The Influence of

Consumer Emotions
and External Cues on
Impulse Purchases
Honors Thesis
Tiffany Galmarini
Marketing Department
Faculty Sponsor: Richard J. Lutz

Table of Contents:

Introduction P. 2-3
Overview P. 3
Impulse Purchases P. 4
Stages Involved in an Impulse Purchase P. 4-6
External Cues P. 6-8
Example P. 8-9
Excessive Purchases P. 9-11
Consumer and Retailer Promotions P. 11-12
Advantages/Disadvantages of Impulse Buying from the Manufacturers Perspective: P.12-14
Advantages/Disadvantages of Impulse Buying from the Retailers Perspective: P. 14-15
Advantages/Disadvantages of Impulse Buying from the Consumers Perspective: P. 15-16
Marketing Implications P. 16-18
Ethical Approach: P. 18
A Look Ahead: P. 18-21

Introduction:
Consumers face the temptation to purchase items that are not on their shopping lists
everywhere they go. This temptation to make unnecessary purchases eventually leads to
consumers making impulse purchases. Every consumer has engaged in an impulse purchase at
some point in their life. With our society continuing to become more materialistic, marketers
have to devise new strategies to convince the consumer that their product or service is worth
purchasing even if it was not being sought after at the time of purchase.
Research indicates that nine out of ten shoppers purchase items on impulse (9 Out Of 10,
2012), and only 40% of consumers will say that the purchases they make on impulse are for
discretionary items (Danziger, 2004). This gap indicates either one of two things: the first is that
consumers are considering some of their impulse purchases to be for items that they need such as
toilet paper or water, rather than discretionary items. The second is that consumers are not
cognizant of the fact that they are purchasing on impulse, thereby reporting a lower percentage of
their purchases to be on impulse. Of the ninety percent of shoppers who purchase on impulse,
66% said it was due to a sale or promotion, 30% said it was because they found a coupon, and
23% said they wanted to reward themselves for something (9 Out Of 10, 2012). Taking all of this
into account, it is not surprising that impulse purchases account for approximately $4 billion in
annual sales in the United States (Dawson and Kim, 2010). With impulse purchases on the rise, it
is important for marketers to come up with innovative ways to capture the attention of the
consumer and to in turn increase the basket size for a purchase.
Marketers begin by analyzing the 4Ps (product, price, promotion, and placement) and
how they relate to the consumer because that in turn determines whether or not the consumer will
make a purchase. Researching what drives a consumer to purchase impulsively is the next step in

determining how to increase the number of impulse purchases made by a consumer in their
lifetime. With e-commerce on the rise, consumers are even more apt to make an impulse
purchase because there are now multiple media that the product can be purchased from. For
example, consumers can shop at traditional brick-and-mortar stores or on websites in the comfort
of their home. Therefore, it is crucial for marketers to research the why of a consumer impulse
purchase before they come up with a marketing strategy to approach the how.
Overview:
I will begin this paper by defining what an impulse purchase is and what characterizes it.
After walking through a few examples of how an impulse purchase occurs, I will then explain
the interconnectedness of manufacturer and retailer-controlled promotions and how they
encourage spontaneous shopping. After understanding the basis for how marketers increase the
likelihood of an impulse purchase, the idea of excessive purchases and why we reward ourselves
by purchasing items we do not need will be understood. The advantages and disadvantages of
impulse purchases for both consumers and retailers are all important when analyzing how the
consumer and the retailer contribute to purchases by the consumer. Finally, the marketing
implications of an impulse purchase will be explained by using evidence through examples and
research from various trade publications.
Impulse Purchases:
The term impulse purchase was first defined in 1948 in the DuPont studies and can
now be defined in several ways. It can be described as a sudden, often powerful and persistent
urge to buy something immediately (Dawson & Kim, 2010), there was no plan to buy the
object (Pooler, 2003), and a specific motivation or desire to perform a particular action, as
opposed to a general or latent desire or trait (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994). Impulse

purchases have three distinct features that characterize them: The purchase is unplanned, the
purchase is difficult for the consumer to control, and there is an emotional response that follows
the purchase (Nicholson & Xiao, 2012). The first two are somewhat self-explanatory because the
consumer did not plan on buying a particular item when they decided to go shopping and the
consumer had a difficult time convincing themself that they did not need or deserve the item.
After the item is purchased, the consumer will experience emotional satisfaction if the item is a
reflection of the consumers identity and brought a sense of fulfillment to the consumer
(Danziger, 2004). In the end, purchasing an item that the consumer does not need gives a
feeling of power to the consumer, making the impulse purchase (Danziger, 2004) resolve an
emotional need that the consumer was experiencing.
Since the term impulse purchase was defined in the late 1940s, increasing attention has
been given by academics in that there were more than nine papers per year written on the topic in
the 2000s but only about one paper per year in the 1960s (Nicholson & Xiao, 2012). This has
enabled marketers to use strategies that have been tested in a formal setting for the purpose of
increasing the number of items bought in a store. An important concept for marketers to
understand is that impulse buying has four stages that a consumer goes through when engaging
in an impulse purchase.
Stages Involved in an Impulse Purchase:
The first stage is the antecedent phase and is explained by the psychological
characteristics of individuals. For example, a consumer that is considered to be action-oriented
is more likely to buy on impulse because they act immediately without thinking why the
purchase is necessary. The importance of the antecedent phase is that there are preconditions
that exist before the consumer enters into a shopping environment (Nicholson & Xiao, 2012).

This means that an impulse purchase cannot be determined strictly by analyzing the consumer in
the antecedent phase because they have not entered into the shopping environment yet. However,
the impulse purchase can be predicted based on personality factors of the consumer. According
to research, a person with materialistic values is more likely to engage in impulsive buys because
they are always searching for a better way to differentiate themself and to work their way up the
social ladder. Children who were rewarded with material goods by their parents often develop a
pattern of rewarding themselves as adults with commodities when they feel down or stressed
out (Bindah, 2012) leading to an increased chance of making impulse purchases.
The second phase is the trigger stage which is governed by person-environment
transactions. This stage focuses on the triggers in an environment that can increase the likelihood
of an impulse buy. Some common triggers may include proximity of the product to the
consumer, the amount of time that the consumer has to shop, atmospherics of the store, and
emotional states of the consumer. For example, if a consumer is in a depressed state of mind,
they might browse the aisles just to keep whatever is bothering them off of their mind. Once the
consumer comes across an item that they have a connection with, they will experience a sense of
joy and pleasure if they purchase the item because it will distract the consumer from the
emotional issues that are on their mind.
The third stage is the act of buying and is supported by decision process theories.
Understanding how the consumer made the decision to purchase on impulse is explained in this
stage. Researchers Cobb and Hoyer found that impulsive purchasers perform minimal in-store
information processing (Nicholson & Xiao, 2012). These impulse decisions are therefore based
largely upon emotions of the consumer at the point in time when faced with the product. Buying

a product on impulse gives the consumer immediate satisfaction which is why the act of buying
itself provides the consumer with such a positive reaction.
The fourth and final stage is the post-purchase stage and is explained by the ABC theory
(affect-behavior-cognition). This theory states that a consumer will experience an internal
feeling, will react to that feeling (in this case it would be to buy an item on impulse), and will
evaluate the way they reacted to the feeling. For example, after a woman buys a new aquacolored pair of earrings, she may experience a feeling of regret because she knows that she does
not need earrings and spent money on something that she could have spent elsewhere. The
woman could also rationalize that she does not have earrings in that specific color blue and
therefore made a good purchase that will complete an outfit for her date this Friday night. As
noted in this example, the post-purchase stage can influence the next purchase that a consumer
makes because they remember how they felt after they bought on impulse the last time.
Therefore, it is important for advertisements to convince us, both before and after weve made a
purchase, that it was an intelligent choice (Berger, 2005).
External Cues:
When having a thorough understanding of the process that consumers go through when
making a purchase, it is easier for marketers to utilize external cues that are proven to increase
the likelihood of consumers to make an impulse purchase. A research study that was published in
the Journal of Fashion in Marketing focuses on four categories of external cues on apparel
websites. Although a rising number of consumers are shopping online due to convenience, there
are many other reasons people are staying at home to buy things as opposed to hitting the stores
and browsing the aisles. Some reasons include the all-day everyday access that the internet
allows, the breadth and depth of products available to consumers, and the privacy of being able

to purchase impulsively without anyone seeing. In addition to the personalized promotions that
websites create for each consumer based on their past searches and purchases, there are four
external cues that marketers can use to increase the occurrence of impulse buying.
Promotions are one type of external cue that include coupons, sweepstakes, free gifts,
buy-one-get-one-free deals, and free shipping (Dawson & Kim, 2010). A study published in the
Journal of Fashion in Marketing concluded that promotions accounted for 37% of all responses
in terms of what the consumer thought the reason was for the impulse purchase that they made
on an apparel website. And within the promotions category, 20% of the responses indicated that
free shipping was the reason for the impulse purchase to be made.
Ideas are another type of external cue. This cue is represented when a website offers
the ability for the shopper to narrow the search by what is in style, the most popular items
purchased, and items in a given price range. This category had the second most number of
responses at about 33%. A follow up study was done after conducting the focus interviews to see
what external cues influenced an impulse purchase. This follow up study simply asked if the
external cue was present on apparel websites. It was found that 35.5% of the apparel websites
analyzed had ideas cues available. Since ideas cues had the most presence on apparel websites
and promotions cues were considered the best in terms of what influenced the consumer to
purchase impulsively, companies should focus on providing more promotions cues on their
websites since there is a spread between what is most effective and what is most prominent.
The third external cue was categorized as sales. This included clearance, markdowns,
and limited time only sales. The sales external cues had the second best presence at 25.8% right
behind ideas external cues. What marketers need to take away from these two studies is that
ideas and sales were found the most frequently on apparel websites and yet ideas and promotions

external cues were most frequently mentioned by consumers participating in the focus groups
(Dawson & Kim, 2010). This means that marketers must ensure the use of ideas and sales cues
when promotions cues are used because consumers refer to promotions cues as being the primary
reason why they purchased on impulse when ideas and sales cues are found more frequently than
other external cues.
The fourth and final category listed as an external cue is classified as suggestions. This
includes suggested items at the bottom of the website after analyzing what the consumer
clicked on previously, reviews and product recommendations, and if the website stores what item
was last viewed by the customer. This category was present in only 16.8% of the apparel
websites.
After conducting the focus group and recording which apparel websites of the 60 chosen
had the external cues available, it was concluded that the amount of sales were significantly
correlated with the amount of external impulse trigger cues available (Dawson & Kim, 2010).
With this knowledge, marketers can analyze in which category they are lacking in terms of
promotions, ideas, sales, and suggestions. After doing so, they can create a marketing strategy
that will predict the increase in impulse purchases based on adding additional external cues to
their apparel websites. If an apparel website is lacking the funds to run promotions and sales, the
best external cue to invest in would be ideas because there is a low fixed cost of making
changes to the website to include the latest trends and to organize the products offered on the
website by price ranges. The second best external cue to implement if lacking funds would be
general suggestions like those used with Groupon. Amazon on the other hand, uses personalized
suggestions which would be more costly but also more effective in driving impulse purchases.
Example:

QVC is known for offering unique brands that are sold at select retailers, if at all. QVC
has a presence through the television medium and the web. The purpose of the television channel
is to enable people to step away from their daily routines and be a destination retailer for people
who are in the mood to escape and want to give themselves a little reward (Danziger, 2005).
This is significant because QVC recognizes the fact that consumers will purchase discretionary
items when exposed to inherently entertaining brands (Danziger, 2005).
QVC utilizes the external cues mentioned above by bringing on spokespersons that are
highly reputable for a particular brand. For example, Bob Bowersox (a professional chef and
former restaurant owner) is trusted by viewers when he is featuring a line of cookware
(Danziger, 2005). This is considered a suggestion external cue because it is an indirect
recommendation from a professional chef to purchase this cookware being offered on QVC.
There is also a direct website that consumers can now browse and will come across every type of
external cue mentioned above. There is a filter on the side to group products by price range, a
clearance section, and free gifts with a purchase of a specific item. All of these external cues
contribute to the success of the nontraditional retailer, QVC.
Excessive Purchases:
Impulse purchases can be increased due to external factors, emotions, psychological
traits, and environmental triggers. But why do consumers fall for the external cues and product
placements planned strategically by marketers? Consumers purchase in excess because they want
to reward themselves, satisfy a psychological need, or to simply make themselves feel good
(Pooler, 2003). Products are good at displaying a persons personality and increasing a persons
self-esteem. This makes it very difficult for a consumer to avoid an impulse purchase because
our society is embedded in a culture of consumption (Berger, 2005). A consumer culture is a

culture in which goods and services become an all-powerful force. In these cultures, advertising
and marketing play all-important roles, and privatism - a focus on ones personal interests and
desires, in contrast to a sense of public responsibility for others and for ones society-tends to
dominate most peoples thinking and behavior (Berger, 2005). This is exemplified in the
statistics that indicate the increase in discretionary income due to essentials costing less relative
to total income (Danziger, 2004). Over thirty percent of consumer spending is discretionary
which means that money spent by consumers on things they want and do not need largely
contribute to the countrys overall economy.
Consumers buy things they dont need because they are ultimately trying to achieve a
feeling or to enhance an experience (Danziger, 2005). The product that they bought is a quick
fix and the emotion experienced from the purchase is felt immediately. This concept goes along
with the fact that our society expects things to happen right away and when they want it. This
assumption that everything will happen instantly is obviously a false assumption so consumers
will purchase impulse items that will temporarily fix their problem in order to feel at ease with
the problem at hand. The amount of discretionary income a person has will ultimately determine
the types of products that are purchased impulsively and the excessive purchases that are made.
For example, a person making millions of dollars every year will have more discretionary
income than someone making fifty thousand dollars a year. The millionaire may be purchasing
different sports cars in various colors to prove that he has style and prestige. The person making
fifty thousand may purchase a collection of 80 eye shadows to express her personality and sense
of fashion. The millionaire does not need multiple sports cars and the woman does not need 80
eye shadows! But they both want to differentiate themselves which strongly suggests that

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shopping and purchasing on impulse can be thought of as a form of self-expression (Pooler,

2003).
Consumer and Retailer Promotions:
The amount of impulse purchases made by a consumer is impacted by the types of
promotions that are being offered by the manufacturer and by the retailer. Manufacturercontrolled promotions are aimed to boost sales in the short-term by providing extra purchase
incentives to customers (Simon, 2008). Common manufacturer-led promotions include samples,
coupons, contests, and bonus packs. Procter and Gamble is known for their manufacturer-led
promotions because they offer bonus items with many of their products. If a consumer wants to
purchase Gillette razorblades for example, there is often a bonus razor included. This tactic will
convince the consumer to purchase the Gillette pack of razors because there is a free razor
being offered. This type of promotion is very successful because the cost of a razor is next to
nothing when considering the profit margins on the blades that are being purchased.
Retailer-promotions are similar to manufacturer-promotions in that they are aimed to
increase sales in the short-term by providing incentives to consumers, but they are different in
that retail promotions are focused on improving the profit of a product category as opposed to a
specific brand. The goal of the retailer is to stimulate long term profits through sales and coupons
so that the consumer will choose to shop at their store for a specific product category and then
buy other items that they werent planning on buying, leading to impulse purchases. This is
where most stores differentiate themselves. For example, retailers will strategically place items
that are often purchased on impulse such as gum, candy, and magazines, by their checkout
registers. Within these product categories, checkout sales represent 46% of all supermarket
sales (Cohen & Babey, 2012). Retailers that are knowledgeable about what products are most

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often purchased on impulse will place these items not only at the checkout counters, but also
throughout the store on the end-caps and in small displays in order to maximize the
opportunity (Cameron, 2012) to sell common impulse items.
Monetary and nonmonetary promotions are used by manufacturers and retailers.
Examples of monetary promotions include price reductions, coupons, and rebates. Nonmonetary
promotions include free gifts, buy-one-get-one-free, sweepstakes, and bonus packs. Consumers
who are more price sensitive will respond to monetary promotions due to the utilitarian
benefits (Yi & Yoo, 2011) that are offered by the promotions. These monetary promotions are
successful because they reduce the perceived price of a product in the mind of the consumer.
Consumers who are more apt to purchase items for the purpose of pleasure will respond to
nonmonetary promotions because they are perceived as gains in the minds of the consumers.
For example, a person may believe that a good price for a Yankee Candle is $8. If that person
were to walk into a Yankee Candle store and see that there is a mini candle being offered with the
purchase of a candle, the person will encode that mini candle as a gain and experience a
hedonic benefit rather than a price reduction which is a utilitarian benefit.
Advantages/Disadvantages of Impulse Buying from the Manufacturers Perspective:
The manufacturer can decide whether or not to run promotions on their brands based on
the brand image that the manufacturer wants to uphold. There has been evidence indicating that
monetary promotions can damage brand attitude by lowering consumers reference price (Yi &
Yoo, 2011). This means that consumers may only purchase the product when on sale because
they will not be as willing to make the purchase for the products original price knowing that it
will go on sale eventually. Deal-prone consumers will be more resistant to purchasing a brand
when not on sale because they are motivated to make a purchase only when there is a promotion

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offered. These consumers will not have a negative attitude towards the brand when there is a sale
because they are more price-conscious. Other consumers, however, may perceive a promotion or
sale as something negative towards the brand as if there is a problem with the item or think that
the item is lacking quality. If marketers want to avoid this negative brand image, they should use
non-monetary promotions because consumers perceive non-monetary promotions separately
from price information and encode them as gains (Yi & Yoo, 2011). This will not affect the
quality or image of the brand in the consumers mind because the price of the product does not
decrease.
Manufacturers can promote a sale by offering a buy-one-get-one-free deal and capture the
consumers who are deal-prone and the consumers who are resistant to purchase a product
when there is a price reduction. This is because the consumer will see the free item as a gain as
opposed to a reduced price offering such as buy one get one half off. This promotion is a definite
advantage to manufacturers because they can encourage impulse purchases by offering a bonus
such as a free item with a purchase and capture all types of customers discussed above at the
same time.
When manufacturers are preparing retailers for a promotion that they are about to offer,
they ensure that there is plenty of product in stock in order to avoid unhappy customers who
want to take advantage of the promotion and cannot due to the product going out of stock. The
problem with this is that promotions can generate stockpiling, increase sensitivity to prices, and
reduce post-promotional sales (Simon, 2008). Stockpiling can occur when the manufacturer
processes too large of a shipment to be delivered to a retailer and then the retailer has no room
for the product on the sales floor or when there is leftover product after the promotion. As
mentioned before, consumers can have a negative brand attitude if they are conditioned to wait

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for the product to go on sale before making a purchase. This can hurt manufacturers because the
demand for their product will be unpredictable when there is no promotion available and could
possibly lose their customers to other brands if they are prone to only purchasing when items are
on sale. It is important to note however that this can be looked at the other way. If a consumer
walks into a grocery store and sees that Peter Pan Peanut Butter is buy-one-get-one-free that
week, the consumer may purchase on impulse. Peanut butter was not on the consumers
shopping list, but they realized that their jar at home was low and therefore took advantage of the
sale. This is significant to the manufacturer because this is a sale that would not have happened
without the incentive of the promotion for the consumer to purchase on impulse.
Advantages/Disadvantages of Impulse Buying from the Retailers Perspective:
Retail promotions are aimed to increase the profit of the retail stores and various product
categories. When there are retail promotions going on, manufacturers may also benefit because
consumers will be encouraged to purchase more items and therefore try out brands they might
have never tried otherwise. Retail promotions can be a coupon for example of $5 off a purchase
of $30 or more. This coupon may entice the consumer to try their store over their usual retailer
which creates store substitution (Kumar & Leone, 1989). This is significant to the retailer
because they will increase their customer base during that promotion and possibly acquire more
customers in the long-run.
A major problem that retailers are currently facing with promotions and coupons is the
fact that some consumers have become coupon hoarders (Mayer, 2011). These so-called
hoarders have made couponing an obsession to the point where they will not buy items unless
they are on sale and will buy items in bulk when they are on sale. For example, one woman
purchased her family 150 pouches (Fortini, 2012) of tuna fish that lasted her family a year and

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a half when it was 50 cents off and paired with a retailer coupon, making the tuna fish essentially
free. A report by Nielsen indicated that coupon usage by households was 13%, up from 2009 at
11%. And of these 13%, 70% were redeemed by enthusiasts, which is defined as those who
bought at least 188 items using coupons per year (Mayer, 2011). This brings challenges to the
retailer and has caused retailers such as Target and Walgreens to update their coupon policies in
order to ensure that they remain profitable off of the coupon enthusiasts.
Advantages/Disadvantages of Impulse Buying from the Consumers Perspective:
Impulse buying can be advantageous to consumers in a few ways. A consumer may have
forgotten to write an item on their shopping list and be reminded of the item based on the
placement in the store while they are shopping. This type of impulse purchase is not harmful to
the consumer because time is saved by not having to make another trip to the store after the
consumer discovers that they forgot to write an item on their list. This happens often in the food
industry because there are many ingredients that go into a recipe and the consumer could forget
to write an item on their list. For example, a woman making chocolate chip cookies will go down
the baking aisle to get the flour, sugar, chocolate chips, and oil. The consumer may have
forgotten the baking soda but since it was right next to the flour, she remembers that she needs
that item as well. Another advantage of impulse purchases is that they provide value to the
consumer. This value is often based on emotions in that the consumer achieves a variety of
feelings after buying an item that they did not need or did not plan to buy. Some consumers
consider shopping exciting and feel that it temporarily numbs any negative emotions that they
are experiencing, making an impulse purchase the perfect quick fix to their day.
Impulse purchases do not always provide consumers with an advantage. Nowadays,
many people are struggling to make ends meet and are on tight budgets. If marketers strategically

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place products and expose external cues, consumers will be more likely to make an impulse
purchase and exceed their budget if they purchase on impulse too often.
Marketing Implications:
When analyzing the effects of retail and manufacturer promotions, consumers are
indifferent between manufacturer and retailer rebates (Simon, 2008). This is due to the fact that
consumers are driven by external promotions and do not pay attention to where the promotions
come from. Consumers will respond differently to a price reduction versus a bonus item, but they
will respond the same way if a manufacturer is offering it or a retailer is offering it.
With this in mind, it is important for retailers to recognize why consumers shop the way
they do in order to differentiate themselves from the manufacturers. For example, the fact that
nine out of ten shoppers purchase items on impulse is significant because this shows the
importance of brands having a presence in the stores whether through print ads, promotions, or
having the brand at the right location in the store. Impulse purchases are so prevalent among U.S.
shoppers because it is an opportunity to satisfy a long-felt need or desire (Berger, 2005).
Purchasing on impulse can make a consumer feel more attractive, enable us to do something we
want to do, or it will reward us for meritorious behavior in the past (Berger, 2005). Consumers
purchasing on impulse may be buying the item for a number of reasons, but the most significant
reason is the fact that consumers are trying to feel a certain way or achieve some kind of
emotional response.
One of the most important factors of a retailers success is the amount of walk-in traffic
the store attracts. These shoppers deserve attention from the store clerks because they are
actively judging the merchandise available in the store. These customers who stop in a store just
for browsing often buy items on impulse. And if they do not buy on impulse at that moment, they

16

may see an item they like and remember it for a future purchase. Think about the prevalence of
this situation: a store clerk asks a customer if they need help finding something and the customer
responds by saying No thank you, Im just looking around. This statement is very prevalent in
our society because we have taken up spontaneous shopping (Pooler, 2003) which is the
pleasure of buying something unneeded or unplanned. This spontaneous shopping phenomenon
leads to an increase in impulse purchases. Retailers that leverage this will make their stores
enticing and draw in customers so that they just look around and hope that they leave with
something that they did not plan on buying. A great example of a retailer using a tactic to
instigate this is Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World. The retail store has fishing poles that you can try
out, ponds with fish swimming around, and old wooden boats that have historical significance.
This atmosphere in the store is supposed to replicate the outdoor experiences that the consumer
will be faced with (fishing, hunting, camping, etc.) and therefore increase the consumers
comfort level and drive purchases.
After the retailer lures the customer into the store, the next marketing tactic that the
retailer must be aware of is the fact that the more time people spend in a store, the more they will
buy. Therefore the retailer must ensure a comfortable and easy layout of the store for the
customers convenience. The easier it is for the consumer to navigate the store, the more they
will choose to shop at that store. But on the flip side, retailers want to have the consumers linger
in their stores as long as possible because the amount of money we spend in supermarkets is
tied to the amount of time we spend in them (Berger, 2005). So the retailer must have a balance
of easy access and strategic placement of products to ensure that the customers cover as many
aisles as possible. Dog food, for example, is in the middle of the aisle with all of the outdoor
items and paper products. This is because the retailer wants to have the customer pass by all of

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the paper products that they may have forgotten that they need and therefore purchase it even
though they had no intention of doing so.
Ethical Approach:
Critics will argue that marketing tactics used for the purpose of increasing impulse
purchases are unethical. Stakeholder theory suggests that a business should be concerned about
all people who are affected by the decisions that a business makes. Shareholder theory states that
a business has one social responsibility: to increase profits. A Stakeholder theorist will think that
the grocery and food industries participate in some of the most unethical practices regarding the
temptation of impulse purchases.
Kroger (a grocery chain) owns two other grocery companies, Food for Less and Ralphs.
Food for Less targets low-income neighborhoods and uses more extensive impulse marketing
strategies that promote low-nutrient (Cohen and Babey, 2012) foods. This should be compared
to the Ralphs supermarkets which are found in higher-income neighborhoods in the same city. In
addition to more aggressive marketing strategies, the produce department is in the front of
Ralphs supermarkets and in the back past all of the cookies, doughnuts, and sugar sweetened
beverages of Food for Less supermarkets. This example suggests that people with lower incomes
are more vulnerable to impulse marketing techniques (Cohen and Babey, 2012). On the other
hand, Shareholder theorists would argue that these aggressive marketing techniques targeted to
lower-income neighborhoods are ethical in that Kroger is seeking profits which is their only
social responsibility.
A Look Ahead:
When thinking about these marketing tactics that retailers can implement to encourage
impulse purchases, it is important to understand the history of how people shop. The best

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indicator of how a person shops is to observe how a person has behaved in the past because the
basic consumer personality that guides and directs behavior is fixed over time (Danziger, 2004).
Think back upon the examples of how coupon users normally shop. A person who is brought up
to be thrifty and use coupons will be more likely to use coupons in their adulthood than someone
who was not brought up in that environment. The types of products that a person purchases will
change as they grow older, but they will continue to use similar buying habits as they did when
they were a young adult. We can extrapolate this to consumers who are considered to be impulse
purchasers. A person who craves satisfaction and an emotional response that comes after an
impulse purchase will continue to purchase on impulse because the consumer mind-set is fixed
(Danziger, 2004). So if marketers can accurately predict what a consumer will do based on
his/her past behaviors, then what challenges do marketers face when choosing the correct
strategies to implement to increase impulse purchases and traffic flow in a store? The answer is
there are changes in demographics as well as cultural, economic, and political changes in the
environment.
One of the most prominent changes in consumer behavior stems from the fact that the
United States population is aging. The baby boomers make up for this aging population as there
are about 76 million people included in this generation. Marketers will have to respond to this by
increasing the amount of delivery services available and enticing the population with senior
discounts to get them back into the stores. The reason for this is because the amount of
discretionary products purchased by a consumer starts to slow after age 55 and drops sharply at
age 65 (Danziger, 2004). But marketers must not ignore the 71 million people who are the baby
boomers children. The people in this generation are now considered adults and are buying their
first homes. Economy-priced goods will be in high demand for this group because they are

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beginning to start their own families and have to stretch their paychecks as far as they can to
make ends meet.
Another trend affecting consumer spending and behavior is the fact that time is becoming
more valuable to consumers. The amount of time that people shop has decreased with consumers
visiting 2 to 3 stores in 1990 to buy major purchases, to only 1.8 stores today (Danziger, 2004).
This makes it crucial for retailers to have a web presence because convenience and time is now
of the essence. In addition to time, the idea that consumers are now focusing on the experience of
a product or service versus the material or physical attributes of a product is now apparent more
than ever. This can be attributed to the rise of internet use and consumers craving the interaction
of people and products in the shopping experience. This is contradictory to the fact that many
consumers are turning to the internet for their shopping and price comparisons.
With the contradictions that marketers must learn to react to, it is crucial for retailers to
have a diverse profile. This means that retailers must have an online presence so that the retailer
will reach out to consumers who value their time and prefer to order online as well as a physical
presence in the form of a brick-and-mortar store. The physical presence of a retailer is important
because consumers are craving experiences. For example, Home Depot is famous for offering
quality information on how to use the home-improvement products that they sell. This is
valuable to the consumer and other retailers should implement an experiential-retailing
program (Danziger, 2004) in order to target the consumers who are seeking a differentiated
retailer with a unique product offering.
The ever-changing market is the focus of marketers concerns because that is what
ultimately affects how a consumer will behave. But with the knowledge of why a consumer
spends the way they do, it is easier to determine the what, when, how, and how much of a

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consumers buying power. Impulse purchases will always be present because of the need for a
consumer to achieve an emotion or buy something that they have determined that they have to
have. Therefore, it is the job of the marketers to make sure that there are appropriate product
offerings in the right places of a store in order to draw the customers attention to the benefits of
a product in order to justify the impulse purchase.

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