Psychology

In a free market system, it is routine for people to acquire basic necessities through shopping.  The necessities shopped are not only those that the individual buyer may need but also of others, often of members in the household where such individual belongs.  These basic commodities include food, personal care items, clothes, household maintenance stuffs, pet food, and other needs. All these are items that may require regular replenishment.  Clothes may not be bought as often as the other commodities since these take a longer time before being worn out but still they are considered as regular purchases by virtue of their being essential.  Since the commodities mentioned are replenished regularly, buying these becomes a routine.  The tendency of the shopper is to make a list of what must be bought or simply to remember such items, a task that should not be difficult to perform because such commodities are routinely purchased.  However, while in the actual process of shopping, a great number of individuals experience the urge to buy more than the amount they originally intended to have or the temptation to get items that they never planned to buy.  This is called impulse buying, an occurrence that nearly all shoppers experience although not all would succumb to it.  Impulse buying may be beneficial at times to the shopper, making him or her flexible with the predetermined buying list according to what is available and suddenly recognized necessity.  Oftentimes, however, it can be detrimental to the individual finances especially when it becomes a habit.  On the other hand, the vendors and businesses, in general, consider it as a favorable condition.  In fact, efforts in advertising have been primarily addressed to take advantage of such condition.  Advertising materials are being placed anywhere in order not just to facilitate the purchase once the impulse to buy is felt but also to trigger it as well.  Because of this, impulse buying is a very common experience among individuals shopping for items primarily intended for satisfying their basic needs.  It is created by inherent tendencies in shoppers and environmental factors in a consumer society.

Impulse buying can become a problematic behavior for many people.  To address this problem, it has become necessary to identify the basic human tendencies which become subjective causal factors.  An individual shopper may not have in mind a particular item when he or she gets inside a store aside from those already predetermined.  Upon seeing an attractive image of such item, the shopper may suddenly feel physical tension, which is indicative of the desire to acquire it.  This is explained by drive reduction theory, in which motivation begins with a physiological need (a lack or deficiency) that elicits a drive toward behavior that will satisfy the original need.  (Huffman 409)  The level of the tension or desire may vary among individuals.  Nevertheless, it is only when such desire is satisfied that the shopper achieves homeostasis or state of balance and, consequently motivation is significantly reduced. 

However, to consider that only internal factors as the cause for impulse buying is to negate the fact that there are individuals who experience it in lesser degrees of intensity or not at all. Impulse buying is less likely to occur when the external conditions, factors beyond the control of the individual shopper, are not favorable for such urges to occur.  For example, if there are no other items being sold in the shop other than what the individual already intends to buy, choices are limited.  Impulse buying is effectively prevented when there are limitations in choices and quantities.  Therefore, the motivation occurs when external factors are present.  According to incentive theory, external factors pull people towards objectives that satisfy them or away from those that that they detest.  (Huffman 412) 

There are items that are not actually necessary but are still bought upon impulse.  This does not, however, mean that the act of shopping is actually impulsive.  What can be based on compulsion are purchases made when these are not included in the predetermined buying list.  Nevertheless, once this previously unlisted or unanticipated item begins to be bought at a regular basis, this may no longer fall under the category of impulsive buying.  It may be called a habit which has been developed through a process of repeated interaction of urge and reaction. (Ji  Wood 275)  In this case, what was once thought of as unnecessary becomes very much a part of the shopping list regularly made by the individual.  What was once prompted by just impulsive buying becomes a necessity not because of its use value but due to force of habit.  A shopper, for example, may not have any intention at all to buy a certain lotion brand because of an unattractive price and because he or she has apprehensions in trying it.  At one instance, the lotion brand was offered at lower prices while the said individual was shopping for basic necessities.  This prompted the impulse to buy and try it.  Once the individual finds out that the lotion is better than the usual choice, this item can become a part of the list for shopping regularly. The first instance of buying is impulsive but the following occurrences are certainly not.  However, the impulsive buyer does not display this particular behavior for one product or item but feels the urge with anything offered in situations where the actual purchase can be conveniently completed.

It is clear that impulsive buying cannot be defined by merely describing the act of purchasing an unanticipated item.  Instead, it refers to the general behavior of the buyer once in the confines of an environment where external causal factors operate, such as a shopping mall, a grocers store, or a boutique. There are signs that usually occur once the individual feels the urge to buy impulsively.  First is that the individual suddenly feels the spontaneous desire to act.  (Wood 269)  When this occurs, the shopper does not immediately see the reason why an attractive item must not be bought.  The attractive features can be over-emphasized to the point that the basis for creating a shopping list is blurred or set aside. Contradicting notions can interfere soon before a more drastic reaction in favor of buying the unanticipated item though.  Because of this the individual senses a state of psychological confusion.  At this point, the shopper experiences the conflict between the impulse and the reasons why the item must not be bought.  As this conflict intensifies, the individual usually becomes more prone to buy impulsively.  The intensification is actually a struggle of self-indulgence against pre-meditated concepts that have been achieved in the absence of favorable external conditions.  Impulse buying is finally realized when the quality of cognitive evaluation is lessened and the consequences for such action is disregarded.  In this case, Freuds theory on id, ego, and superego is at work.  The sudden reaction to the sight of an attractive item, which is to buy it immediately, is driven by principle of pleasure or of instant self-gratification this is id.  (Huffmann)  However, impulse buying may not be realized at once if the individual shopper is reminded of other hindering principles, such as the concept that purchasing something that is just meant for luxury is wrong this is superego.  Under this circumstance, when the individual is caught between his id and superego, he or she undertakes the process of rationalizing before coming out with a decision whether or not to buy the item this is ego.  If the individual cannot reach the point of ego or if he or she immediately purchases the item without the benefit of a rational decision process, the id is dominant. 

There are concepts about impulse buying as merely the product of free will.  However, according to Hofmann et al, the concept of free will may carry too much metaphysical baggage for this purpose and may hinder rather than advance our understanding of the conflict between consumer impulse and self-control that appears to characterize the marketplace just as any other sphere of human life. (Free to Buy  25)  By concluding that free will is the sole basis why people go on impulse buying, the fact that shoppers actually have a list of things to be bought is ignored.  It is uncommon for people to go to a store or a shopping mall to buy things, without any particular item in mind.  They may have free will in deciding what to purchase but this cannot be likened to impulse buying because they have used such free will in deciding what to buy before going to the shop. Hofmann et al only presented the concept that the behavior of the consumer when confronted with the urge to buy an unanticipated item is shaped by the contradiction between impulse and reason, between impulsion and reflection.  This does not relate the behavior to the external conditions that whet unexpectedly the consumers appetite to buy outside of the predetermined shopping list.

The inherent conditions in a free market system are concrete factors that favor the tendency of individuals to buy impulsively.  Free market systems shape a consumer society, where the economy is largely dictated by the competition among business interests.  Businesses are established and run not just to satisfy the basic necessities of the consuming public.  Its main objective is not to sell and meet demands but to acquire as much profit as possible.  In order to do this, business companies commonly practice demand creation.  This is a process wherein needs are manufactured so that a particular product that addresses it is sold.  To raise the demand of such product, businesses present it with an affordable price and through effective advertising.  There is a common notion that the affordability of the price is solely the external factor that prompts an individual to buy on impulse.  As in the previous example regarding the individual buying a lotion on impulse, the favorable price, perhaps brought about by discounts or special promotions, is indeed a factor.  However, this is not the only external factor.  In fact, it is not the major contributing external condition at all.  A study in the behavior of internet-based impulse buying shows that it is not price but the appearance and convenience of the vendors website. (User Interface Engineering)  Therefore, it is actually advertising or the image on the product being projected that contributes much as a factor external of the individual shopper.  Businesses have even considered reducing the prices of their products not because of its lessened use value but because they want to make it marketable enough.  Another aspect of advertising is by stimulating the basic human instinct of hedonism.  Products are always presented to satisfy not just the basic needs but the more artificial wants of the buying public. Favorable prices and image, along with the convenience of acquiring a commodity, are the external factors that prompt impulse buying.   According to Wood, such purchases account for a significant portion of the excitement and the hedonic satisfaction that consumers feel when making consumption purchases, both in the present day as well as in the past. (Discretionary unplanned buying 279)

There are internal and external factors that prompt an individual to buy on impulse.  Internally, the individual may have the sense of need or want for an item, whether this is fundamental or created by consumer society.  What make this internal tendency operative however, are the presence and the advertising of the product. Therefore, impulse buying is not just an incident that can be attributed to distinct individual traits.  It is also a phenomenon that a free market system brings about.