Impulse of Buying Fast-Moving Consumer Goods - Essay Example

The research paper selected as the base paper of this research is ‘Unplanned Buying and In-Store Stimuli in Supermarkets’ by Abratt, R., and D.G. Stephen (1990). I have also followed the same methodology as followed by Abratt and Stephen. It is interesting to note that a lot of research work has been done on impulse buying. According to Popai/Du Pont Study, it appears that approximately 65% of all supermarket purchase decisions were made in-store with over 50% of these being unplanned decisions varying across product categories. Average customer purchase 50.5% of the products on an unplanned basis (Kollat and Willett, 1969). This shows that impulse buying accounts for a major portion of the buying patterns for consumer behavior.

‘Impulse buying’, a more relevant term in today’s world, to be synonymous with ‘unplanned purchase’ can be described as any purchase that a shopper makes but has not planned and a major junk of consumer purchases are being made without advance or prior planning (Stern, 1962). Impulse buying is defined in this study as a purchase decision made in-store with no explicit recognition of a need for such a purchase before entering the store (Kollat and Willett, 1967). Impulse buying, despite certain connotations attached to it, has become an efficient and sensible way of buying goods and the incidence of impulse buying is growing (Stern, 1962).

Impulse buying has been seen to be at work mostly in the case of FMCGs. Impulse purchasing is not confined to any type of marketing institution, but it probably most frequently refers to food purchasing decisions (Kollat & Willet, 1969). Unplanned purchasing occurs in many types of retail outlets, it is most commonly studied in supermarkets (David T Kollat and Ronald P. Willet, 1969).

Various studies identified impulse buying as a major segment of consumer buying behavior. In several studies, it has been stated that shelf positioning greatly influences impulse buying because of its impact on the visibility of the products (Clover, 1950) and (Cox, 1964). As the above studies impulse buying, in this research paper will cover the two major effects and study their impacts. 

Several variables are related to customer differences in unplanned purchasing. But when the number of different products purchased is held constant, these variables do not influence the percentage of unplanned purchases (Kollat and Willett, 1967). These variables are Economic and Demographic Variables Behavior Variables, Personality Variables, Demographic variables, and General food shopping behavior variables. This explains the fact that during my research I do not need to count these factors while measuring the impact of packaging and shelf positioning on impulse buying. 

The on-shelf position is an important factor (DuPont Study). Controlled tests carried out in the United Kingdom and West Germany have concluded that the on-shelf position does influence the unit sales for supermarket products (Sewell, 1984). The rationale is that consumers have a natural tendency to focus and perceive at eye level. Displays can therefore increase the rate of unplanned purchases in retail stores (Peak & Peak, 1977; Quelch, 1983). Many studies have been conducted in an attempt to quantify the sales responsiveness of displays. All these found that displays increased the sales of items displayed (Chevalier, 1975; Engel et al., 1978; Kennedy, 1970; Wilkinson et al., 1982). Impulse purchase can be attributed to a lot of factors first being store location (Patterson, 1963).

As impulse buying can be measured and identified in different kinds of items ranging from non-food items such as furniture and food items such as grocery items. So I focused my research on FMCG-Fast Moving Consumer Goods, in which impulse buying is greatly affected by packaging and shelf positioning.

Two factors that determine impulse buying include the Packaging of products and their positioning in the store. Packaging is very important because the customer is appealing in expectations that the product will be precisely what is mentioned in the illustration. Differences in packaging excellence are directly translated into corresponding differences in sales appeal (Twedt, 1968). Therefore, one way to market the products without making huge promotional strategies is through packaging.