Impulse Buying Affects an Individual’s Happiness

It is observed that purchasing items on a whim makes a person feel happy. Researchers argue that emotion is a key factor in making an impulsive purchase. People often feel happy when they are out shopping. Most women spend their free time in malls. Over the span of just one week they can visit a mall multiple times and make a purchase every one of those times. Often, women don't even think about why they are purchasing a certain item because the experience of shopping itself is more than enough to fulfill their needs; therefore, the purchase made is an irrational act influenced by her emotions. Nowadays women pursue careers which lead to a raise in stress. To lower their stress, they go shopping followed by impulse buying that getts rid of their stress while simultaneously making them happy. Shopping is their way of finding pleasure and happiness. It can be said that happiness in hedonistic tradition, defined as the presence of positive affect, and the absence of negative affect, can be obtained through shopping. Today, almost everyone looks for happiness through their own emotional fulfillment. For example, people will feel happy if they could spend time at the malls, shopping for things they don't need, hunting for prestigious brands, and looking for new things that will differentiate them from others. Impulse buying is when you buy an item without having intended to prior in a moment of spontaneity. Impulse buying could make people happy. The importance of research on happiness while shopping is to understand the consumers behavior after making impulsive buying decisions that will affect other customers to behave the same way. In addition, it will provide marketers, with marketing strategies in the retail sector for the future.

Methods

The people in the study were female visitors of the fashion department at the malls in Surabaya who were at least 18 years old. Experiential marketing is the emotional and rational experience customers obtain from the products. It involves the use of five elements to motivate consumers through the experience, them being sense, feel, think, act, and relate. Seventeen indicators were measured. There were eight indicators measured for shopping enjoyment, six indicators as a measure for impulse buying, and six indicators measured for happiness.

Results

On the Experiential Marketing variables, the construct reliability is 0.765; shopping enjoyment is 0.774; impulse Buying is 0.682; and happiness 0.817 meaning that the variables in the study are reliable and can be used for more analysis. Experiential marketing has a huge positive effect on impulse buying, judging from STD estimate value of 2.175 with a p-value of 0.003 (sic <5%). In the cases where the purpose of the shopping experience is simply for pleasure or emotional satisfaction, the product purchased is seen as an impulsive purchase. Shopping enjoyment has a significant positive effect on impulse buying, seen from STD estimate value of 0,438 with a p-value of 0.003 (sic <5%). People go shopping not only because they need what they buy, but also because they can really enjoy shopping. Enjoying shopping influences the impulse buying. Impulse buying has a significant positive effect on happiness seen from STD estimate value of 0.645 with a p-value of 0.000 (sic <5%).

Discussion

There were many indications of impulse buying that made people feel good, happy, satisfied, etc. A lot of people experience a positive mood after impulse buying. However, a person's mood is often changing. Others experience a negative mood after making impulse buying that comes with feelings of guilt or regret. The materialistic and narcissistic mind might relate to good moods after the purchase. The situational mind may be associated with bad moods after the purchase.

Conclusion

The result of this study shows that impulse buying produces happiness. Therefore, this study rejects the result of the previous studies which stated that impulse buying tends to lead to customers' regret. This study result also lets marketers or companies know that there are factors that require serious attention when determining the programs related to the marketing of products in order to be attractive and create a feeling of happiness. A pleasant experience formed by sense, feel, think, act and relate will encourage consumers to make impulse buying. Impulse buying based on positive experiences will result in consumers' happiness. Impulse buying can also be caused by a pleasant shopping condition.

In Monica's opinion, further research on the matter could be taken by surveying a sample of the customers at a shopping mall here in the United Sates. The best candidates would be the younger generation also known as millennials. Currently the United Sates is a large consumer culture therefore every gender would be an appropriate candidate for the research. Surveys could be taken after the customers have made their final purchase. With questions in regard to their mood, satisfaction, regret, and how many of the total items bought were planned.

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