IDENTIFYING DETERMINANTS OF COMPULSIVE BUYING BEHAVIOR

The objective of the study is to ascertain the determinants of compulsive buying behavior and their relationship in reference to perceived social status associated with buying, materialism, self esteem and apparel product involvement. A close ended questionnaire was administered to a sample of 240 respondents that were drawn non- randomly. The intensity of the compulsive buying behavior was found to be high (4 on a scale of 5 to 1). The rating on determinants of compulsive buying behavior were as high as 3.92 for materialism, and as low as 2.93 for self-esteem. Respondents’ opinions varied from one determinant to other. It was highest for social status and lowest for tendency to spend. The skew ness for all the determinants of compulsive buying behavior were negative except self-esteem indicating that the most of the respondents’ opinions were below the respective means. The dependent variable “compulsive buying behavior” has the strongest correlation with materialism (r 2 = 0.81) and no relationship with post purchase guilt. The correlations of other determinants on one-to-one basis were low except between self-esteem and apparel product involvement where the correlation was found to be 0.60