Are Impulsive buying and brand switching satisfactory and emotional?

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1 Are Impulsive buying and brand switching satisfactory and emotional? Abstract This study draws attention to a common concern about buying impulsiveness, by investigating this phenomenon in relation to satisfaction, emotion and the tendency to switch brand. A survey among 287 respondents who were randomly invited was analyzed using structural equation modelling with three different analytical models. Results show that the specific predisposition of getting emotionally involved does not encourage either the emotion-laden impulsive buying behaviour or the exploratory behaviour of switching brand. However, the trait does moderate the satisfactory likelihood of switching brand. Introduction Buying impulsiveness might be problematic for a number of individuals as well as their families, but can be important for marketers as they are aware of this particular behaviour and always seek to turn it into opportunity. However, certain consumers prefer to trust their immediate judgment when they buy a product, while a number of others prefer to try different brands to purchase. Are these two specific behaviours related? Are these behaviours relevant for satisfaction? Are they encouraged by emotion? The paper seeks to investigate the role of emotion over the impulsive buying and brand switching, and the significance of the latter two behaviours over the level of satisfaction. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by advancing our understanding on whether emotion, impulsivity and exploratory behaviours of consumers are relevant for their satisfaction. The paper also investigates whether there is a significant impact of gender to above relationships, i.e. whether male and female have different behavioural pattern. Conceptualization Impulsive buying and emotion trait Impulse Buying in general refers to the tendency to buy spontaneously, unreflectively, immediately and kinetically (e.g. Donthu and Gilliland 1996; Martin et al. 1993; Rook and Fisher 1995). Intuitively Impulse Buying has been indicated to be influenced by emotion, where emotion may motivate an individual to react impulsively without much cognitive mechanism. Previous work has suggested that emotional states, with a varied degree between individuals, may have behavioural consequence such as impulsive buying (Cohen and Andrade 2004; Weinberg and Gottwald 1982) and consumers seem to be aware of this motivational effect (Rook and Gardner 1993). This notion suggests an emotion-attitude-behaviour linkage, where emotion influences the judgment or attitude to a product (Adaval 2001), and suggests the emotion-attitude-behaviour process takes place so quickly or spontaneously because of loosen of risk taking border line (e.g. Cohen and Andrade 2004). More specifically the emotion which a consumer experiences at the time s/he receives stimuli, influences the way s/he processes them (e.g. Yeung and Wyer 2004) so that only emotional criteria are applied to evaluate a product. The product theoretically produces emotive or affective stimuli that congruently drive consumer judgment to conclude that the behavioural risk is acceptable. Thus, emotion brings the consumer to an impulsive situation which is characterized by an unplanned, spontaneous and immediate response (e.g. Cohen and Andrade 2004; Rook and Fisher 1995). It is therefore important to examine whether emotionality of a consumer has something to do with impulsiveness. It is hypothesized that impulsive buying has a positive relationship with emotionality trait. 1

2 H1: Impulsive buying has a positive relationship with the emotion trait of NFE Brand Switching and emotion trait Brand Switching is the tendency of a consumer to purchase brands different from previous ones s/he has bought (e.g. Mittal 19(Mittal 1994)94; Putrevu and Lord 1994), and can be seen as a manifestation of exploratory behaviour and novelty seeking (Raju 1980). True brand switching behaviour is deemed to be intrinsically driven by inherently satisfying rewards of changing or variety seeking behaviour (McAlister and Pessemier 1982; Van Trijp et al. 1996). Brand switching may also result from altered beliefs about brands owing to external causes such as advertising (Deighton et al. 1994) or other sales promotion (Grover and Srinivasan 1992). This second perspective has been labelled as derived due to extrinsic motives (McAlister and Pessemier 1982; Van Trijp et al. 1996). Following the first perspective that views brand switching as an intrinsic behaviour and building on Raju s proposition (1980), the predisposition to brand switching exemplifies an individual s true preference and intrinsic urge of making comparisons, and an individual s ability to discriminate between stimuli, as a different brand is perceived to have observe- and search-worthy differences from the brand being currently used. Brand switching suggests an individual s sensitivity to detect possible attractive stimuli, which due to its immediacy and urgency arouse the intention of the individual to investigate it further. The above characteristics of innate brand switching go beyond consequences, where consumers with a strong innate tendency to brand switching tend to have little concern about potential switching costs, whether economic or psychological, or both. This particular characteristic ignites the possibility of emotion predicting the behaviour of brand switching as emotion may provide a strong and decisive reference with significant effect and contextually and motivationally fit the situation. It is therefore hypothesized that emotion trait predicts brand switching. H2: The emotion trait of NFE has a positive relationship with brand switching. Emotion trait: Need for Emotion We adopted the construct of Need for Emotion to represent the consumer emotionality trait. NFE (Need for Emotion) was developed to tap into an individual's tendency to seek out affective stimuli and enjoy these emotional situations (Raman et al. 1995). Raman et al (1995) propose that individuals differ in their need to seek out emotional stimuli. They also differ in their tendencies to process affective or emotional stimuli. Similar to "thinkers" who find it "fun to think" (e.g. Agarwal and Karahanna 2000) it is possible to conceive of "experiencers" or "feelers" who enjoy "experiencing emotion". NFE is defined as the tendency or propensity for individuals to seek out emotional situations, enjoy emotional stimuli, and exhibit a preference to use emotion when interacting with the world (Raman et al. 1995). The construct of NFE captures the essential individual differences in dealing with emotional stimuli that the present research seeks to investigate. As NFE captures the tendency to seek out and enjoy emotional situations, this trait represents the characteristic to be investigated in this study. Impulsive Buying, Brand Switching and faction Will consumers with the tendency of impulsive buying evaluate the purchased product as satisfactory and feel happy with the decision to buy it? Is a consumer with a higher likelihood of brand switching and impulsive buying more easily gratified? Is there any significant impact from impulsive buying and brand switching upon experiencing satisfaction from product use? These fundamental questions wrap up the core intention of this paper. To achieve this it is critical that the concept of satisfaction 2

3 should encompass general aspects of satisfaction (Spreng et al. 1996) in order to be able to detect satisfaction that generally fit to those two specific behaviours. Thus, H3: Impulsive buying has no relationship with satisfaction H4: Brand Switching has a positive relationship with satisfaction Methodology Valid and reliable scales were used to measure the three constructs (for the complete lists, see the appendix). To measure Brand Switching, a seven-item scale developed by Raju (1980) was used, while a twelve-item scale from Raman et al (1995) and a four-item scale developed by Donthu and Gilliland (1996) were used to measure NFE and Impulsive Buying respectively. faction was measured using a four-item scale developed by Spreng, Mackenzie and Olshavsky (1996). Data have been randomly gathered from a UK city. Participants, i.e. strangers, were randomly invited from a variety of places including a university, residences, shopping areas, and sports-parks. For example, for the residential areas the randomness was achieved by an area-coverage plan and the other-next-door rule, and those who actually took part did so solely according to their willingness. The scope of survey was explained to each respondent before they completed the questionnaire. After collating, 287 sets were found complete, covering 140 male and 147 female. Results With all the fit indices are within acceptable range, the measurement models were found to fit the data well, showing acceptable validity as well as reliability. After reliability and validity test over the measurement models of each construct, we ran SEM analyses using AMOS16 through three altered but related models. The first model was a correlation analysis, the second a moderating effect analysis and the third an antecedent or predictor analysis, all of NFE towards Impulsive Buying and Brand Switching, with faction as the final outcome. Correlation analysis Correlation Analysis NFE to & Data=All Chi-Sq= df=93 p=.000 RMSEA=.052 GFI=.934 TLI=.960 CFI=.969 Correlation Analysis NFE to & Data=All Chi-Sq= df=107 p=.000 RMSEA=.051 GFI=.930 TLI=.956 CFI= e82 e81 e80 e79 e78.39 e77 e76 e75.31 NFE82 NFE NFE80.51 NFE79 NFE78.63 NFE NFE76 NE.57 NFE e74 NFE e73 NFE e72 NFE72.45 e71 NFE Impuls Impuls Impuls Impuls e82 e81 e80 e79 e78.39 e77 e76 e75.31 NFE82 NFE NFE80.51 NFE79 NFE78.63 NFE NFE76 NE.57 NFE e74 NFE e73 NFE e72 NFE72.45 e71 NFE71 witch witch38 Fig.1: Correlation Analysis of NFE- and NFE- The results show that the correlation coefficients are non-significant for both NFE- (=.04) and NFE- (=.02). Further analysis over gender unveil similar results as witch40.38 witch41.42 witch42 3

4 correlation coefficients of NE- for both male and female are non-significant (.01 and.06 respectively), and similarly with NE- (.08 and -.05 respectively). Therefore, the consumer tendency to get emotionally involved has been found to have nothing to do with impulsive buying or brand switching. While this is so, there might be other emotion trait or factors that may elicit the impulsivity and switching behaviour. Therefore, H1 and H2 are not supported. Predictability analysis: factory likelihood of Impulsive buying and Brand Switching SEM - - Data=All Chi-Sq= df=66 p=.000 RMSEA=.062 GFI=.933 TLI=.953 CFI= Impuls Impuls Impuls Impuls faction28d witch37 witch38 witch40 witch41 witch Fig.2: Predictability Analysis of and to faction With non-significant regression weights between - (.10) and - (-.01), the results show that both Impulsive Buying and Switching Brand are not likely to end up with satisfaction. In other words, the impulsive and switching behaviour are not necessarily concerned with satisfactory with the product. Thus, H3 is supported and H4 is not supported. Moderating effect analysis We continue to investigate whether NFE might play a moderating role towards the satisfactory outcome of impulsivity and switching brand. The fit indices generally demonstrate that the model fit the observed data well, RMSEA=0.051, GFI=0.850, TLI=0.913, CFI=0.925 for moderated analyses and RMSEA=0.062, GFI=0.933, TLI=0.953, and CFI=0.960 for overall data analysis. The results show that the emotion trait of NFE plays the moderating effect to the relationship between as the coefficients were altered with different level of NFE. Level of NFE - - Remark Hi 0.20 ns ** **significant at p<.01 Medium 0.08 ns 0.19* *significant at p<.05 Low 0.06 ns ns ns: non-significant Overall data 0.10 ns ns 4

5 SEM - - Data=Hi NFE Chi-Sq= df=202 p=.000 RMSEA=.051 GFI=.850 TLI=.913 CFI=.925 SEM - - Data=Med NFE Chi-Sq= df=202 p=.000 RMSEA=.051 GFI=.850 TLI=.913 CFI=.925 SEM - - Data=Low NFE Chi-Sq= df=202 p=.000 RMSEA=.051 GFI=.850 TLI=.913 CFI= Impuls Impuls Impuls Impuls Impuls Impuls Impuls Impuls faction28d.12 Impuls Impuls Impuls Impuls faction28d faction28d witch37 witch38 witch40 witch41 witch42 witch37 witch38 witch40 witch41 witch42 witch37 witch38 witch40 witch41 witch Fig.3: NFE as Moderator Regarding -faction relationship, the stronger the NFE trait, the higher the likelihood that switching brand is satisfactory. Interestingly, for consumers with Hi NFE (defined as NFE>=5 of 7 scale), switching brand goes against satisfaction. Or, in other words, the more Hi-NFE consumers switch brands, the less satisfied they will be. This clearly suggests that too keen to be emotional appears to disrupt consumers who switch brand in getting what they really want to get. On the contrary, the medium level of NFE (3.5=<NFE<5) works that is where switching brand elicits satisfaction. Here we can see that somewhat moderate level of NFE is conducive for consumers who switch brand to get what they want to get. In addition, although not statistically significant, the - coefficients seem to indicate that the higher the level of NFE the higher the satisfactory likelihood of buying impulsively. Contribution, Limitations and Future Research This study contributes to the body of knowledge in several ways. First it reveals that the consumer tendency to be emotionally involved seems to have insignificant influence towards driving emotion-related impulsive buying and to the exploratory tendency of switching brand. And this notion tends to take place regardless gender, as the non-significant results do not differ for either male or female. In other words, impulsivity and switching brand might be emotional, but not within the trait of getting emotional. Secondly, however, the tendency of getting emotionally engaged has a moderating effect, in particular with switching brand behaviour. Moderate level of NFE appears to be supportive to satisfactory likelihood of switching brand behaviour, while Hi-NFE tends to disrupt it. Theoretically this finding helps reveal that with emotion is a multi facet concept, and the propensity to be emotionally engaged is not the only perspective, emotionality can not be claimed to have nothing to do with impulsivity. A more thorough, multi method, multi-variable research might be useful to unveil how emotion influences impulsivity and exploratory. 5

6 References Adaval, Rashmi (2001), "Sometimes It Just Feels Right: The Differential Weighting of Affect-Consistent and Affect-Inconsistent Product Information," Journal of Consumer Research, 28 (June), Agarwal, R. and E. Karahanna (2000), "Time flies when you're having fun: Cognitive Absorption and Beliefs about Information Technology Usage," MIS Quarterly, 24 (4), Cohen, J.B. and E.B. Andrade (2004), "Affective Intuition and Task-contingent Affect Regulation," Journal of Consumer Research, 31, Donthu, N. and D. Gilliland (1996), "The Infomercial Shopper," Journal of Advertising Research, 36, Martin, Wendy, Seungoog Weun, and Sharon Beatty (1993), "Validation of an Impulse Buying Tendency Scale," Advance in Consumer Research, 20, Mittal, B. (1994), "An Integrated Framework for Relating Diverse Consumer Characteristics to Supermarket Coupon Redemption," Journal of Marketing Research, 31, Raman, N.V., P. Chattopadhyay, and W. Hoyer (1995), "Do Consumers Seek Emotional Situations: The Need For Emotion Scale," Advances in Consumer Research, 22, Rook, D.W. and R.J. Fisher (1995), "Normative Influences on Impulsive Buying Behaviour," Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22 (3), Rook, D.W. and M.P. Gardner (1993), "In the Mood: Impulse Buying's Affecttive Antecedents," Research in Consumer Behaviour, 6, Spreng, Richard A., Scoff B. MacKenzie, and Richard W. Olshavsky (1996), "A reexamination of the determinants of consumer satisfaction.," Journal of Marketing, 60 (3), Weinberg, P. and W. Gottwald (1982), "Impulsive Consumer Buying as A Result of Emotions," Journal of Business Research, 10, Yeung, C.M.W. and R.S. Wyer (2004), "Affect, Appraisal and Consumer Judgment," Journal of Consumer Research, 31,

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