Factors influencing the impulse buying behaviour of apparel consumers

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: Pass, , course: MBA - Consumer Behaviour, language: English, abstract: Consumer behaviour is always a very interesting and complex subject for all marketers and retailers. This study is also about a part of this complex subject- Impulse Buying behaviour found among Apparel Buyers and the influence of special prices and other factors on it. The study dealt with a very important topic in the modern fierce competition scenario, because impulse buying tendency spread all over the world and it is no more crazy habits of Americans. The income from impulse purchases phenomenally increasing every year and that's why the subject getting more and more importance these days. The tendency is more intense as far as apparel purchases are concerned. Here the author did an effort to understand the causes and factors for impulse buying in apparels. Commonly special price is considered to be the most influential factor of impulse purchases. This study was comparative study between the influence of special prices and other variables. The methodology used for primary data collection was a combination of a questionnaire survey and a personal interview after that, with the customers of a leading retailer store for apparels in London. About 60 customers were surveyed. The result was pretty interesting, the variables studied in the research found to be more or less equal influential on customers though special prices top the list with a very little margin. The study concluded that most of the impulse purchases happen due to a combined influence of various factors. The impulse generated when a customer see an in- store display indicating a special price of a product can be taken as an example. So, for marketers, in order to make good results in impulse purchases they should coordinate various variables in an effective way, instead of concentrating only on a particular factor. The small size of sample and uncontrollable condition of current world economic condition could be taken as limitations for this study; otherwise the study was pretty general and standard in nature and was very useful and informative for practical applications.