Customer Impulse Purchasing Behavior: A Reexamination

A recent article by David T. Kollat and Ronald P. Willett [1] reports a major investigation of impulse in the buying behavior of foods and attempts to identify the degree of such behavior and the economic, demographic, personality, and food shopping behavior factors related to impulse purchasing. Their article explores an important problem in marketing and gives much interesting material but, as presented, it is somewhat unconvincing. Research methodology used to investigate planned versus impulse purchasing is loaded with difficulties, simply because observation of behavior and data collection may significantly change what is being observed. The possibility of experimental effect or guinea pig effect is inherent in all such research and therefore, before data and conclusions can be accepted as valid, it must be shown that the effect is not present. This is probably especially true in the investigation of behavior subject to dramatic changes from small factors such as impulse behavior. Such behavior is impulsive and can be influenced by everything that is going on at the time, and if one of those ongoing events happens to be under observation by researchers, we might well expect behavior to reflect it.