Impact of Shelf-Positioning on Impulse Buying of Fast Moving Consumer Goods - Research Paper Example

Patterson (1963) argues that impulse buying is a result of various factors and one of these factors is the store location. Two important factors that influence impulse buying decisions include product packaging and positioning. Breygelmans, Campo & Gijbrechts (2006) researched the impact of self-positioning on online grocery store choices and they found that shelf management is an important factor even in the case of online grocery stores. By studying the in-store marketing of Norwegian retailing, it has been identified that promotional techniques which are used to normalize consumers purchasing behavior (Dulsrud & Jacobsen, 2009).

By positioning products on the top shelf or near the center, attention and evaluation of brands can be improved whereas, positioning brands on the middle shelves achieves attention but does not improve evaluation (Chandon, Hutchinson, Bradlow & Young, 2009). Another important factor that leads to impulse buying is packaging. The difference in packaging directly contributed to sales appeal (Twedt, 1968). Packaging is very significant for low-involvement products like impulse purchase categories because, in these categories, consumers do not have the desire or need to investigate the products (Louw & Kimber).

Packaging is the key driver of impulse buying and it is significant to understand whether planned versus impulse shopping occurs as a result of packaging (Sorensen Associates). The Henley Centre study (cited in Ogba and Johnson, 2010) has found that 73 percent of the purchasing decisions of consumers at the point of sales are because of the packaging of the products because packaging influences the choices of the people. In the changing marketing environment, analyzing whether shelf-positioning or packaging still plays an important role in impulse or not, will be very significant.

Therefore, the proposed research study will have significant implications for marketers. Research Objectives This research aims to determine whether better packaging or better shelf-positioning influence the impulse buying of consumers It aims to determine whether high visibility of fast-moving consumers’ goods through proper shelf-positioning result in the diminishing impact of packaging on Impulse buying This research study aims to determine whether lower visibility of fast moving consumer goods lead to a greater role of packaging to play in Impulse buying.

Another objective of this research study is to determine whether better packaging and visible shelf-positioning can help the markets achieve higher Impulse buying. Research Design and Methodology To achieve the mentioned objectives, both the qualitative and quantitative methodologies will used. In qualitative methodology, early research work and secondary data will be collected and analyzed.