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Understanding nature of store ambiance and individual impulse buying tendency on impulsive purchasing behaviour: an emerging market perspective

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Abstract

The paper investigates the influence of store ambiance factors like music and light, sales personnel, display and colours, and instore crowd, impulse buying tendency and urge to buy on impulse buying. In the process, this study also validates the scales of these select variables in Indian context. The work has been divided into three parts—the study scales were developed and tested in the Indian context, followed by undertaking of test–retest and establishment of predictive validities in the second and third parts, respectively. The results reveal a positive relationship of shoppers’ impulse buying tendency and urge to buy with impulse buying. Also, two of the store-related environment factors—sales personnel and display and colour schema—have influence on impulsive buying among shoppers. However, contrary to the finding of earlier studies, the present paper noted no role of instore crowd and music and light in triggering and encouraging such behaviour. This contradiction in the findings of this paper is major contribution to the existing literature on antecedents influencing impulsive buying.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Raipur, Old Dhamtari Road, Sejbahar, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, 492015, India

    Chandan Parsad, Sanjeev Prashar & Vijay Sai Tata

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  1. Chandan Parsad
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  2. Sanjeev Prashar
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  3. Vijay Sai Tata
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Correspondence to Chandan Parsad.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Scenario

Please read the following scenario before performing the tasks listed below

Seema is a 22-year-old college student with a part-time job. She wants to buy a new latest style Scarf. She has recently bought a new cardigan and is considering the purchase of a scarf that she can use along with the cardigan. Seema plans to spend no more than Rs 500 for the purchase of this new accessory, but she feels that she has enough extra money to splurge if she finds something she really likes. After work, she decides to visit the store to purchase the scarf. As she was browsing the store, Seema sees a great-looking scarf for Rs 400. Suddenly she also sees a red sandal matching her cardigan on sale at 50% off at Rs 1000 only and falls in love with it on first sight. What should Seema do?

  • Buy only Scarf

  • Buy sandal

  • Buy both.

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Parsad, C., Prashar, S. & Tata, V.S. Understanding nature of store ambiance and individual impulse buying tendency on impulsive purchasing behaviour: an emerging market perspective. Decision 44, 297–311 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40622-017-0168-2

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