Understanding & Researching Consumer Buyer Behaviour Essay

Understanding & Researching Consumer Buyer Behaviour - Essay Example Understanding & Researching  Consumer Buyer  Behavior However, it is vital to take note that local market situations, exchange systems, as well as certain cultural aspects, play a significant role in how consumers perform impulse behaviors. This paper will examine the nature of impulse buying, describing the how marketers can incorporate knowledge of customers’ impulse buying tendencies to their marketing strategies. Nature of Impulse Buying Behavior Impulse buying is essentially unreflective behavior that fails to conform to the rational, well-thought decision making standpoint in terms of consumer buyer tendencies or actions. The process of impulse buying is an extremely complex goal process that centers on reaction and emotion as its primary driving forces. This is largely because consumers engage in the process of impulse buying without engaging in concrete thoughts regarding their actions or conducting an evaluation of their intended deeds. According to Rook (116) consumers engaging in impulse buying are unlikely to consider the implications or think carefully and logically prior to making the purchase. The attention of such consumers is channeled towards the immediate gratification inherent in responding to the desire or urge to make the purchase instead of identifying and solving a preexisting issue or finding a product to fulfill a predetermined need. In addition, consistent with other forms of impulsiveness, impulse buying is also immediate, meaning that the process occurs in the span of several minutes and is not premeditated. Impulse Buying Behavior After the year 1982 when marketing researchers started to re-focus their attention on impulse buying actions, marketers started to ponder over the behavioral dimensions inherent in impulse buying. However, recently marketers appear to believe that impulse buying involves both affective and hedonic components. For instance, in his researcher, Rook (89) provided the assertions of consumers who reported that they felt the products â€Å"calling† t hem nearly demanding that the consumers purchase the products. This indicates on intense emphasis on the behavioral aspect of impulse buying, which, in turn, resulted in the definition of impulse buying as behavior that takes place when consumers experience sudden urges, usually persistent and powerful to purchase something instantly. The urge or purchase is hedonically intricate and has the potential of stimulating emotional conflict. Furthermore, impulse buying typically occurs with diminished consideration of its consequences (Rook 191). There are essentially five critical aspects embedded in impulse buying. These elements include a spontaneous and sudden urge to act; the action in this sense being the urge to make a purchase. Secondly, impulse buying also involves a position of psychological disequilibrium whereby a consumer’s emotions are in disarray concerning the act of making a purchase. Thirdly, impulse buying involves the emergence of psychological struggle and conf lict as consumers struggle with the urge to buy on impulse. Furthermore, impulse buying entails a dramatic reduction in the consumer’s cognitive evaluation abilities. This reduction is what forms the urge to make an instant purchase without taking into consideration the immediate or long term implications of such