Similarities observed in buying behaviour under both situations:

When toys are purchased, children play the role of the influencer while parents, in most of the
cases, are buyer and decider. The major factors influencing the purchase of toys are personal and
social. This phenomenon was common across both situations. It didn’t matter whether they were
buying it from a single-branded store or a supermarket. The lifecycle stage of the buyers influences
their purchase decision. When they have toddlers, they look for toys which can improve their
toddler’s motor skills, and in such a scenario, the child has no role to play. However, when the
children are below the age of 12, their social factors have a major influence on them. They take cues
from their reference groups, which are friends and famous cartoon characters or action figures at
that particular point of time. For children who were below the age of 12, reference groups played a
major role in shaping their preferences, but for teenagers, they had some sense as to what are they
looking for and what value do they want to derive from the shopping.

People visiting a supermarket or a toy shop were more or less involved in dissonance reducing
buying behaviour. Under both the situation, they were highly involved and were familiar with the
product category, but they see very few differences among brands. In both situations, parents or
relatives or an older person who was buying toys for the kids was looking for what value addition
can the toy provide to the kid of his age. Price and quality were compared to derive at the utility of
the product.

One thing that was common across the stores was that the highly-priced toys or toys with greater
durability or lifetime such as the scooter, bicycle etc. were preferred to be bought on special
occasions like birthday, school results etc. This kind of product involved greater involvement and
buyer in both cases spent significant time in ensuring that he is purchasing the right product.

Differences observed in buying behaviour under both situations:

Despite all the similarities in the buying behaviour, there were slight differences in the way people
shopped in a supermarket versus in a store.

There was a little scope of an impulse purchase in a single-branded store as the buyer who was
visiting such a store has recognized a problem, and hence, the visit is mostly planned. It was also
observed that buyers visiting the single-branded store had done some prior information search for
the product they were looking for and had some category or some preferences/choices in their
mind. After visiting the store, they are most likely to evaluate those pre-decided alternatives and
arrive at a decision. And, sometimes, it can also happen that the buyer adds some information to the
pool he had already made and then evaluate the alternatives. But in most of the cases, the visit can
be characterized as planned and the buyer is at the stage of evaluation of alternatives.

However, this was not the scenario in case of a supermarket. There were many impulse purchases as
well because the buyer has come there to shop for other utilities, but the toys placed in the aisle
have attracted their child’s attention to which they have to buy something. In the case of an impulse
purchase, there was no problem recognition, and hence, the buyer seeks to maximise his value by
purchasing the cheapest toy which can appease the child for that moment.

Even in the case of planned purchase, buying behaviour is not similar to that in a single-branded
store. Most buyers are at the stage of information search when they arrive at a supermarket for
buying toys. They must have recognised the need in terms of the child’s age for whom they want to
buy the toy and the occasion on which they want to buy the toy. But their big part of information
search happens in the store where they look for various product alternatives that can be bought.
Then they evaluate all those alternatives decided to arrive at the purchase decision. In
supermarkets, the salesperson has a major role to play in buying decision as the buyer has done very
little information search, and his choices are not fixed. This means that he is looking for a particular
product category but not for a specific brand in most of the cases. People visiting the supermarket
for toys belonged to the middle class as they were keenly looking for the price while buying a toy
and were not brand conscious. They relied heavily on the advice of the salesperson. Also, when they
considered the toy to be not of any value addition, they tried to influence the child’s preference by
making him look for alternative categories which were less expensive.

In a nutshell, factors influencing purchase decision were more or less same across the shopping
situations, but the stage of the buying process was different in both cases and hence the role of the
salesperson was very different in a super-market versus a single-branded store.