The Research On Impulse Buying Behavior Of Baby Products Of Chinese 80s-born Couples’

Impulse buying is one regular consuming way in daily life, which has been focused and studied by western scholars since 1950 s. Researchers have got certain results but most of the researches were based on the interviews and questionnaires to the westerners. With the rapid development of China’s economy, the consuming view of Chinese consumers has changed and their consuming behaviors have changed a lot from list-shopping to impulsive shopping, who tend to go shopping more casually without a certain purpose and an impulse buying tendency emerged when wandering in the mall. According to the statistics, impulse buying behaviors have been a major part of consuming behaviors in China. Yet, the behavioral research towards this does not suffice.In recent years, with the 80s-born being the main force in various aspects of social life, their characterized behavior pattern have aroused the attention from academic circle. The number of 80s-born aging from 25 to 35 is about 200 million. The 80s-born are considered as a ―self-centred‖ generation by the Americans. The unique growing environment, better living conditions make the 80s-born live with a new attitude, special consuming psychology and behavioral characteristics. They tend to show off, pursue the fashion, express their own personality and be crazy about consuming the appearance and brands. They have an impulsive desire in consuming without thinking about the consequences or a specific purpose or meaningful value. They tend to value the satisfaction of their own affection and preference(Chen Chun,2008). Obviously, this group of consumers has become a significant part in consuming market. Theoretically speaking, there is a gap in the study of 80s-born group’s consuming behavior and there is room for the experimental study. Since the 80s-born began to work, they have more power in consuming and great changes are to happen in the consuming structure in China society.(Ding Jiayong, 2007)With the 80s-born getting married and becoming parents, they are now marching into the baby products market and become a major consuming force. The money that is spent in the baby products takes up a quarter in the 80s-born’s family expenditure. Yami study points out that the number of babies at the age from 0 to 5 years old is over 90 million and the market share is about 500 billion, which increases by 20 % every year. The 80s-born group has become the leading consuming group in baby products market, who appears to be ―high consumption‖, ―sensible decision‖, ―fans of comparing‖, ―stick to their own minds‖. Impulsive purchases happen to this group of consumers all the time. Therefore, on one hand, the study towards this issue will expose the consuming behavioral characteristics of this group, providing more scientific guidance and suggestions; on the other hand, this will provide assistance for baby products manufacturers in their product development and marketing strategy.This research combines the consumer behavioral science, environmental psychology and marketing, summarizes the references materials home and abroad, starting from the theory of impulsive purchase, setting the 80s-born group of consumers as the object, and limits the research term into baby products. The author constructs the impulsive behavioral mode for the 80s-born couples in the baby products purchase, combining the S-O-Q Theory in the environmental psychology, based on the Dholakia’s impulse buying behavioral mode with interviews in depth and the qualitative analysis. After a series of researches and studies, the author takes lead-in emotional strategy and lead-in healthy strategy as the antecedents to 80s-born’s impulsive purchase, points out the working pattern of emotional reaction towards purchase desire and provides the mode of ―stimulation-reaction-willingness-behavior‖ as well as the adjusting function of self-control and recognition. This research applies the experimental method and free recollection, collects 248 copies of effective questionnaire, whose data are of use to verify the presumed mode.After a series of scientific study and systematic research, this dissertation draws the following conclusions:Firstly, in the purchase of baby products, lead-in healthy strategy and lead-in emotional strategy play a positive effect to please and awaken the consumers and the exterior stimulates influence individuals’ emotions and make them react psychologically and behaviorally.(Mehrabian and Russell, 1974). The reactions of 80s-born parents towards baby products are no different from the traditional marketing strategy but they react differently when they are offered the service marketing, among which the lead-in healthy strategy and the lead-in emotional strategy are the most typical ones.Secondly, emotional reactions have a positive effect towards impulse buying tendency. When the shopping assistance gives the introduction to the products combining with the information involved with health and emotions, the consumers will have a strongly pleasant emotion and they tend to desire the implied meaning of the products and present a nervous, stimulated, hopeful, pleasant, excited, etc. the stronger the consumers’ emotions are, the more likely they purchase the product. When the individual senses the higher level of emotional pleasure triggered by lead-in healthy strategy, they tend to carry on impulse buying to satisfy their own desire. When the individual senses the higher level of emotional pleasure triggered by lead-in emotional strategy, they tend to carry on impulse buying to reward themselves generously, which will be likely to accomplish the purchase. However, the consumers will be relatively reasonable when the individual senses the higher level of emotional pleasure triggered by lead-in emotional strategy. The reason for this may be that emotional information weakens the awakening function. In this process, emotional self-control ability has played a regulatory role.Thirdly, once the idea of impulse buying has been formed in consumers’ mind, consumers are likely to accomplish the purchase behavior. In the purchase of baby products, the influence of impulse buying tendency towards impulse buying behavior is clear. The 80s-born are less sensitive to prices than to emotions and health factors. Therefore, generally speaking, they will definitely purchase impulsively. However, there are a number of limitations in the process. This research furthers the study of Dholakia(2000), enriches the study of cognitive evaluation willingness. The conclusion shows that individuals with higher need for cognition are less likely to carry on the impulse buying due to the preference of more detailed cognitive evaluation while the individuals with lower need for cognition will give in to the impulse buying due to unwillingness of information collections and processing and they tend to start impulse buying immediately.