for government agencies.

In such jobs, consumer psychologists might be asked to perform a wide range of duties, including development marketing campaigns, researching buyer trends, designing social media advertising, or analyzing statistics.

Understanding what makes people buy the things they do is much more than a guessing game. Businesses now employ consumer psychologists to scientifically evaluate their customer's decisions and choices. The next time you look at an advertisement or take a consumer survey, consider the role that consumer psychologists may have played in developing those messages and questionnaires.

Solomon M. Consumer Psychology . Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology . 2004:483-492. doi:10.1016/b0-12-657410-3/00219-1

Society for Consumer Psychology. SCP's culture and values .

Ali AM, Said AM, Salleh MZM. Demographic profile and purchasing pattern of organic cosmetic products . In: Abdullah M, Yahya W, Ramli N, Mohamed S, Ahmad B, eds. Regional Conference on Science, Technology and Social Sciences. Singapore: Springer; 2016. doi:10.1007/978-981-10-1458-1_81

American Psychological Association. Careers in psychology .

Haugtvedt CP, Herr PM, Kardes FR, eds. Handbook of Consumer Psychology. New York: Taylor & Francis Group; 2018.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

A Brief Literature Review on Consumer Buying Behaviour

Introduction

It is worth noting that consumer buying behaviour is studied as a part of the marketing and its main objective it to learn the way how the individuals, groups or organizations choose, buy use and dispose the goods and the factors such as their previous experience, taste, price and branding on which the consumers base their purchasing decisions (Kotler and Keller, 2012).

One of such studies of consumer buying behaviour has been conducted by Acebron et al (2000). The aim of the study was to analyze the impact of previous experience on buying behaviour of fresh foods, particularly mussels. In their studies the authors used structural equation model in order to identify the relationship between the habits and previous experience on the consumer buying decision. Their findings show that personal habits and previous experience on of the consumers have a direct impact on the consumers’ purchase decision in the example of purchasing fresh mussels. They also found that the image of the product has a crucial impact on the purchasing decision of the consumer and further recommended that the product image should continuously be improved in order to encourage the consumers towards purchasing.

Another study conducted by Variawa (2010) analyzed the influence of packaging on consumer decision making process for Fast Moving Consumer Goods. The aim of the research was to analyze the impact of packaging for decision making processes of low-income consumers in retail shopping. A survey method has been used in order to reach the research objectives. In a survey conducted in Star Hyper in the town of Canterville 250 respondents participated. The findings of the research indicate that low-income consumers have more preferences towards premium packaging as this can also be re-used after the product has been consumed. Although the findings indicate that there is a weak relationship between the product packaging and brand experience. However, it has been proven by the findings of the research that low-income consumers have greater brand experience from the purchase of ‘premium’ products when compared to their experience from purchasing ‘cheap’ brand products.

Lee (2005) carried out study to learn the five stages of consumer decision making process in the example of China. The researcher focuses on the facts that affect the consumer decision making process on purchasing imported health food products, in particular demographic effects such as gender, education, income and marital status. The author employed questionnaire method in order to reach the objectives of the research. Analysis of five stages of consumer decision making process indicate that impact of family members on the consumer decision making process of purchasing imported health food products was significant.

The author further explains this by the fact Chinese tradition of taking care of young and old family members have long been developed and marriage is considered to be extremely important in Chinese tradition. This reflects in the findings of the study that the purchase of imported health food products made by a person for the people outside the family is declined significantly by both male and female Chinese after they get married.

Five Stages Model of consumer decision making process has also been studied by a number of other researchers. Although different researchers offer various tendencies towards the definitions of five stages, all of them have common views as they describe the stages in similar ways. One of the common models of consumer decision making process has been offered by Blackwell et al (2006). According to him, the five stages of consumer decision making process are followings: problem/need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision made and post-purchase evaluation.

Each stage is then defined by a number of researchers varying slightly but leading to a common view about what each stage involves. For example, according to Bruner (1993) first stage, need recognition occurs when an individual recognizes the difference between what they have and what they want/need to have. This view is also supported by Neal and Questel (2006) stating that need recognition occurs due to several factors and circumstances such as personal, professional and lifestyle which in turn lead to formation of idea of purchasing.

In the next stage, consumer searches information related to desired product or service (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007). Information search process can be internal and external. While internal search refers to the process where consumers rely on their personal experiences and believes, external search involves wide search of information which includes addressing the media and advertising or feedbacks from other people (Rose and Samouel, 2009).

Once the relevant information about the product or service is obtained the next stage involves analyzing the alternatives. Kotler and Keller (2005) consider this stage as one of the important stages as the consumer considers all the types and alternatives taking into account the factors such as size, quality and also price.

Backhaus et al (2007) suggested that purchase decision is one of the important stages as this stage refers to occurrence of transaction. In other words, once the consumer recognized the need, searched for relevant information and considered the alternatives he/she makes decision whether or not to make the decision. Purchasing decision can further be divided into planned purchase, partially purchase or impulse purchase as stated by Kacen (2002) which will be discussed further in detail in the next chapters.

Finally, post-purchase decision involves experience of the consumer about their purchase. Although the importance of this stage is not highlighted by many authors Neal et al (2004) argues that this is perhaps one of the most important stages in the consumer decision making process as it directly affects the consumers’ purchases of the same product or service from the same supplier in the future.

The most noteworthy writers that serve as academic advocates of The Five Stage Model of consumer decision making include Tyagi (2004), Kahle and Close (2006) Blackwell et al. (2006), and others.

It is important to note that The Five Stage Model is not the only model related to consumer decision-making, and there are also a range of competing models that include Stimulus-Organism-Response Model of Decision Making developed by Hebb in 1950’s, Prescriptive Cognitive Models, The Theory of Trying (Bagozzi and Warsaw, 1990), Model of Goal Directed Behaviour (Perugini and Bagozzi, 2001) and others. All of these models are analysed in great detail in Literature Review chapter of this work.

Factors Impacting Consumer Buyer Behaviour

It has been established that the consumer buying behaviour is the outcome of the needs and wants of the consumer and they purchase to satisfy these needs and wants. Although it sounds simple and clear, these needs can be various depending on the personal factors such as age, psychology and personality. Also there are some other external factors which are broad and beyond the control of the consumer.

A number of researches have been carried out by academics and scholars on identifying and analyzing those factors affecting the consumers’ buying behaviour and as a result, various types of factors have been identified. These factors have been classified into different types and categories in different ways by different authors. For instance, Wiedermann et al (2007) classified them into internal and external factor. On the other hand, Winer (2009) divided them into social, personal and psychological factors. Despite the fact that they have been classified into different groups by different authors they are similar in scope and purpose (Rao, 2007).

There is a wide range of factors that can affect consumer behaviour in different ways. These factors are divided by Hoyer et al. (2012) into four broad categories: situational, personal, social and cultural factors.

Situational factors impacting consumer behaviour may include location, environment, timing and even weather conditions (Hoyer et al., 2012). In order to benefit from situational factors major retailers attempt to construct environment and situations in stores that motivate perspective customers to make purchase decision. Range of available tools to achieve such an outcome include playing relaxing music in stores, producing refreshing smells in stores and placing bread and milk products in supermarkets towards the opposite end of stores to facilitate movement of customers throughout the store to make additional purchases etc.

The temporary nature of situational factors is rightly stressed by Batra and Kazmi (2008).

Personal factors, on the other hand, include taste preferences, personal financial circumstances and related factors. The impact of personal factors on consumer decision-making is usually addressed by businesses during market segmentation, targeting and positioning practices by grouping individuals on the basis of their personal circumstances along with other criteria, and developing products and services that accommodate these circumstances in the most effective manner.

According to Hoyer et al. (2012) social factors impacting consumer behaviour arise as a result of interactions of perspective consumers with others in various levels and circumstances. Targeting members of society perceived as opinion leaders usually proves effective strategy when marketing products and services due to the potential of opinion leaders to influence behaviour of other members of society as consumers.

Lastly, cultural factors affecting consumer behaviour are related to cross-cultural differences amongst consumers on local and global scales. Culture can be defined as “the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2015) and the tendency of globalisation has made it compulsory for cross-cultural differences amongst consumers to be taken into account when formulating and communicating marketing messages.

Marketing mix and consumer behaviour

Marketing mix or 4Ps of marketing is one of the major concepts in the field of marketing and each individual element of marketing mix can be adopted as an instrument in order to affect consumer behaviour.

Importance of the marketing mix can be explained in a way that “successful marketing depends on customers being aware of the products or services on offer, finding them available in favourably judging that practitioners of the offering in terms of both price and performance” (Meldrum and McDonald, 2007, p.4).

Core elements of marketing mix consist of product, price, place and promotion. Marketing mix has been expanded to comprise additional 3Ps as processes, people and physical evidence.

Product element of marketing mix relates to products and services that are offered to customers to be purchased. Products can have three levels: core, actual and supporting products. For example, core product in relation to mobile phones can be explained as the possibility to communicate with other people in distance. Actual product, on the other hand, relates to specific brand and model of a mobile phone, whereas augmented product may relate to product insurance and one-year warranty associated with the purchase of a mobile phone.

Price represents another critically important element of marketing and four major types of pricing strategies consist of economy, penetration, skimming, and premium pricing strategies (East et al., 2013).

Place element of marketing mix relates to point of distribution and sales of products and services. Advent of online sales channel has changed the role of place element of marketing mix to a considerable extent.

Promotion element of marketing mix refers to any combination of promotion mix integrating various elements of advertising, public relations, personal selling and sales promotions to varying extents (Kotler, 2012).

Processes, on the other hand, refer to business procedures and policies related to products and services. For example, integration of a greater range of payment systems such as PayPal, SAGE Pay and Visa in online sales procedures may have positive implications on the volume of sales by creating payment convenience to customers.

People element of marketing mix is primarily related to skills and competencies of the workforce responsible for customer service aspect of the business. Importance of people element of marketing mix in general, and providing personalised customer services in particular is greater today than ever before.

Physical evidence relates to visual tangible aspects of a brand and its products. For instance, for a large supermarket chain such as Sainsbury’s physical evidence is associated with design and layout of a store, quality of baskets and trolleys, layout of shelves within the store etc.

It can be forecasted that further intensification of competition in global markets and more intensive search of businesses for additional bases for competitive advantage may result in emergence of additional ‘P’s to compliment the framework of marketing mix in the future.

Bagozzi, R. & Warsaw, L. (1990) “Trying to Consumer” Journal of Consumer Research 17, (2) pp. 127 – 140.

Backhaus, K. Hillig, T. and Wilken, R. (2007) “Predicting purchase decision with different conjoint analysis methods”, International Journal of Market Research . 49(3). Pp. 341-364.

Batra, S.K. & Kazmi, S. (2008) “Consumer Behaviour” 2 nd edition, EXCEL Books

Blackwell, R., Miniard, P. and Engel, J. (2006) “Consumer behavior”, Mason: Thompson

Culture (2015) Oxford Dictionaries, Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/culture

East, R., Wright, M. & Vanhuele, M. (2013) “Consumer Behaviour: Applications in Marketing” 2 nd edition, SAGE

Hoyer, W.D. & Macinnis, D.J. (2008) “Consumer Behaviour”, 5 th edition, Cengage Learning

Hoyer, W.D., Macinnis, D.J. & Pieters, R. (2012) “Consumer Behaviour” 6 th edition

Kacen. J. J. and Lee. J. A., (2002) “The influence of culture on consumer impulsive buying behaviour”, Journal of consumer psychology. 12(2), pp. 163-174.

Kahle L.R. and Close, A. (2006) “Consumer Behaviour Knowledge for Effective Sports and Event Marketing”, Taylor & Francis, New York, USA

Kotler, P. (2012) “Kotler on Marketing” The Free Press

Meldrum, M. & McDonald, M. (2007) “Marketing in a Nutshell: Key Concepts for Non-Specialists” Butterworth-Heinemann

Neal, C., Quester, P. and Pettigrew, S. (2006) “Consumer Behaviour: Implications for Marketing Strategy” (5 th edition) Berkshire: McGraw-Hill

Perugini, M. & Bagozzi, R. (2001) “The role of desires and anticipated emotions in goal-directed behaviours: Broadening and deepening the theory of planned behaviour” British Journal of Social Psychology , 40, pp. 79-98.

Rao, K. (2007) “Services Marketing”, New Delhi: Pearson Education

Rose, S. and Samouel, P., (2009) “Internal psychological versus external market-driven determinants of the amount of consumer information search amongst online shopper”, Journal of Marketing Management . 25(1/2), pp. 171-190

Schiffman, L., Hansen H. and Kanuk L. (2007) “Consumer Behaviour: A European Outlook”, London: Pearson Education

Stallworth, P. (2008) “Consumer behaviour and marketing strategic”, online, pp.9.

Tyagi, C. and Kumar, A. (2004) “Consumer Behaviour”, Atlantic Publishers, US

Wiedmann, K., Hennigs, N. and Siebels, A. (2007) “Measuring Luxury consumer perception: A cross-culture framework”, Academy of Marketing Science review , 2007(7)

Winer, R. (2009), “New Communications Approaches in Marketing: Issues and Research Directions,” Journal of Interactive Marketing , 23 (2), 108–17

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What is Buyer Behavior: definition, types, patterns, and analysis

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What is Buyer Behavior?

Complex buying behavior

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior, purchase behavior that is habitual, behavior that seeks variety, buying location, purchased products, purchase frequency and timing, purchase method, making use of computer software, examining customer feedback, conducting online polls, how can graphy help you scale your online course business.

In this blog, you will learn about buyer behavior including its types, patterns, and its analysis.

Are you a creator trying to understand your buyer’s behavior? No matter what line of business you are in, it is imperative to understand the buyer’s behavior. Don’t you feel that if you know what your buyer is looking for, you can shoot up your online course business 10x faster?

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Well, you must be thinking that it’s a must-to-know thing, but you may be struggling a bit to comprehend it. If you are one who wants to know about it, then you are at the right place, just like the other 40000+ creators.

So without any further delay, let’s understand the definition of buyer behavior along with their types, patterns, and analysis.

Table of Contents

Buyer behavior refers to the decisions and actions people take when purchasing products or services for personal or collective use. It is synonymous with the word “consumer’s buying behavior,” which often refers to individual customers rather than businesses.

Any marketing strategy is propelled forward by buyer behavior. Knowing the following is the number one priority for businesses skimming to enhance their business plan and acquire more customers.

Why and how do people try to buy this or that product, or
Why are they so patriotic toward one brand?

Types of buyer behavior

Buyer behavior is always ascertained by how invested a client is in their purchase decision and how volatile it is. The higher the price of the product, the greater the risk, and the greater the customer’s involvement in purchasing decisions. Four different types of consumer buyer behavior are classified depending on these factors:

Now that we know the types of buyer behavior, let’s understand them a bit step-by-step.

This method is also known as extensive. Because of economic or psychological risk, the customer is deeply engaged in the purchasing process and conducts extensive research prior to purchase.

Buying expensive products or services, such as a house, a car, or an education course, is an example of this sort of purchasing behavior.

This type, like complex buying behavior, requires a high level of engagement in the purchasing process due to the high cost or occasional purchase. People have difficulty choosing between brands because they are afraid of regretting their decision later (thus the term “dissonance”).

They typically purchase items based on convenience or availability of funds without conducting extensive research.

The purchase of a waffle maker is an instance of dissonance-reducing purchasing behavior. In this situation, a customer will not give much thought to which model to use, instead selecting from a few brands available.

This category of consumer purchasing behavior is distinguished by a lack of participation in the purchase decision. A client sees no discernible difference between brands and purchases habitual goods over time.

Purchasing everyday items is an illustration of habitual purchasing behavior.

In this circumstance, a customer switches brands for a wide range of options or eagerness rather than dissatisfaction, indicating a low degree of engagement.

For instance, they may buy soap without giving it much thought. They will select a different brand next time to switch the aroma.

A pattern of buyer behavior

Each buyer may have distinct purchasing habits. However, there are common inclinations that enable the following buyer behavior patterns to be distinguished:

Customers who have access to multiple stores are often not loyal to a single location. Though all goods are present in a single store, they may split their buying among several stores.

There are two factors to take into account:

The type of product purchased by customers and
The quantity purchased.

People usually buy necessities in mass. Luxury products, on the other hand, are much more likely to be bought in small quantities and infrequently. The quantity of inventory purchased is driven by variables such as:

Product longevity
Product accessibility
Product cost
The purchase power of the buyer
The customer base for whom the product is designed

The evaluation of a buyer’s shopping basket can provide many useful insights into buyer behavior.

With the advancement of e-commerce, purchases are now only a few mouse clicks away. In any case, marketers need to understand how frequently and at what time of year or day individuals are likely to purchase more goods. The duration of product purchases may be based on the following factors:

Product classification
Customer’s way of life
Product requirement
Customer customs and traditions

People purchase goods in a range of methods:

A few go to the store, whereas others prefer to purchase items online.
Some people pay in cash, whereas others pay with a credit card.
Customers who buy goods from online stores compensate on delivery, while some are happy to pay immediately after placing an order.

The manner in which customers purchase products reveals a great deal about the buyer’s persona.

Consumer buying analysis

Marketers must analyze what and how people buy, in addition to offering suitable products and services to their target audience. Companies use several methods to monitor consumer purchasing behavior:

The computer software gives businesses useful insights into their customers’ purchasing experiences. This enables analysis of which products or services are preferred by specific segments of customers, how customers’ location drives their purchasing habits, and so on.

Another method for analyzing buyer behavior is to examine customer feedback. Online reviews frequently reveal more than just people’s reactions to a purchase. They may also disclose information about how they select items or how they tend to shop for goods.

Some businesses also undertake online surveys, which allows them to study buyer behavior from any perspective they desire. Surveys allow you to ask people directly:

What they wanted to purchase,
What item qualities do they appreciate the most,
What influences their purchasing behavior, and so on.

The analysis of buyer behavior inclinations will assist businesses in determining the best marketing strategies to attract and switch potential customers.

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Open access
Published: 27 July 2024

Knowledge mapping of impulsive buying behavior research: a visual analysis using CiteSpace

Xiyun Gong ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6614-9711 1 ,
Choy Leong Yee 1 ,
Shin Yiing Lee 1 ,
Ethan Yi Cao ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6271-8857 2 &
Abu Naser Mohammad Saif ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7078-6780 1 , 3

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 11 , Article number: 967 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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With the development of e-commerce, impulse buying behavior has transitioned from offline to online, presenting significant exploration value. This study aims to provide a comprehensive knowledge map and in-depth analysis of research on impulsive purchase behavior, helping readers understand the latest global trends in this field from 1967 to September 30, 2023. The study offers a visual analysis using CiteSpace, encompassing 704 academic articles on impulsive buying behavior published over 55 years. The status is revealed through collaboration networks, co-citation networks, and trend analysis. Researchers explore impulsive buying behavior in various contexts, with “e-commerce” being a primary focus. Notable new keywords include technology, customer satisfaction, perceived value, and virtual reality, among others. These terms contribute to future research directions. Overall, this pioneering research combines visual analysis to provide valuable insights and research recommendations for academics studying impulsive buying behavior.

Modeling the significance of advertising values on online impulse buying behavior

Exploring the dynamics of consumer engagement in social media influencer marketing: from the self-determination theory perspective

COBRAs and virality: viral campaign values on consumer behaviour

Introduction.

Impulse buying refers to unplanned purchases, and this buying habit is sudden and immediate (Nigam et al., 2023 ). Over the last decades, researchers have examined impulsive buying behavior from different perspectives according to its significance (Wang et al., 2022b ; Xiao and Nicholson, 2011 ). Impulse buying accounts for 39% of the total revenue generated by department stores based on past research (Miao et al., 2020 ). In addition to this, Goel et al. ( 2022 ) and Lin and Chuang ( 2005 ) discovered that eighty percent of customers buy on impulse at least occasionally. According to Moreira et al. ( 2017 ), purchasing items in physical stores may involve greater impulse buying than purchasing items online. Because offline shopping engages all five senses, while online shopping cannot replicate certain immediate experiences, such as touch, smell, and taste.

Because of the growth of e-commerce, impulsive buying may now be observed in online shopping as well (Hellemans et al., 2022 ). With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, social media, and mobile commerce, the number of studies related to online impulse buying in the digital age is rapidly increasing. According to the eMarketer report ( 2019 ), global e-retail sales are predicted to grow from US$ 3.535 trillion in 2019 to US$ 6.542 trillion by the end of 2023, accounting for 22% of total retail sales. This growth is driven by the increasing use of mobile devices and internet shopping. Additionally, a 2021 survey indicated that more than 80% of online buyers had made an impulse purchase at least once, accounting for over 40% of the total amount of money spent online by customers using e-commerce applications (Saleh Al-Omoush et al., 2021 ).

After 2020, the global COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdowns prompted customers to participate in more online purchasing, which may have led to an increase in online impulse purchases (Goel et al., 2022 ). According to the literature record, during the pre-COVID period, e-buying represented 40% to 50% of all purchases; during the COVID-19 pandemic, it rose to 90% to 95% (Saleh Al-Omoush et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, the development of information technology fosters the growth of e-commerce, which has exacerbated impulsive purchasing behavior in the online environment (Zhao et al., 2022 ). As social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, Weibo, and Meituan have developed, more and more customers and businesses have come to understand the value of social commerce (Xu et al., 2020 ). Over 70% of online purchases, according to a social commerce report, are affected by social commerce websites (Xu et al., 2020 ; Jingdong and Nielsen, 2017 ). Additionally, research into the live-streaming market and impulsive purchases are rapidly growing. In Asia, the percentage is higher (30%) than the global average of 16% of online buyers who make direct product purchases through live-streaming platforms, particularly in Thailand (51%), India (32%), Malaysia (31%), and China (27%) (Peng et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, live shopping may provide online customers with an easier shopping environment, and it may also encourage impulse buying behavior. Moreover, this study gives academics a basic idea of how this field will be researched in the future.

Therefore, research on impulse buying has always been at the forefront of the times and the world. Thus, this current study seeks to fully comprehend the research by using CiteSpace’s knowledge mapping. Many fields have used knowledge mapping extensively to offer a comprehensive and unbiased perspective of a particular study topic (Fang et al., 2018 ). However, over the years, some literature articles on impulse buying have been published by scholars (Verma and Yadav, 2021 ; Xiao and Nicholson, 2013 ). Besides, some research has examined IBB from the standpoint of meta-analysis (Zhao et al., 2022 ; Iyer et al., 2020 ). Current studies still lack a visual perspective. Thus, we conducted a scientometric analysis using CiteSpace 6.1 to provide an overview and visual analysis of the subject, clearly showing the bibliometric characteristics and visualizing relationships of articles published on this topic in reputable scholarly journals indexed in Web of Science (WoS) from 1967 to the end of September 2023. In addition, the following research questions put forward by us:

Q1: What is the current development trend of impulse buying behavior in the world?

Q2: What is the future direction of impulse buying behavior, and which fields are predicted to be most influential based on the highest citations and keywords?

Q3: What are the newly introduced theories and models regarding impulsive buying behavior within the current collaboration networks and emerging trend analysis, compared to similar types of articles?

The structure of this article is as follows. First, it begins with a review of impulsive buying behavior. This is followed by an explanation of the materials and methods used. Next, the results of the collaboration network, co-citation network, and future trends of impulsive buying behavior are presented. Finally, the conclusion section summarizes the entire article and includes a discussion.

Impulsive buying behavior (IBB)

As time has progressed, authors in the field of impulsive buying behavior have presented varying definitions and interpretations. Stern ( 1962 ) defined impulsive buying behavior as any purchase that a shopper makes without prior planning. Rook ( 1987 ) described impulse buying as a purchase behavior driven by a strong and irresistible urge. Rook and Fisher ( 1995 ) characterized buying impulses as part of a hedonically complex process. Later, Kacen and Lee ( 2002 ) explained impulse buying behavior as a spontaneous purchase characterized by moderately quick decision-making and a subjective desire for immediate possession of the goods. Sharma et al. ( 2010 ) discourse that impulsive buying denotes a relatively fast and hedonically complex purchasing behavior, which means that the impulse leading to the purchase being made omits any careful, deliberate evaluation of alternative or future consequences. Furthermore, they also highlight the term “impulsive buying,” which refers to a quick and hedonistically complicated purchasing behavior, meaning that the surge that led to the purchase was uninformed and did not consider any other options or potential future results. Based on the opinions of the authors mentioned above, this article comes to the following general conclusion. Impulse buying is regarded as unplanned purchasing, characterized by sudden and immediate decisions. It is defined as a more thrilling, tempting, dynamic, and instantaneous buying behavior compared to planned purchasing.

Traditional studies on impulse buying have classified contributing elements as either internal or external (Iyer et al., 2020 ; Kalla and Arora, 2011 ; Wansink, 1994 ; Xiao and Nicholson, 2013 ). Regarding internal factors, the most common ones are related to consumers, such as impulse buying propensity, pre-purchase emotions (Ozer and Gultekin, 2015 ), consumer characteristics, gender, age, motivations, and emotions. For external factors, environmental considerations like window displays and store design are widely studied by scholars (Gudonavičienė and Alijošienė, 2015 ). Moreover, previous research on impulse buying can be categorized into two types. The first type analyzes the potential consequences of impulsive shopping behavior (Dittmar and Drury, 2000 ; Rook, 1987 ; Vohs and Faber, 2007 ). The other type is pertinent to the factors that determine impulsive buying behavior, such as culture (Miao et al., 2020 ), self-interpretation (Zhang and Shrum, 2009 ), and the kinds of foods that are eaten (Mishra and Mishra, 2011 ). With the progress of the times, IBB has been gradually classified into online and offline categories (Goel et al., 2022 ). Still, the research on online impulse buying only started 20 years ago, and this part has excellent potential. Based on the enormous economic benefits behind impulse buying, the current research factors need to be continuously explored, and finding the latest research trends is conducive to innovation.

Material and methodology

Data sources.

The Web of Science (WoS) core collection was used to gather all relevant information. The WoS Citation database, created by American Thomson Reuters, is a platform for information retrieval. The primary indexes are the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Science Citation Index, and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. This database includes over 9,000 academic publications from internationally renowned and significant academic journals (Abati et al., 2021 ; Liao et al., 2018 ). Thus, we obtained the WoS Core Collection’s data because this database is recognized as one of the most essential literature indexes in the world (Saif et al., 2022 ). In this research, we primarily focused on the element of consumer behavior. Then, we used the keywords “impulsive buying” or “impulse buying” or “impulsive consumption” or “impulsive purchase” or “impulse purchase” or “impulse shopping” or “ impulsive shopping “ or “customer impulse purchasing” or “unplanned purchase” or “sudden purchasing behavior” to search for relevant papers. The term “impulse buying” was included in all literature investigations, whether in the keywords or abstracts. As far as we know, the first article concerning impulsive buying behavior was published in 1967, so we considered materials published between 1967 and 2023 (Data collection ended on September 30, 2023). Book chapters, review articles, and editorial materials were eliminated to obtain high-quality research papers; this left 704 articles that might move on with further analysis.

Knowledge mapping

According to Cui et al. ( 2017 ), knowledge mapping is a part of bibliometrics analysis, which is defined as “the quantitative analysis of publications in a given field.” Extracting and visually reorganizing the knowledge from several previously published scientific research documents is the aim of mapping and analyzing scientific knowledge (Chen, 2013 ). Fang et al. ( 2018 ) consider that knowledge mapping aids academics in having a better understanding of the intellectual structure in a particular field of study and research status. In bibliometrics analysis, keyword analysis can show the hot research topics and future research paths. The data on authors, journals, institutions, and nations can assist other academics in identifying the authors who have contributed the most to a field or the institutions that are the most authoritative (Chen and Liu, 2020 ). The most important analysis in bibliometric studies is co-citation, as it can reveal the relationships between articles. High citation rates and numerous links to other articles indicate highly relevant and significant work (Small, 2003 ).

CiteSpace 6.1 software was used to do the visualization for this research. Professor Chen of Drexel University proposed CiteSpace, a Java-based application package (Cheng et al., 2021 ). CiteSpace quantitatively analyzes the literature in specific disciplines and bases its analysis and visualization of emerging patterns and trends in the body of scientific knowledge on the co-citation analysis theory and the pathfinder, minimum spanning trees method (Chen et al., 2008 ; Fan et al., 2020 ). In recent years, CiteSpace has been utilized by academics from various fields, such as marketing, environment, tourism, and so on (Geng and Maimaituerxun, 2022 ; Yao et al., 2020 ; Li et al., 2017 ). Analytical goals are represented by nodes (often circles) in CiteSpace’s graph. The value of a node increases with its size. The multicolored links between the various nodes display their relationship, with the various colors denoting different publishing years.

Research outputs and their categories

As shown in Fig. 1 , the development of articles on impulse buying behavior published over 55 years (1967–2022) is presented in chronological order. The initial publication on impulse buying dates back to 1967. Subsequently, the number of publications about this topic appears to have experienced a relatively gradual growth over the years that followed. From 2008 to 2011, growth occurred; however, it marginally increased. From 2016 to 2019, it fluctuated twice before reaching 53 in 2019 from 46 in 2016. Since then, publications on impulse buying behavior have increased dramatically. These data also suggest that the rising number of publications reflects a growing interest among scholars in impulse buying behavior.

The figure, which denotes the number of published papers on impulsive buying behavior between 1967 and 2022, is constructed by a curve chart.

Furthermore, Fig. 2 presents the top ten subject categories, including “Business” (312 articles, account for 27.5%), “Management” (104, 9.2%), “Computer Science Information Systems” (59, 5.2%), “Psychology Multidisciplinary” (53, 4.7%), “Economics” (40, 3.5%), “Hospitality Leisure Sport Tourism” (37, 3.3%), “Information Science Library Science” (30, 2.6%), “Information Science Library Science” (30, 2.6%), “Computer Science Interdisciplinary Applications” (25, 2.2%), “Operations Research Management Science” is associated with 24 articles (2.1%), while “Environmental Studies” and “Environmental Sciences” both have 23 articles each in tenth place, representing 2% of all publications. The distribution of the top ten subjects suggests that the study of impulsive buying behavior is an interdisciplinary one. It exhibits close ties with various disciplines, including environmental science, computer science, psychology, and management.

The figure denotes annual article output in the 10 subject categories is constructed by a colorful stacked chart.

Over the past two decades, online impulse purchasing has drawn much scholarly attention and created publishing opportunities (Bashar et al., 2022 ). The rapid development of information technology has facilitated the speed of e-commerce growth in the last few years, which amplified impulsive buying behavior in an online setting (Zhao et al., 2022 ). Therefore, impulse buying is closely related to the field of computer science information systems, which is especially reflected in social commerce, live-streaming, artificial intelligence (AI), etc. First, it is about social commerce. Based on the background of WeChat social commerce, Chen et al. ( 2019b ) offer a model to investigate the impact of product recommendations on social media on users’ impulsive purchasing tendencies. Under the context of the C2C Facebook “buy and sell” group, Chen et al. ( 2016 ) did an online experiment and found that higher textual information quality and numbers of “likes” can usually increase consumers’ urge to buy impulsively. Second, for the live-streaming portion, Jiang and Cai ( 2021 ) created a live e-commerce supply chain pricing model with online influencers regarded as retailers. Moreover, this model examines the influence of customers’ satisfaction levels and impulsive purchasing patterns. Besides, two pieces of research explore the antecedents of live-streaming under the stimulus-–organism–response framework. One is to take the consumption vision and telepresence as the organism to link with the urge to buy impulsively (Khoi et al., 2023 ). The other put perceived enjoyment and perceived usefulness in the organism part to connect with the urge to buy impulsively. It is worth noting that the research of Zhang et al. ( 2023 ) combines artificial intelligence with live-streaming shopping. It tested the influence of artificial intelligence-driven virtual influencers by investigating the underlying emotional mechanisms and persuasive factors that influence audiences’ parasocial interaction and impulse purchase intentions and confirmed the assessment-emotion-action scheme. Furthermore, it highlights the significance of the AI workforce applied to retailing and marketing managers.

In addition, as impulse buying becomes more widespread, people investigate the underlying mechanisms. As a result, more academics are using psychological models and theories to explain this behavior. The theory of planned behavior and stimulus-organism-response theory were used by most scholars to define impulsive buying behavior (Vazquez et al., 2020 ; Wu et al., 2020 ). Additionally, some researchers use the cognitive-affective personality system theory to investigate why impulsive purchases occur in emergencies and crises (Xiao et al., 2022 ). Similarly, based on the regulatory focus theory and emotion-cognition-behavior loop, Yu ( 2022 ) investigated the function of cognitive traits in modulating the relationship between unpleasant emotions and impulsive purchases during the COVID-19 epidemic. Third, a large part of related articles in the field of economics is about COVID-19. During the COVID-19 epidemic, scholars worldwide have studied related impulse buying behaviors because shopping is closely associated with the economy. Ahmed et al. ( 2020 ) investigate patterns of impulsive purchases made by US residents during the COVID-19 epidemic in key US cities and conclude that COVID-19 is a crucial moderator of this behavior. Likewise, Küçükkambak and Süler ( 2022 ) focus on the Turkish consumer as the target audience and find people’s fear of COVID-19 impacts compulsive and impulsive buying behaviors. Gupta et al. ( 2021 ) research on Indian consumers’ impulsive buying behavior during COVID-19 shows that the COVID-19 pandemic had a major effect on consumer purchasing behaviors, as evidenced by stockpiling and impulsive purchases.

Finally, regarding the Hospitality Leisure Sport Tourism discipline, currently, some studies have incorporated time scarcity (Li et al., 2021 ) or time pressure (Sohn and Lee, 2017 ) into exploring tourists’ impulsive behavior. What’s more, Chen et al. ( 2019a ) provide a model that demonstrates how website quality (as determined by hedonic value) influences impulsive purchasing behaviors in online tourism, along with some recommendations. Compared with the disciplines mentioned, impulsive buying research in tourism is fewer; however, it is valuable for scholars to explore it deeply. Currently, wireless technology is used in tourism and hospitality services. Therefore, to increase sales, tourist and hospitality businesses must better comprehend the connection between technology and impulsive buying (Ahn et al., 2020 ).

Consequently, the research on impulse buying behavior has progressed with the progress of times, and there has been a phenomenon of continuously extending from the field of management and business to Computer Science Information Systems, Psychology Multidisciplinary, Economics, Hospitality Leisure Sport Tourism, and other fields.

The collaboration of impulsive buying behavior

Country collaboration network.

Between 1967 and 2023, the country collaboration network, depicted in Fig. 3 , comprises 70 nations and 182 linkages. Countries have established a relatively mature cooperation network based on their close ties in this field. Table 1 lists the top 10 countries in terms of frequency which shows that the USA and Mainland China both have the highest frequency with 164 articles. However, the centrality score of 0.58 with the USA surpasses that of China by 2.23 times. Next, the countries ranked in descending order of publication frequency are India (85 articles), Taiwan, and China (62 pieces). It is noteworthy that despite South Korea and England having 34 articles each, their centrality differs greatly. Although the number of articles in Malaysia does not exceed 30, its centrality is 10 times that of South Korea.

The figure denotes country collaboration network based on impulsive buying behavior research for the year from 1976 to 2023.

Institution collaboration network

Figure 4 shows the 413 nodes and 262 lines that make up the institution collaboration network from 1967 to 2023. There is cooperation between the agencies, but it is not close. Most of these networks are now made up of small groups. Because of this, it is understood that the subject is still developing and not fully developed. However, we are aware that there are two groups of institutions that have a close relationship based on the links between institutions. One includes Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Great Lakes Institute Management, and Beijing Institute of Technology. The other is Florida State University and Kyung Hee University.

The figure denotes institutional collaboration network based on impulsive buying behavior research for the year from 1976 to 2023.

As can be seen from the table ranking the top 10 institutions by number of papers, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has published the most articles on impulsive buying (10), closely followed by Great Lakes Institute Management (8), New York University (7), Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications (6), Washington State University (6), Beijing Institute of Technology (5), Florida State University (5), Kyung Hee University (5), Michigan State University (5), University of Minnesota (5) and University of Valencia (5). Five of these institutions are from the US, three are from China, and the rest are from India, South Korea, and Spain.

As the ranking indicated in Tables 1 and 2 , the top three countries are the United States, China, and India. The following section elaborates on the reasons for the countries’ ranking in Table 2 from the chronological order displayed in the WoS database and the external factors.

Firstly, in 1967, the United States was the first country to publish research on impulsive purchase behavior, 25 years far ahead of second-ranked England (the first research published time is 1992). Many influential studies on offline impulse buying emerged during this period. It has been estimated that almost 90% of customers occasionally make impulsive purchases in the United States (Awan and Abbas Nayyar, 2015 ). In a word, impulse buying is part of American culture.

Between 2000–2009, countries such as South Korea, China, Indonesia, and Australia began to enter the initial research period. In terms of publication growth rate, most countries are developing very steadily except China, which is the fastest-growing of these countries. There are three reasons to explain this: First, China ranked second in the world’s most populous country. Population, on the one hand, determines its purchasing power, which emerges in a lot of study cases; on the other hand, it indicates there will be more research to publish in this field. Second, China’s e-commerce has been in a stage of rapid development since 2003, and online shopping has become mainstream. Bashar et al. ( 2022 ) found that the number of articles published on online impulsive buying behavior in China is 2.88 times that of the United States, which is over 2 times more than the multiple of articles published in this research (The ratio of the number of articles published by China and the United States in this article is 1.38). From this vantage point, it is also more determined that research on Chinese consumers’ impulsive buying behavior has been mainly influenced by the rise of online shopping. Third, in June 2000, the China Electronic Commerce Association (CECA) was established, which means that the Chinese government greatly values the growth of e-commerce.

In 2010, Asian countries, such as Malaysia, Pakistan, and India, started to research this area progressively, and India has the highest publication growth rate among the three. One of the reasons is that it currently has the largest population in the world. Besides, out of 30 emerging economies, India is ranked as the “second most attractive retail destination” globally (Mehta and Chugan, 2013 ). By 2025, the Indian consumer market is anticipated to have quadrupled, placing it among the world’s top five economies (Cheng, 2014 ). As for Malaysia, from 2012 to 2014, five major e-commerce platforms, including Lazada, Zalora, Rakuten, etc, joined in, which drove the online shopping market of this country (Kiu and Lee, 2017 ).

In conclusion, the ranking publishing numbers shown in Tables 1 and 2 are closely related to each country’s culture, time of internet development background, and population base.

Author collaboration network

Figure 5 (since the CiteSpace software automatically reversed the order for the first and last name of the author, the name order in this paragraph has been corrected) displays the 492 authors and 423 collaboration links for the impulsive buying behavior study between 1967 and 2023. Only a few authors in the study on impulse buying behavior demonstrate tight collaboration, and overall, there isn’t much academic interaction. The top ten authors of linked papers are listed in Table 3 , along with their names. For instance, Jiangsu University’s Umair Akram has contributed more to this area and has written six articles. One of the first scholars to study Internet impulse purchasing was Umair Akram. He classified conventional and online impulsive buying behavior to let subsequent readers research more clearly; at that time, most studies researched traditional impulse buying behavior exclusively (Akram et al., 2017 ). Additionally, he researched the environmental effects of social commerce in China and how the survey website’s quality influences online impulse buying behavior, etc., offering multiple perspectives on China’s online retail industry (Akram et al., 2018 ). The number of articles contributed by Professor Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran is 5, ranking after Umair Akram. He is currently working at SRM University. It’s worth noting that his articles have a high-impact factor, meaning his research significantly contributes to impulse buying. He can think outside the box and explore impulse buying from the perspective of service and store environment (Mohan et al., 2013 ; Sharma et al., 2014 ). He can consider the standpoint of consumers and advise them on how to alleviate or lessen impulsive buying when most researchers are researching how impulse buying benefits marketers (Upadhye et al., 2021 ), which has a certain amount of innovative value. Next, the writers who contributed four articles to the table are J Jeffrey Inman, Sanjeev Prashar, T Sai Vijay, and Chandan Prasad. Finally, the writers who published three articles were Zubair Akram, Shobhit Kakaria, and Muhammad Kaleem Khan. Research on impulse buying is currently in a developmental phase, characterized by a relatively limited number of authoritative scholars in the domain. Umair Akram and Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran currently represent academics who study impulse buying. Among them, Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran focused on impulse buying behavior in India and cross-cultural comparison, whereas Umair Akram mainly researched impulsive buying behavior in China.

The figure denotes author collaboration network based on impulsive buying behavior research for the year from 1976 to 2023.

Co-citation network for documents

Figure 6 represents the co-citation network for documents, which, between 1967 and 2023, contained 983 references and 3649 co-citation relationships. The clusters were labeled using the log-likelihood ratio (LLR) with the title extraction and indexing terms. It is commonly used and advised to utilize LLR, one of the algorithms, to extract cluster labels from the cited literature at various locations (Fang et al., 2018 ). The document co-citation networks silhouette scores are all higher than 0.7, which suggests the clusters have dependable quality. Based on the clusters in the impulsive buying realm, the following section is divided into four parts: Changes in times, social platforms and their extensions, product types for impulse buying, and consumers’ impulsive buying factors.

The figure denotes document co-citation network based on impulsive buying behavior research for the year from 1976 to 2023.

First, it is about Changes in time. As Fig. 6 shows, Cluster #1 COVID-19 (silhouette score = 0.975, cited mean year is 2019) ranks second in the size comparison. It is a known fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the world economy and healthcare, instilling fear, terror, and uncertainty in the hearts of billions of people (Islam et al., 2021 ). During this period, people make crazy impulse purchases of necessities, food, fitness products, etc. In this regard, scholars worldwide have explored Covid-19 and impulse buying. Naeem ( 2021 ) showed that fear of illness, fear of empty shelves, concern of price increases, and social pressure to buy extra items to justify staying at home enhanced panic and impulsive shopping behavior among consumers. Similarly, the study of Anas et al. ( 2022 ) found that the two main factors influencing consumers’ impulsive purchasing decisions during COVID-19 were fear and the availability of resources. Furthermore, based on the view of Chiu et al. ( 2022 ), it was evident that the perception of COVID-19 had a positive impact on fear, which in turn contributed to impulsive purchases of exercise products. In general, although COVID-19 has passed, these connected studies continue to offer insights into fear-induced panic impulsive buying, and future studies might further explore the relationship between negative emotions and impulse buying.

Next, for the social platforms and their extensions. Web 2.0 has given rise to social platforms, which are online shopping services that link customers and let them find, share, recommend, rate, and buy products (Hajli, 2015 ). However, Cluster #3 social platforms (profile score = 0.96) ranked fourth with 52 sizes; the average cited year was 5 years ago. Social platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, blogs, Instagram, and Pinterest, are developing in full swing. Its emergence has also led to different research derivatives: Cluster #0 live-streaming shopping (silhouette score = 0.882, cited mean year is 2020), Cluster #9 social media celebrity (silhouette score = 0.96, cited mean year is 2017), Cluster #2 facebook browsing (silhouette score = 0.959, cited mean year is 2017). In terms of Cluster #0: Live-streaming shopping with the largest cluster size. It is a novel shopping model developed with social platforms. Compared with the traditional online shopping model, live-streaming shopping pays more attention to the interaction between merchants and consumers. Moreover, the effects of the time scarcity characteristic are the icing on the cake of this kind of shopping which provides favorable conditions for stimulating consumers’ impulse purchases (Hao and Huang, 2023 ). Besides, the study of Xu et al. ( 2020 ) examines the impact of contextual and environmental factors, such as the streamer attractiveness on viewers’ cognitive and emotional states and subsequent reactions. From this, it can be seen that the study view of streamers is also an essential research perspective in live-streaming shopping. It is also closely related to another cluster, the #9 social media celebrity. Currently, various studies are exploring the relationship between social media celebrities and impulse purchases in the background of social platforms. According to Chen et al. ( 2021 ), consumers’ recognition of social platform celebrities can increase their trust in marketing activities and thus increase impulse purchases. Similarly, Xiang et al. ( 2016 ) explored the relationship between shoppers’ intimacy with media personalities (parasocial interaction PSI) and impulse buying tendency and found a positive correlation. And for cluster #2 Facebook browsing, it’s a unique variable source from the Facebook social platform. Although it is a niche cluster, it also occupies the third cluster. This shows that the Facebook platform, with a huge population base, performs outstandingly among other social platforms. At present, social platforms are still developing and extending. Most of the research on impulse buying with social platforms comes from China. Future exploration can be done from the perspective of Cross-country comparison, new-style social platforms, and new forms of consumption.

Third, in terms of the product types for impulse buying. Among the top ten clusters, the most prominent is Cluster #4 luxury goods (silhouette score = 0.92, mean the cited year is 2014), and Cluster #8 food waste (silhouette score = 0.956, the mean the cited year is 2010). The cluster #4 luxury goods, which ranked fourth in the forefront of size, with the COVID-19 pandemic and digital transformation, the luxury goods industry has also gradually introduced online models (Hoang et al., 2022 ). The impulse buying behavior of luxury products represents a new group. First, scholars have confirmed that material goods or services represent unique personality traits of materialistic people (Islam et al., 2021 ). Second, it is about the element of trust. Trust has a significant influence on impulse buying (Chen et al., 2021 ). Luxury products have been shown to boost people’s feelings of trust, encouraging them to make impulsive purchases (Chen et al., 2021 ). For cluster #8 food waste, the average year is within 5 years. The relationship between food waste and impulse buying varies greatly from different angles. Lahath et al. ( 2021 ) consider impulsive buying to be a factor in food waste, and their study reveals the mediating role of impulse buying and the moderating role of neuroticism on food waste during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This kind of food waste caused by anxiety and panic is highly negative.

On the contrary, the results of Liao et al. ( 2022 ) show that impulse buying is one factor that significantly affects food waste reduction intention. The purpose of the differences between these two studies is the main reason for the relationship differences. The former believes that impulse leads to food waste. The latter supposes that discount promotion induces impulsive buying, solving the problem of wasted expired products.

Finally, for the consumer’s impulsive buying factors, Cluster #5 subjective well-being (silhouette score = 0.954, cited mean year is 2011), Cluster #6 brand attachment (silhouette score = 0.952, cited mean year is 2017), and Cluster #9 flow experience (silhouette score = 0.882, cited mean year is 2020) are all subjective factors of impulse buying consumers in Table 4 . For #5 subjective well-being, many researchers have integrated personality traits into subjective well-being and impulse buying behavior. Seinauskiene et al. ( 2016 ) discovered that lower well-being levels enhance materialism, which then fuels a higher level of impulsive purchase tendencies. Besides, the research of (Silvera et al., 2008 ) also integrated Interpersonal variables in related studies. It was proven that, at the cognitive level, impulsive purchasing has a negative correlation with subjective well-being but that, at the emotional level, it has a positive correlation with social influence and emotional sensitivity. Concerning Cluster #6: Brand attachment, many scholars have integrated brand attachment into impulse buying research. According to the study of Japutra et al. ( 2019 ), brand attachment entirely mediates the association between ideal self-congruence. Besides, findings from Japutra et al. ( 2022 ) demonstrate a positive relationship between impulsive and obsessive-compulsive purchasing and the three aspects of brand attachment: passion, prominence, and anxiety. Then, it is about the #9 flow experience cluster closely related to social platforms and online shopping. Bao and Yang ( 2022 ) discovered that consumers’ flow experience, trust, and customer’ serendipity encourage impulse buying.

Author co-citation network

The author co-citation network is represented in Fig. 7 , and 786 authors and 5245 links are linked with collaboration. The relationship between scholars’ co-citations is close. More authors are cited when the font and node are larger. It is essential to note that in this analysis, only an article’s first author will be considered (Fang et al., 2018 ). Lists the top 10 researchers according to citation counts. With 415 citations, ROOK DW was the author who received the most attention, yet his centrality (0.15)—a measure of how impactful a scientific contribution may be—ranked fourth, not first. As a USC Marshall School of Business professor, he offered a novel understanding of its phenomenology when consumer impulse buying was still not fully understood (Rook, 1987 ). Furthermore, the normative features of impulsive buying were also first empirically examined by him as a researcher. In the article of Rook and Fisher ( 1995 ), the authors demonstrated that only when customers feel that acting on impulse is acceptable does the association between the buying impulsiveness trait and related purchase behaviors become meaningful.

The figure depicts the documents’ co-citation network based on impulsive buying behavior research for the year ranging from 1976 to 2023.

As table 5 shows, it is worth noting that although BEATTY SE and KACEN JJ are both in the top five in frequency, their centrality is relatively low in the top ten. Scholar Beatty SE’s citations (276) came in second place. Her position at The University of Alabama is as a professor of marketing. Besides, she put forth a precursor model of impulsive buying and used data extracted at two points in time (during post- and pre-shopping interviews) from a regional shopping mall setting, providing a basis for future research and Management impact (Beatty and Ferrell, 1998 ). KACEN JJ is a Clinical professor at the University of Houston, College of Business Administration. Her research is full of great originality and focuses on the impact of cultural differences on impulse buying. Most of the research was on impulse buying in the United States at that time, but she started doing cross-cultural studies. Her team discovered that the impulse buying scale is suitable for the United States but not for other countries, and then they analyzed the moderating role of culture different from the perspectives of individualism and collectivism. Additionally, they concentrated on cultural differences in consumers’ satisfaction with planned and impulsive purchases, which contribute to this realm (Lee and Kacen, 2008 ; Kacen and Lee, 2002 ).

On the contrary, although the frequency of STERN H and PARBOTEEAH DV is not in the top five, their centrality enters the top two. STERN H is the founder of the impulse buying theory, which provides fresh eyes on consumer purchasing behavior. The article he published in 1962 has been highly cited over 1900, in which he is the first to define impulse buying as divided into four categories: Pure Impulse Buying, Reminder Impulse Buying, Suggestion Impulse Buying, and Planned Impulse Buying (Stern, 1962 ). PARBOTEEAH DV is an Associate Professor at Eastern New Mexico University. She mainly contributes to online impulsive buying behavior. When online impulse buying emerged, she applied environmental psychology theory to expand on prior impulse buying (Parboteeah et al., 2009 ). Through the authors’ co-citation analysis, future researchers can find more research inspiration from related authors’ perspectives.

In summary, scholars read the most influential articles based on their needs to explore impulse purchases. If readers are interested in original empirical research or the precursor model of impulse buying, they can refer to these articles. Moreover, they can read more articles by ROOK DW and BEATTY SE. In addition, KACEN JJ is one of the most influential researchers in this field. She mainly focuses on exploring the differences in cross-cultural research on impulse buying. Thus, readers can learn the information from her studies comparing impulse buying behaviors among different countries. As for readers who want to learn more about the deep classification of impulsive buying behavior, it is recommended to read the articles about impulse buying theory from STERN H. Finally, the articles by PARBOTEEAH DV can provide more inspiration for academics studying environmental psychology and online impulsive buying.

Journal Co-citation network

The journal co-citation network represents the network of journals that contribute to a particular field of research. Figure 8 displays the publications that have contributed the most over the past 21 years about impulsive buying behavior. A journal receives more citations, the more significant the node diameter (Mustafee et al., 2014 ). The top ten most-cited journals out of the 790 that were currently retrieved are displayed in Table 6 . More than 280 frequencies have been cited in conjunction with the top ten journals. With 544 co-citations, the Journal of Consumer Research leads the field, followed by the Journal of Business Research with 463 co-citation frequencies. Most publications of impulsive buying articles concentrate on marketing, psychology, and computer science. This analysis can be a valuable reference for academics looking for a relevant journal to publish their research in this area.

The figure denotes the journals’ co-citation network based on impulsive buying behavior research for the year from 1976 to 2023.

The most prolific journals in the study of impulsive behavior are listed in Table 7 . With 29 articles published between 2001 and 2022, the Journal of Retailing and Consumers Services is the top journal in this area. Frontiers in Psychology (28), Journal of Business Research (17), Sustainability (13), and International Journal of Retail Distribution Management (12) round out the top five most prolific journals. It should be noted that while Table 7 highlights high-impact factors journals that published articles relating to impulsive buying behavior, Table 6 emphasizes the contributing journals with the highest frequency of citations in the impulsive buying behavior field. According to Fang et al. ( 2018 ), it is generally accepted that high-impact factors journals may also have more excellent citation rates.

Emerging trends of impulsive buying behavior

References with the highest number of citations.

Citation bursts are formed when an article acquires a lot of citations in a short period. These bursts can help reveal some of a specific topic’s research dynamics (Fang et al., 2018 ). Albeit impulsive buying behavior is a developing topic, particular articles obtained a lot of citations, as seen in Table 8 . The table ranks the top 26 articles about impulsive buying behavior based on their citation quantity and popular period. The following will analyze this from three perspectives (long history, strength ranking, and potential).

The article of Beatty and Ferrell ( 1998 ) was the first popular citation published about 20 years ago to offer a model of the pre-cursors for impulse buying and empirically evaluate it using information obtained from pre- and post-shopping interviews at two different intervals in time, and its studies served as the basis for later studies on impulsive buying behavior.

Then, we analyze the strengths of the top three articles from the perspective of the top three articles. All the top three articles lasted for four years in burst. To begin with, Xiang et al. ( 2016 ) have the number one Strength Value (14.28), which is also one of the earlier articles based on parasocial interaction with the social platform. The article introduces parasocial interaction theory to examine the influence of social relationship factors on the formation of impulse buying behavior on the Mogujie ( www.mogujie.com ) social platform. The theoretical contribution part combines psychology, marketing, and communication theory and laid the foundation for subsequent researchers to conduct an in-depth exploration of social relationships and purchasing behavior. Following it, the article of Chen et al. ( 2016 ), with the second Strength Value (10.34), uses C2C Facebook as background research and empirically studies the impact of advertising information quality, impulsive traits, and the number of “likes” on advertising. These factors can be combined with the recent past and combined with popular social media wins with novelty. After that, the article of strength (8.93) at position third discusses the impact of social networking website content on users’ emotional reactions. The study expanded on the SOR paradigm’s use in social commerce impulsive buying and clarified the distinction between impulsive buying and buying (Huang, 2016 ). In fact, these three articles have the common keyword “social platform”, consistent with the hot clustering tag words mentioned earlier.

Next, we will introduce some articles with a strength value within the top 20, but with relatively recent publication years. For example, an article by Aragoncillo and Orus ( 2018 ), ranked as having the highest recent burst year, offers the first step in validating a scale that effectively measures the influence of social media on impulse buying behavior. Comparing online and offline channels and obtaining results that indicate increased impulse buying behavior, provides direction for subsequent scholars to explore further comparisons between online and offline impulse buying.

Secondly, another recent article ranked 16 in strength, offers a novel perspective based on pre-purchase tendencies and impulse buying behavior. Furthermore, it proposes a new model encompassing personal characteristics, addressing a current gap in the literature (Bellini et al., 2017 ).

Another newer burst year article is from (Wu et al., 2016 ), which mainly proposes a novel research model to examine impulse buying behavior in a complete manner (starting from the trust belief and technology use with the mediator of flow experience).

Overall, among these three newer burst year articles, two of them start from the impulse buying models, and one compares from the online and offline channels. These mindsets provide scholars with many different ideas for impulse buying extension.

Analysis of keywords

Examining keywords might reveal the direction in which a topic trends. Identifying the research hotspots or the most critical topic in the field also helps to understand future study paths. Figure 9 depicts the time zone of impulsive purchasing behavior. It shows the changing process of keywords. Starting from the period 1996 to 2009, some keywords first appeared a long time ago, but they are still popular at present, such as experience, environment, personality, compulsive buying, motivation, etc. Since 2009, in the rapid development of e-commerce year, the keyword e-commerce has been integrated into the field of impulse buying. Meanwhile, more scholars are exploring online impulse buying further. Besides, many studies are related to high-level consumer demand, such as perceived value, and customer satisfaction. The following content will introduce the keywords regarding their interconnection in a roughly chronological order.

The figure illustrates the time zone view of keywords based on impulsive buying behavior research for the year ranging from 1996 to 2023.

The first part is the keyword “experience”, which appeared in 1996. It emerged at the earliest in this field; however, the frequency will peak in 2021. This keyword has a broad research scope. It is closely related to keywords like “environment”, “flow experience”, “motivation”, “self-control”, etc. According to studies from Selby and Joiner ( 2013 ), arousal brought on by music and perfume increases pleasure levels, which in turn improves approach behavior and shopping satisfaction and explores the moderating effects of store environment on the impulse shopping process. In the same year, Chen and Teng ( 2013 ) discovered a comprehensive model of the effects of online store image on purchase intention in an e-commerce environment and proposed in the future section to explore more specifically which online store features lead to impulse buying behavior. Furthermore, experience is often discussed in conjunction with flow theory as a motivation for impulse buying (Wu et al., 2020 ) considering that pleasant experience and website attributes are both critical driving factors for impulse purchases. Similarly, in the research of Wu et al. ( 2016 ), flow experience was used as a mediating factor driving online shopping. In a word, the flow experience is deeply integrated into online shopping. For self-control, it can suppress emotions, and impulsive consumption is often related to the benefits of hedonic experience. In the desire-willpower model, impulse buying is emphasized as a struggle between desire and willpower (Wang et al., 2020a ; Hofmann et al., 2009 ). In short, self-control and hedonic experience are also antagonistic. Thus, if we explore the relationship between experience and self-control from the perspective of confrontation and combine it with dual-system theory, we will find discoveries. In the future, this part can also do more to innovate impulse purchase models.

Moreover, some studies currently explore personality and materialism together. Then, about another classic word, “personality.” This keyword only appeared three times before 2013 and did not reach its frequency peak until 2018. Currently, most research on personality explores the five-factor personality model and impulse buying. According to Thompson and Prendergast ( 2015 ), the five-factor personality model’s extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism measurements unanimously predicted impulse buying. Based on the research of Verplanken and Herabadi ( 2001 ), they found that impulsive buying in the big five model background, the cognitive facet, was inversely associated with conscientiousness, the desire for personal organization, and the shopping need. The affective aspect was associated with action orientation and a lack of autonomy. Otero-López and Villardefrancos ( 2013 ) showed some relationship between the Five-Factor Model personality traits, materialism, and over-purchasing. Authors find extraversion has a positive association with materialism. However, openness and agreeableness have negative relations with materialism, which, in turn, is associated with higher excessive buying propensity. Furthermore, Badgaiyan and Verma ( 2014 ) test the impact of five intrinsic causes on impulsive purchase behavior, including personality, culture, materialism, shopping enjoyment propensity, and impulsive buying tendency. Presently, the part about personality can be explored from different perspectives. There are three categories of personality traits: high-order, low-order, and mid-order. Most of the 5-Factor Model of Personality belongs to high-order. In the future, impulsive buying behavior can be explored with different levels of personality traits. In addition, there is also a blank in the cross-culture exploration of personality, and discoveries will be made comparing the perspectives of individualism and collectivism (Olsen et al., 2016 ).

With the proliferation of e-commerce, the research hotspot trend form of impulse buying gradually changed from offline to online. In a 20-year study on e-commerce, there have been many articles analyzing the factors of online impulse (Kumar et al., 2021 ). The e-commerce keywords in Fig. 9 are shown in 2009, which was also a year of rapid development of e-commerce. The development of e-commerce not only activates the deep needs of consumers but also drives the development of Technology.

As for the consumers’ deep needs, it is divided into value level and interpersonal interaction level. Regarding the consumer value level, perceived value (2022) is first to be mentioned. Perceived value includes different dimensions, such as utilitarian value, emotional value, conditional value, social value, cognitive value, and hedonic value. It is related to Utilitarian and customer satisfaction. From Fig. 9 , the keyword “utilitarian” appeared 6 years earlier than “perceived value” in this field. It can be seen that Utilitarian value is used most frequently as one of the perceived values connected with impulse purchases. At present, people often combine the terms “hedonic” and “utilitarian” together to study impulse buying. According to a study (Zhang et al., 2018 ), consumers who are more impulsive place a higher weight on the hedonic value of internet comments than those who are less impulsive do. Yang et al. ( 2021 ) investigate how, in the context of mobile commerce (m-commerce), customers’ perceived values (utilitarian and hedonic values) influence their impulse buying behavior (IBB). Furthermore, Liu et al. ( 2022 ) discovered that affective impulsive buying is caused by affective information processing while cognitive impulsive buying is dominated by cognitive information processing. Additionally, research has shown that hedonic consumption is dominated by affective information processing while utilitarian consumption is dominated by cognitive. Not only that, “customer satisfaction” is often researched together with perceived value, especially from the perspective of hedonic value. For instance, Madhu et al. ( 2023 ) empirically investigate the intercorrelation between online impulse buying tendencies, online promotions, hedonic motivations, impulse purchase decisions, and customer satisfaction. Besides, Widagdo and Roz ( 2021 ) examine how customers’ satisfaction with online purchasing in Indonesia is influenced by website quality, hedonic shopping motivation, and impulse buying. Generally, if current research can expand beyond the perspectives of utilitarianism and hedonic value, adopt a comparative approach from other dimensions of perceived value, and conduct further studies in this field, there will likely be breakthroughs. At the level of interpersonal interaction, “word of mouth” and “trust” have also been explored together by scholars in this domain. Zhao et al. ( 2020 ) researched from the perspective of word-of-mouth information quality and added consumers’ social psychological distance to study the impact of word-of-mouth on trust. Finally, it was discovered that the relationship between information quality and trust is mediated by social psychological distance. Furthermore, Hidayanto et al. ( 2017 ) examined the factors influencing consumers’ intention to participate in online group buying. Their research found that electronic word-of-mouth significantly affects information search and trust. So far, the research on these two keywords is still in the development stage in this area, and future research is suitable for adding more social psychology theories to support it.

Then, regarding the keyword “technology”, in 2012, it became a popular word related to impulse buying, as Fig. 9 presented. The technology mentioned here consists of three components: first, the continuous change of the website has brought about technology upgrades. Second, technology products, such as apps and virtual reality, are prominent in the new era. Third, research on interdisciplinary new technology combined with Impulse Buying. The following chapters will elaborate on the literature review from these three aspects. The first is about website technology. Based on the research of Wu et al. ( 2016 , the results reveal that two critical factors, technology use, and trust beliefs, are necessary for online impulse buying. Similarly, Kimiagari and Asadi Malafe, ( 2021 ) integrated the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) into the SOR model and looked into the connection between cognitive and affective reactions to internal and external stimuli and impulse buying behavior based on social media. The second is for technological products. Chang and Tseng ( 2014 ) think that modern technological advancements (such as apps) allow e-retailers to provide clients with more practical and user-friendly online locations, giving consumers more choices and increasing their likelihood of impulse purchasing online. Saffari et al. ( 2023 ) took metaverse shopping as the background, then applied the role of emotion and cognition to the dual process, discussed through the electroencephalography method, and the distinction between planned shopping and unplanned shopping is made. Furthermore, the empirical findings of Chen et al. ( 2022 ), which were applied to the virtual reality (VR) environment retail industry, demonstrate that interaction and vitality have a beneficial impact on telepresence, perceived diagnostic, and fun, which incite consumers to make impulsive purchases. The third is about multidisciplinary analysis techniques. Bak et al. ( 2022 ) present data as a potential biomarker for identifying impulse purchase behavior through a brain-computer interface-based method for processing brain signals. Their study explores the hypothesis that duty-free shopping enhances impulsive buying behavior. In summary, there is still significant potential in the intersection of technology and impulse buying, particularly in the context of the latest Internet technology, new-era technology applications combined with the metaverse, and interdisciplinary research methods. Furthermore, existing research on the behavioral mechanisms underlying impulsive buying behavior remains unclear (Liu et al., 2022 ). Therefore, future research could delve deeper into the factors influencing impulse buying from psychological and technical perspectives.

Conclusions

Impulsive buying behavior has received considerable attention in consumer research (lyer et al., 2020 ). With the advance of the times, impulse buying has continuously extended from the business and management field to computer science information systems, psychology multidisciplinary, economics, and hospitality leisure sport tourism. Moreover, the number of publications on impulse buying in 2022 is 2.42 times higher than in 2018, highlighting significant research potential in this field. The current impulsive buying behavior literature review focuses on online impulse buying (Abdelsalam et al., 2020 ; Bashar et al., 2022 ; Chan et al., 2017 ). Besides, a limited number of studies on impulsive buying behavior have employed meta-analysis (lyer et al., 2020 ; Zhao et al., 2022 ).

Nevertheless, current research overlooks a comprehensive exploration of traditional impulse buying from a temporal perspective and lacks a visual analysis perspective. Therefore, more investigations are necessary in this field. This study provides an objective and comprehensive review of this knowledge area by exploring the history and future trends of the impulse buying topic using CiteSpace software. The data, derived from the WoS Core Collection, spans the period from 1967 to September 30, 2023.

Based on our country’s collaboration network, China’s publication volume (including Taiwan) is 1.38 times that of the United States. However, one literature article shows that the number of articles published in China is 2.88 times that of the United States (Bashar et al., 2022 ). The conclusions drawn in this article are approximately twice those of this study.

Likewise, the country distribution pie chart shown in another article (Kathuria and Bakshi, 2024 ) reveals that the number of articles published by China is over twice that of the United States. The difference in the proportion of quantities is because these two articles focus on online impulse buying and the setting year after 2000. Thus, we deduce the following conclusion from the previously mentioned points: Over the past twenty years, China has experienced faster development in online impulse purchase research than the United States.

However, the United States has a longer history of offline impulse buying, which has provided a solid foundation for early research in this area. Furthermore, the population base is an essential factor driving impulse buying research. India and China, the two most populous countries in the world, have seen rapid development in this field. In the author collaboration network, the top-ranked author, Umair Akram, is consistent with the author’s ranking in the online impulse buying literature review research (Bashar et al., 2022 ).

Conversely, most of the top 10 authors in this study are from China. Umair Akram mainly studies impulse buying in China. He classified traditional impulse buying behavior and online impulse buying behavior. Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran mainly studies impulse buying in India. He thinks outside the box and explores impulse buying from the service and store environment perspective. Notably, the authors ranked 4-7 are also from Indian institutions. According to the institution collaboration network, the United States, China, and India are the top three countries. As for cooperation between institutions, two groups of institutions have more connections. One group is the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Great Lakes School of Management, and the Beijing Institute of Technology. The other group is Florida State University and Kyung Hee University. Other institutions’ relationships are relatively scattered, consistent with the country’s collaboration network’s top three ranks, which include the United States, China, and India, which are also more prominent in terms of authors and institutions involved in impulse-buying research.

Therefore, future scholars should explore the similarities and differences in impulse-buying behavior between China and India due to their similar population sizes. Additionally, comparing the differences in impulse-buying behavior between the United States and these developing countries would also be valuable. Thus, this study recommends stronger international collaboration to establish a more extensive research network in this area.

Next, this study conducted an in-depth analysis based on co-citations from the perspectives of clusters, authors, and journals. First, clusters based on the co-citation articles are special content that distinguishes the current study from other literature reviews in this field. These clusters reflect the times’ changes (e.g., COVID-19), social platforms and their extensions (social platforms, live shopping), and consumer impulse buying factors, such as subjective well-being, brand attachment, and flow experience, which add more cause variables for online impulse buying (Zhao et al., 2022 ). Second, the author co-citation network allows readers to find relevant theories and research foundations from the works of different authors. For instance, STERN H is the founder of impulse buying theory, and he divided impulse buying into four types. KACEN JJ researched how cultural differences affect impulsive purchases. Third, regarding journal co-citations, according to the journals in the research of Bashar et al. ( 2022 ), our research added high-quality journals, such as the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Psychology & Marketing, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, which recommended to readers. Some of these journals are based on the integration of psychology and marketing disciplines.

Concisely, this research expands the content on the latest social platforms and buying causes factors in this field by summarizing and categorizing ways. Meanwhile, the current study encourages scholars to start from classic theories and provide new research angles for researchers to explore impulse buying behavior deeply. For instance, scholars can apply categorical and comparative thinking, such as classifying impulse buying into four different types or classifying cultures to create more innovation on the background of social platforms in this field.

Finally, regarding the emerging trends of impulsive buying behavior, this paper includes articles with the highest number of citations and trends in keywords over time zones. First, it is about the highest number of citation articles; it not only supplements the latest and high-quality reference articles to the existing review literature research (Bashar et al., 2022 ) but also provides classic articles covering the precursor model of impulse buying (Beatty and Ferrell, 1998 ). The top three articles with the latest literature strength are centered around impulse buying behavior on social platforms. Among the two articles published in the latest outbreak year, one starts from the perspective of trust belief and technology use to create a new model to examine the impulse buying behavior of the whole population (Wu et al., 2016 ). The other article is a comparative study of impulse buying through online and offline channels (Aragoncillo and Orus, 2018 ). Second, the time-zone keyword figure helps researchers understand the latest factors that trigger impulsive buying behavior, related theories, models, and cutting-edge trends. For example, the dual-system theory can examine impulsive purchasing from two angles: promotion and inhibition. Consumer need is the facilitator and self-control is the inhibitory factor. Furthermore, needs can be divided into value level and interpersonal interaction level. On the one hand, value-level needs can be explored in conjunction with the theory of consumption values.

On the other hand, interpersonal interaction level can be combined with social psychology theory and the five-factor model of personality. This is similar to the article about a systematic literature review of impulse buying, which also highlights the Big Five model and flow theory (Redine et al., 2023 ), like our research. However, our article suggests that personality traits can be divided into different levels—lower-order, mid-order, and higher-order traits- for further research. In addition, the emerging part of the future is centered on “technique,” which can start from three levels of direction. In addition, the future emerging part centers on “technique,” which can start from three levels of direction. The first level is the technical upgrade brought about by continuous website changes, which indicates that the variables related to the website should be considered. This point is also partially consistent with the perspective of an article doing a meta-analysis on online impulsive buying (Zhao et al., 2022 ). Readers can glean insights from this article’s examination of website-related variables for expansion. Another level of exploration pertains to technology products such as virtual reality and other technological advancements. Scholars are encouraged to integrate new-era technological products, like the metaverse, with impulse purchases in novel scenarios. Additionally, there’s a call for research on interdisciplinary approaches that combine new technology with impulse buying. For instance, an article by Xiao and Nicholson ( 2013 ) conducts a systematic review of a multidisciplinary cognitive-behavioral framework of impulse buying, synthesizing insights from multiple disciplines to explore the antecedents of impulse buying. However, it’s suggested that researchers incorporate techniques from other disciplines to enhance their exploration of impulse buying.

Moreover, this study enhances readers’ comprehension of the current landscape of impulse buying research. By integrating current literature and keyword trend figures over time zones with theoretical models, the study offers a roadmap for future research directions. Furthermore, it provides effective strategies tailored to the perspectives of market managers, consumers, industry stakeholders, and researchers—covering management policies, impulse control, marketing strategies, and research methodologies. These insights empower market managers and consumers to mitigate impulsive buying tendencies. Consumers can reflect on factors contributing to impulsive purchases and the influence of popular social platforms to avoid excessive buying. For marketing planners, understanding the psychological theories and models behind impulsive consumer behavior can inform strategies to boost sales legally and ethically. Finally, researchers can draw inspiration from this study to explore various perspectives, linking offline impulsive buying behaviors to theoretical foundations and conducting innovative research based on current trends.

Hence, this study significantly contributes to the analysis of impulse buying behavior. By systematically analyzing 704 articles published on WoS, it provides a clear overview of the current research status of impulse buying, presented chronologically from a visual perspective. The research expands beyond the study of online impulse buying, addressing offline impulse buying and filling gaps in existing literature. Specifically, it offers an in-depth analysis and summary of the latest publication trends and country distribution, highlighting impulse buying as a thriving area of research. Additionally, the study elaborates on the most productive authors, institutions, and countries according to collaboration networks, drawing new conclusions through comparative analysis. Through keyword time zone analysis, the study further explores impulse buying behavior by integrating impulse buying factors and theoretical foundations, offering innovative insights across three technical levels.

Limitations and future scope

Although this work uses CiteSpace software to yield a thorough and unbiased analysis of publications on impulsive buying behavior, it cannot replace a total literature review. As a result, this study could provide researchers and academics with a thorough picture of impulsive buying behavior. In addition to bibliometric analysis, future studies may also use content analyses of papers addressing techniques and conceptual issues. Additionally, because this study relies solely on Web of Science data, its descriptive analysis is constrained to the correctness of that database. Consequently, this research shows that impulsive buying behavior is a prospective academic topic that is valuable to explore. Since the research in this field exceeded three digits for the first time in 2021, global research on impulse buying has continued to grow rapidly and develop into multiple disciplines. Currently, the research background on impulse buying mainly focuses on online shopping. Over the next five years, the United States, China, and India will continue to be the top three countries in this subject regarding institutional rankings and publication volume. In the future, many related areas will be related to impulsive buying behavior. Through the clusters by co-citation network, high quantity articles of citation, and time zone view of keywords by this research, the future hotspots will continue to extend in social platforms, live-streaming, luxury goods, and food waste.

Moreover, researchers can combine online experience, consumer value, and psychological theories to think deeply about the mechanism behind impulsive buying behavior. Furthermore, technology and impulse buying still have huge potential, especially in the latest Internet technology themes, metaverse background, and interdisciplinary research methods. Besides, future studies can expand the research scope by adding more keywords, such as technique impulsive buying behavior and tourism impulsive buying behavior. Meanwhile, exploration in this domain can continue across different academic databases.

Data availability

The Web of Science database was used to retrieve the necessary data for this research. Hence, the data may be accessed using the same search query and filters that were used in this study. However, the data can also be made available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.

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Gong, X., Yee, C.L., Lee, S.Y. et al. Knowledge mapping of impulsive buying behavior research: a visual analysis using CiteSpace. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 967 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03473-9

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Factors Affecting Impulse Buying Behavior of Consumers

In recent years, the study of consumer behavior has been marked by significant changes, mainly in decision-making process and consequently in the influences of purchase intention (Stankevich, 2017 ).

The markets are different and characterized by an increased competition, as well a constant innovation in products and services available and a greater number of companies in the same market. In this scenario it is essential to know the consumer well (Varadarajan, 2020 ). It is through the analysis of the factors that have a direct impact on consumer behavior that it is possible to innovate and meet their expectations. This research is essential for marketers to be able to improve their campaigns and reach the target audience more effectively (Ding et al., 2020 ).

Studies developed by Meena ( 2018 ) show that from a young age one begins to have a preference for one product/service over another, as we are confronted with various commercial stimuli that shape our choices. The sales promotion has become one of the most powerful tools to change the perception of buyers and has a significant impact on their purchase decision (Khan et al., 2019 ). Advertising has a great capacity to influence and persuade, and even the most innocuous, can cause changes in behavior that affect the consumer's purchase intention. Falebita et al. ( 2020 ) consider this influence predominantly positive, as shown by about 84.0% of the total number of articles reviewed in the study developed by these authors.

Kumar et al. ( 2020 ) add that psychological factors have a strong implication in the purchase decision, as we easily find people who, after having purchased a product/ service, wonder about the reason why they did it. It is essential to understand the mental triggers behind the purchase decision process, which is why consumer psychology is related to marketing strategies (Ding et al., 2020 ). It is not uncommon for the two areas to use the same models to explain consumer behavior and the reasons that trigger impulse purchases. Consumers are attracted by advertising and the messages it conveys, which is reflected in their behavior and purchase intentions (Varadarajan, 2020 ).

The importance of impulse buying in consumer behavior has been studied since the 1940's, since it represents between 40.0 and 80.0% of all purchases. This type of purchase obeys non-rational reasons that are characterized by the sudden appearance and the (in) satisfaction between the act of buying and the results obtained (Reisch and Zhao, 2017 ). Aragoncillo and Orús ( 2018 ) also refer that a considerable percentage of sales comes from purchases that are not planned and do not correspond to the intended products before entering the store.

According to Burton et al. ( 2018 ), impulse purchases occur when there is a sudden and strong emotional desire, which arises from a reactive behavior that is characterized by low cognitive control. This tendency to buy spontaneously and without reflection can be explained by the immediate gratification it provides to the buyer (Pradhan et al., 2018 ).

Impulsive shopping in addition to having an emotional content can be triggered by several factors, including: the store environment, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and the emotional state of the consumer at that time (Gogoi and Shillong, 2020 ). We believe that impulse purchases can be stimulated by an unexpected need, by a visual stimulus, a promotional campaign and/or by the decrease of the cognitive capacity to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of that purchase.

Sohn and Ko ( 2021 ), argue that although all impulse purchases can be considered as unplanned, not all unplanned purchases can be considered impulsive. Unplanned purchases can occur, simply because the consumer needs to purchase a product, but for whatever reason has not been placed on the shopping list in advance. This suggests that unplanned purchases are not necessarily accompanied by the urgent desire that generally characterizes impulse purchases.

Researches developed by Aragoncillo and Orús ( 2018 ) reveal that 40.0% of consumers spend more money than planned, in physical stores compared to 25.0% in online purchases. This situation can be explained by the fact that consumers must wait for the product to be delivered when they buy online and this time interval may make impulse purchases unfeasible.

Following the logic of Platania et al. ( 2017 ) we consider that impulse buying takes socially accepted behavior to the extreme, which makes it difficult to distinguish between normal consumption and pathological consumption. As such, we believe that compulsive buying behavior does not depend only on a single variable, but rather on a combination of sociodemographic, emotional, sensory, genetic, psychological, social, and cultural factors. Personality traits also have an important role in impulse buying. Impulsive buyers have low levels of self-esteem, high levels of anxiety, depression and negative mood and a strong tendency to develop obsessive-compulsive disorders. However, it appears that the degree of uncertainty derived from the pandemic that hit the world and the consequent economic crisis, seems to have changed people's behavior toward a more planned and informed consumption (Sheth, 2020 ).

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Understanding the 4 types…

Updated On March 25, 2024

Understanding the 4 types of consumer purchasing behavior

JP Arnaud-Marquez

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What drives a customer to make a purchase?

It’s the question on every marketer’s mind – and the better we get at answering it, the more successful our brands will become.

But keep in mind, an initial purchase is only a starting point. In order to build a sustainable ecommerce business, it’s important to understand what will keep customers coming back to you again and again, and how to treat your different types of buyers to ensure that they’re likely to remain loyal for years to come.

So let’s focus on the psychology of customer behavior to help us understand who’s buying your products and why – so you can use those insights to get them even more engaged with your brand.

The four types of consumer purchasing behavior

A variety of factors, including personal factors (age, sex, cultural background), social factors (income level, living conditions, family dynamics), and psychological conditions (brand perception) can drive customers to make particular purchase decisions. Some are more likely to make purchases under certain conditions than others, and so it’s important to pay attention to different customer attributes to understand their buying behavior so that you can segment your audiences effectively.

These are the four primary types of consumer behavior that help us understand when and how a customer might make a purchase:

Complex buying behavior If a customer is going to buy a Peloton bike, they’re not going to hit “buy” seconds after seeing an ad for the first time. When it comes to high-end, expensive purchases that a customer doesn’t make often – an exercise bike, a new mattress, a new car, a new home – the buying journey can be long and complex, requiring ongoing engagement and education from your brand. In the case of the Peloton, for instance, the customer might spend several hours reading reviews of the bike and its other competitors; watching video workouts; asking friends about their Pelotons; and even trying out a bike at a local showroom. With this type of purchase, you should be prepared to offer hands-on customer support to each customer as soon as they reach out – but keep in mind that they may not engage with your sales team directly until the end of their journey, so make sure that you have plenty of marketing assets available for them to conduct their own research through the process. With this type of buyer, cost isn’t the biggest concern – they want to understand the value they’ll get out of the purchase, and it’s your brand’s job to help them understand that.
Dissonance-reducing buying behavior We’ve written previously about cognitive dissonance in the post-purchase experience, which can often lead to returns if the customer isn’t satisfied with their choice. Before the purchase, this customer is struggling to decide which of many options to consider, and is focused on factors including cost, convenience, and features. To put these customers’ fears to rest, it may be helpful to provide side-by-side comparison charts with some of your closest competitors, showcasing the features that your product offers that the others don’t. It’s also very important to offer a great returns policy – these types of customers will likely never take the plunge if they don’t feel confident that they can change their minds if they’re not satisfied with their purchases. By giving them the confidence that you’ll stand behind your brand, you’re more likely to see these customers give your products a try.
Habitual buying behavior There are some products that shoppers have a strong brand loyalty to – say, a type of shampoo, a skin cream, or a certain romance novel author. It’s every brand’s dream to have their products be one of these “habitual” purchases, but how do you make it happen? The best way to steal the crown from another brand is to make sure that you’re there at the point of need with an attractive offer. For instance, if you’re an outdoors gear brand and ski season is coming up, run a multichannel promotion with a special offer for new ski gear. Sometimes it can take more than a discount to win over new customers, though: Consider offering a try-before-you-buy deal, or an ultra-generous returns policy. (Allbirds, for example, allows customers to wear their shoes out in the wild for 30 days, and send them back for a full refund if they don’t love them.) By connecting with customers when they’d normally make their purchase and attracting them with a compelling offer, you may be able to get them to switch their habit, resulting in a customer loyalty windfall.
Variety-seeking customer Some customers are the opposite of habitual – or they may be habitual for certain types of products, but not others. For instance, while a customer may be loyal to a brand of toothpaste, they may be eager to explore a wide variety of lipsticks and hair gels to try out different styles and see what they like best. Offering a variety of different product lines, and adding new items regularly, can help keep these customers from getting bored with your brand – especially if you use a digital loyalty program to incentivize them to keep shopping with you, rather than testing out your competitors. Keep them in the loop with regular email, in-app, or SMS updates that let them know about new products they can try out, with personalized recommendations based on their previous shopping behavior.

Optimize purchase behavior all the way through the customer journey

It’s important to understand which type(s) of purchase behavior fits your brand, and by gathering data insights about your customers, you’ll be able to segment them to predict their purchase behavior based on shared characteristics, including both demographic and behavioral data. Build customized marketing funnels for each segment that help them through the purchase journey and encourage them to remain engaged with your brand.

During this process, don’t forget about the post-purchase phase! With all four types of purchasing behavior, it’s important to provide flexible and generous returns options so that customers can have confidence in their purchases. And by building a seamless process to help customers exchange items, you’ll be able to retain more customer revenue and increase customer retention all at once.

Want to learn how Loop can help you build customer loyalty? Contact us for a demo.

About The Author

JP Arnaud-Marquez is the Manager, Content Marketing at Loop, the exchange-first returns solution for Shopify brands. JP owns, creates, and drives Loop's multimedia content strategy from brainstorm to publication to advance the conversation around the post-purchase customer experience.

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Buying habits tied to being morning or night person

Friday, Aug 16, 2024 • Brian Lopez : contact

Portrait of UTA graduate Shashi Minchael

At some point, someone has told you that they are either a morning or a night person and how this trait dictates when they are most productive. One University of Texas at Arlington graduate says it may also affect people’s health.

Shashi Minchael (’24 Ph.D., Marketing; ’17 M.S., Marketing Research) recently published research showing how those who identify as evening people derive more happiness and live healthier when they make material purchases than when they make experiential purchases, such as a tickets to a concert or movie. In contrast, that those who identify as morning people gain more happiness making experiential purchases.

“Take a grill, for example,” he said. “If I want to sell it to both a morning and evening person, maybe I could focus on the material specifications and also how having a grill creates memories among friends and family.”

Dr. Minchael found that this is largely due to how both types perceive time, known as “subjective time perception.” He said evening people perceive time and past events as further away. If a concert happened a month ago, it seems even longer for these kinds of people, which is why they would rather have material items that always remain with them. Morning people, on the other hand, tend to hold on to experiences longer, so a concert they attended a month ago would retain its emotional impact.

“That is the crux of this research,” he explained. “For evening people, due to their relative present focus, time seems to go faster for them and their memory of an experience fades, hence their lower happiness. That’s why they’d rather have an item that is always present.”

To complete his research, Minchael surveyed nearly 1,100 people across multiple studies. For example, in one study participants were asked to recall a material purchase and an experiential purchase they had made, then indicate which of the two contributed more toward making their lives happier. After answering questions about the price and the date of their purchases, they were sectioned off into morning or evening people.

In marketing, understanding the human psyche is valuable information, Minchael said. Studies like this can not only help marketers learn how to position their products better, but more importantly can help people understand their own buying habits.

IMAGES

Buying behavior: What it is + Complete Guide
Consumer Buying Behaviour
Buying behavior: What it is + Complete Guide
Types of Buying Decision Behavior
Consumer Buying Behaviour
What is Consumer Behavior Research? Definition, Examples, Methods, and

COMMENTS

What is Consumer Behavior Research? Definition, Examples, Methods, and
Consumer behavior research is defined as a field of study that focuses on understanding how and why individuals and groups of people make decisions related to the acquisition, use, and disposal of goods, services, ideas, or experiences. Learn more about consumer behavior research examples, methods, and questions.
Consumer Buyer Behaviour Definition
The definition formed by Solomon et al (1995) describes consumer buying behaviour as a process of choosing, purchasing, using and disposing of products or services by the individuals and groups in order to satisfy their needs and wants. Similar definition of consumer buying behaviour is offered by Schiffman and Kanuk (2000) in which they ...
Consumer Behavior Research: A Synthesis of the Recent Literature
This article analyzes 12 years of recent scholarly research on consumer behavior published in the five leading international journals in this field. Analyzing academic contributions to a specific a...
The goods on consumer behavior
Research by consumer psychologists aims to promote consumers' well-being in sustainability, health, and money management.
What is Buyer Behavior: Definition, types, patterns, and analysis
Buyer behavior refers to the decision and acts people undertake to buy products or services for individual or group use. It's synonymous with the term "consumer buying behavior," which often applies to individual customers in contrast to businesses. Buyer behavior is the driving force behind any marketing process.
Consumer Behavior
Consumer behavior—or how people buy and use goods and services—is a rich field of psychological research, particularly for companies trying to sell products to as many potential customers as ...
3.1 Understanding Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior
What factors influence how consumers make buying decisions? How can marketers use this knowledge to design effective marketing strategies? This webpage from OpenStax explains the concepts and models of consumer markets and buying behavior, and provides examples and exercises to help you apply them.
Theory and Models of Consumer Buying Behaviour: A Descriptive Study
Consequently, the study summarizes the research on consumer behaviour for simpler understanding and helps in creating the research topic.
Understand the psychology of Consumer's buying behaviour in businesses
As a business owner or marketer, it's essential to understand the psychology behind consumer buying behavior. By understanding how and why people make purchasing decisions, you can tailor your marketing strategies and improve your chances of success. In this blog post, we'll: Understand the definition and significance of consumer buying ...
Buying behavior: What it is + Complete Guide
Buying behavior is the series of actions and interactions a consumer performs before, during, and after a commercial transaction. Experts usually study this process in market research and business owners to detect areas of opportunity that allow them to improve their processes and how they market their products or services.
Factors Affecting Impulse Buying Behavior of Consumers
As such, we believe that compulsive buying behavior does not depend only on a single variable, but rather on a combination of sociodemographic, emotional, sensory, genetic, psychological, social, and cultural factors. Personality traits also have an important role in impulse buying.
Buyer and buying behaviour
Buyer and buying behaviour is one of the more fervently studied subjects in marketing. To understand buyer behaviour is the ultimate goal of all marketers. Buyers are crucial in managing the relationship between an organization of the company, the enterprise, and its suppliers. Effective marketing plans and programmes must be based upon a sound ...
Consumer Psychology and Behavior
Consumer psychology is a specialty area that studies how our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions influence how we buy and relate to goods and services. In the United States, widely considered a highly consumerist society, this area of study is particularly relevant. One formal definition of the field describes it as "the study of ...
A Brief Literature Review on Consumer Buying Behaviour
A Brief Literature Review on Consumer Buying Behaviour. By John Dudovskiy. The topic of consumer behaviour is one of the massively studied topics by the researchers and marketers in the past and still being studied. Researchers show different reasons as to why consumer behaviour has been the topic of many academics and researchers.
Consumer Behavior Research
The purpose of this literature review is to system-atically review consumer behavior research over a 12-year period in five major journals in the field. Such an examination of diverse research in this discipline allows for identification of shifts and changes in a longitudinal manner.
The Concept of Consumer Behavior: Definitions in A Contemporary
Consumer behavior is a science that studies the activities of individuals and groups in sorting, buying, using or utilizing, and disposing of a product to satisfy their life needs where these ...
How to measure, understand, and influence buying behavior
Buying behavior is the way people shop for your product, from product discovery to purchase. Learn more about it, how to measure it, and what to do with the data.
What is Buyer Behavior: definition, types, patterns, and analysis
Learn about buyer behavior, its definition, types, patterns, and analysis. Understand how consumers make purchasing decisions and analyze their preferences.
Consumer Buying Behavior
Consumer Buying Behavior Definition is the sum of a , preferences, intention, and decisions regarding their behavior in the marketplace when buying a product or service.
Chapter 6. Consumer Buying Behavior Notes
Definition of Buying Behavior: Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products. Need to understand: Consumer Buying Behavior refers to the buying behavior of the ultimate consumer. A firm needs to analyze buying behavior for: Marketing Mix.
Knowledge mapping of impulsive buying behavior research: a visual
With the development of e-commerce, impulse buying behavior has transitioned from offline to online, presenting significant exploration value. This study aims to provide a comprehensive knowledge ...
Factors Affecting Impulse Buying Behavior of Consumers
As such, we believe that compulsive buying behavior does not depend only on a single variable, but rather on a combination of sociodemographic, emotional, sensory, genetic, psychological, social, and cultural factors. Personality traits also have an important role in impulse buying. Impulsive buyers have low levels of self-esteem, high levels ...
Understanding the 4 types of consumer purchasing behavior
The four types of consumer purchasing behavior. A variety of factors, including personal factors (age, sex, cultural background), social factors (income level, living conditions, family dynamics), and psychological conditions (brand perception) can drive customers to make particular purchase decisions. Some are more likely to make purchases ...
Buying habits tied to being morning or night person
Research from UTA alumnus shows that your preferred time of day may affect your purchasing behavior . ... Buying habits tied to being morning or night person.

The goods on consumer behavior

Sustainable consumption

Promoting health

Money matters

Further reading

Contact APA

Buyer behavior

Types of buyer behavior

Buyer behavior analysis

Complex buying behavior

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior

Habitual buying behavior

Variety seeking behavior

Place of purchase

Items purchased

Time and frequency of purchase

Method of purchase

Model of consumer buying behavior

1. Need recognition

2. Information search

3. Evaluation of alternatives

4. Purchase decision

5. Post-purchase evaluation

Using computer software

Analyzing customers’ reviews

Conducting online surveys

Consumer Behavior

3.1 Understanding Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior

Consumer Markets and Consumer Buying Behavior Defined

The Buyer’s Black Box

Types of Consumer Buying Behavior

Link to Learning

Knowledge Check

The Psychology of Consumer Buying Behavior: Understanding How and Why People Buy

Kate Williams

Consumer Buying Behavior: Definition and Significance

Types of Buying Decisions

Personal Factors

Psychological Factors

Social Factors

Situational Factors

The Five Stages of the Consumer Decision-Making Process: An Overview

Problem Recognition:

Information Search:

Evaluation of Alternatives:

Purchase Decision:

Post-Purchase Evaluation:

Habitual Buying Behavior:

Limited Decision-Making:

Extensive Decision-Making:

Impulse Buying:

Advertising and Persuasion:

The Role of Social Media:

Branding and Brand Loyalty:

The Power of Endorsements and Influencers:

Online shopping trends:

Greater product variety:

Convenience and speed:

Increased trust in online reviews:

Mobile Commerce:

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR):

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Personalization:

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior:

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory:

Localizing Marketing Campaigns:

Qualitative Research Methods:

Quantitative Research Methods:

Observational Research:

Neuromarketing:

Marketing Ethics:

Deceptive Advertising:

Be truthful:

Use clear and understandable language:

The Dark Side of Consumer Behavior:

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