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Impulse purchasing is an
important aspect of customer in-store behavior as discussed in the previous article. The authors of this
paper indicate that the concept, as presently employed,
has limited usefulness as a
basis for marketing decisions. They outline the problems marketers must confront in order to make the
unplanned purchasing concept operational for marketing decisions.
Journal of Marketing. Vol. 33 (January.
1969). pp. 79-83.
79
80
ferential promotion treatment of items. Certain
store layouts, product locations, shelf locations, and
types of displays are apparently thought to be more
conducive to and consistent with unplanned purchasing than are others. Unplanned purchasing is
also of interest to manufacturers. Packaging and
point-of-purchase decisions allegedly are based, in
part, on a product's present or potential rate of
unplanned purchasing.'"
Thus, the importance and relevance of unplanned
purchasing is apparently widely recognized and accepted. However, is the concept really a useful
basis for the types of marketing decisions that have
been mentioned above? This article discusses four
basic problems with unplanned purchasing that
severely limit its usefulness for marketing decisions.
First, the concept is too vague and encompasses too
many types of behavior to be an operational criterion
for marketing decisions. Second, measured unplanned purchasing rates may be exaggerated because of the methodology used to generate them,
and may distort the potential for increasing products' sales by manipulation of in-store location and
display. Third, present measures of unplanned purchasing rates are misleading bases for selecting
products for differential promotional treatments.
Fourth, unplanned purchase rates for individual
brands may differ significantly from the parent
product category rate, thereby deceiving both retailers and manufacturers.
The Problems of Definition
Since unplanned purchasing is a widely recognized
and frequently talked about type of behavior, it
would seem logical to expect some consensus about
the meaning of the phenomenon. Actually, this is
not the case, for the term is used in many different
ways. The following are illustrative of the variety
of conceptual definitions:
(1) An impulse purchase is an unplanned, spur
of the moment decision to purchase a prod(2) An impulse purchase is a logical and efficient way of making purchase decisions, since
by waiting until one is in the store to finalize purchase intentions, a more comprehensive and realistic evaluation of purchase
alternatives can often be made.i1" Bert C. McCammon, Jr., "The Role of Point-of-Purchase Display in the Manufacturer's Marketing Mix,"
in Taylor Meloan and Charles Whitlo (editors). Competition in Marketing (Los Angeles: Graduate School
of Business, University of Southern California, 1964),
p. 78.
11 William R. Davidson and Alton F. Doody, Retailing
Management (New York: The Ronald Press Company,
1966), p.180.
'2 Saul Nesbitt, "Today's Housewives Plan Menus as
They Shop," Nesbitt Associates Release, 1959, p. 2-3.
Research.
81
82
promoted, and the customer who selectively exposes
himself to, and selectively perceives, the promotional
stimuli. If in-store stimuli do not precipitate all
unplanned purchasing, then it follows that other
factors must be causing some of this type of
behavior.
The Custonter-commitment Hypothesis
The customer-commitment hypothesis maintains
unplanned purchasing, or differences between purchase intentions and actual purchases, are attributable, in part, to incomplete measures of purchase
plaris. "Measured purchase intentions" are not the
same as "actual purchase intentions" because the
shopper is iinicilling and/or unable to commit the
time and/or cognitive resources necessary to make
the two types of purchase intentions equivalent.
The customer may be ununlling to itemize her
purchase intentions because she does not want to
invest the amount of time and thought necessary
to give the interviewer a complete roster of her
purchase plans. Instead, she articulates only an
incomplete itemization of what she plans to purchase,
thereby satisfying the requirements of the interview
without spending too much time or having to think
too much.
There are several reasons why the shopper may be
unable to itemize her purchase plans. First, the
shopper may know what she will purchase but may
be unable to articulate these purchase intentions
because of the characteristics of the interview.
The methodology used in most .studies of unplanned
purchasing forces the shopper, in the absence of a
shopping list, to rely on memory for purchase intentions. In other words, unaided and nearly spontaneous recall is usually used to measure purchase
plans. Thus, the methodology alone guarantees that
measured purchase plans will deviate to some degree
from actual purchase plans.
Second, the shopper may know what she will purchase but may be unable to relate these intentions
regardless of the amount of assistance given by the
interviewer. That is. without exposure to in-store
stimuli, the shopper may be unable to construct
cognitively and verbalize for the interviewer what
she will purchase.
The logic underlying the customer-commitment
hypothesis was alluded to nearly two decades ago.-'-^
The hypothesis was also deduced from a recent study
of the unplanned purchasing behavior of 600 supermarket shoppers.-'^ Since the hypothesis was a byproduct rather than an objective of the study, it
was not pos.sible to determine the amount of un-'3 William Applebaum, "Studying Customer Behavior
in Retail Stores," JOURNAL OF MARKETING. Vol. 16
(October, 1951), pp. 172-178, p. 178.
~* See, David T. Kollat and Ronald P. Willett, "Customer
Impulse Purchasing Behavior," Journal of Marketing
Research, Vol. 4 (February, 1967), pp. 21-31.
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