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1/15/2006 12:04:00 AM

The longer you shop, the less tempted you are to buy

Many department stores and supermarkets are banking on the theory that the longer we shop, the more likely we are to make impulse purchases. A new study by university researchers shows, however, that just the opposite is true. As customers continue to come across tempting items, their desire to make impulsive purchases diminishes.

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Whether shopping at a mall, in a grocery store, or even online, we all have experienced a desire to buy a product or service we had not planned on choosing ahead of time. Some marketing theorists believe customers are likely to make impulsive purchases the longer they encounter tempting stimuli. A new Rice study shows, however, that just the opposite is true.

"Consumers are more likely to behave impulsively at the start of their shopping trip, but much less so as they encounter subsequent temptations," says Paul Dholakia, an assistant professor of management at Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management.

"As customers impulsively choose one product and then another, their desire diminishes and so too does the likelihood they will continue to make impulsive purchases. "

This reduction in our impulsive buying is not necessarily based on our shopping experience in one store, but can be the result of prior shopping (and impulsive choices) in other stores.

"Most marketers tend to think in terms of individual choices," Dholakia says. "A manager of one particular store, for example, isn't really considering that a customer may be coming into his or her store after having made purchasing decisions at ten other stores.

"Those prior purchasing decisions are going to have an impact on the consumer's purchasing behavior in that store. "

Dholakia theorizes that consumers' urge to make unplanned purchases becomes weaker as they desire one product and then another: "So the consumer is more likely to behave compulsively at the beginning of his or her shopping trip and much less so as the person continues to shop. "

In an article in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes titled "The role of desires in sequential impulse choices," Dholakia and co-authors Mahesh Gopinath of Old Dominion University and Richard Bagozzi from the University of Michigan provide empirical evidence that consumers are more likely to make impulsive decisions when they start shopping rather than later, as their shopping has progressed.

Using different materials and contexts, Dholakia and his colleagues conducted three experiments to establish that consumers' desire to buy on impulse decreases only if their prior purchase was also impulsive. Thus, consumers' desire to behave impulsively only lessens following repeated encounters with items they want to purchase.

In a fourth experiment, the researchers also show that when an individual simply chooses between one of two options he or she had intended to buy, the individual's desire and potential for making impulsive choices in the future does not diminish.

Dholakia believes their research findings provide a number of practical implications across all types of retail areas, even those online.

In the case of point-of-purchase materials in supermarkets, which tend to be displayed randomly, Dholakia suggests that managers may want to re-consider which products will most benefit from the larger signage and promotional materials. Very often, manufacturers pay stores to place their products in point-of-purchase locations.

"Based on our findings, the products located deeper in a store probably can benefit more from point-of-purchase materials than those located closer to the store's entrance," Dholakia says.

"Their customers' desire to impulse purchase may very well need a boost by the time they have been shopping for awhile. "

Dholakia suggests that marketers can also enhance customers' desire to impulse purchase by encouraging them to focus on the positive outcomes of acting impulsively.

In addition to his work on consumer behavior, Dholakia has done extensive studies on relational marketing programs and customer communities, involving online auctions and brand communities and their potential for long-term profits.

His research is forthcoming or has been published in a number of journals, including the Journal of Marketing Research , Marketing Science, Management Science , the Journal of Consumer Research , the Journal of Marketing and Harvard Business Review.

A graduate of the University of Bombay where he received a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering, Dholakia earned his master's degree in operations research from Ohio State University and a master's degree in psychology and Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Michigan.

For more information on this research, contact Dholakia at dholakia@rice.edu or Debra Thomas in the Jones School at dthomas@rice.edu .