impulse buying

This popular American folk saying has appeared extensively on contemporary artifacts such as bumper stickers and tee-shirts,. and highlights ideas about buying's palliative effects. It also alludes more generally to the relationship between consumers' affective states and their buying behavior. Moods and emotions are central elements of the consumer's situational environment (Belk 1975). Findings from psychology (e.g., Isen and Simmonds 1978; Cunningham 1979; Isens and Shalker 1982) and consumer behavior (e.g., Berneman and Heeler 1986; Gardner and Wilhelm 1987; Goldberg and Gorn 1987) indicate feeling states influence a wide variety of internal processes and observable behaviors. (For a review of this research, see Gardner 1985.) One context where feeling state volatility and buyer behavior often interact is in consumer impulse buying. Shifts in affective state can stimulate pursuit of the instant gratification that buying provides. Conversely, the act of impulse buying and the associated possession of the product purchased can trigger changes in affective state. The relationships between consumers' affective states and their impulse buying behavior remain largely unexplored despite their importance.

Impulse buying is pervasive in the American marketplace today, and has been the target of market and consumer research for over forty years (e.g., Applebaum 1951; Bellenger et al. 1978; Clover 1950; Cobb and Hoyer 1986; Consumer Buying Habits Studies 1945; Katona and Mueller 1955; Kollat 1969; Rook 1987; West 1951). Contemporary marketing innovations such as 24-hour retailing, telemarketing, cash machines, "instant credit" and home shopping networks make it easier for the consumer to operate on whim now than ever before. In spite of the importance of impulse buying in America today, we know surprisingly little about the dynamics of this type of buyer behavior.

One way to gain insight into the motivation underlying impulse buying is to investigate the feeling states that follow it. From this perspective, mood states can be interpreted as affect- oriented elements animating impulse buying episodes. For example, Weinberg and Gottwald (1982), Rook and Hoch (1985), and Rook (1987) report impulse buying is more intense and arousing than contemplative buying.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary view of the relationship of impulse buying to post-purchase moods. The exploratory empirical study reported here examined the specific feeling states, valence of affective states and level of arousal associated with post-purchase feeling states. In addition, the work seeks to go beyond investigating positive versus negative affective states, to examine the relationship of impulse buying episodes to specific post-purchase affective states.