The Buying Impulse

TLDR

Impulse buying is a poorly understood purchasing behavior, driven by marketing and lifestyle factors, yet lacking a compelling conceptual framework. The article reviews existing research on impulsive behavior and introduces a new interpretation of impulse buying. The authors conduct an exploratory study of consumers’ impulse buying episodes to investigate their phenomenology. The study identifies distinct subjective experiences at impulse onset, coping strategies employed by consumers, and the negative consequences they face.

Abstract

What is impulse buying? Despite the marketing and lifestyle factors that encourage it today, impulse buying is not yet well understood. This is due in part to the longstanding absence of a compelling conceptualization of this distinctive type of purchasing behavior. This article reviews extant research on impulsive behavior and then introduces a new interpretation of impulse buying. Following this are the results of an exploratory study that investigates the phenomenology of consumers' impulse buying episodes. The research identifies: (1) the subjective experiences that distinguish the onset of the buying impulse, (2) how consumers cope with their impulsive urges to buy, and (3) the types of negative consequences they incur as a result of their impulsive buying.