Consumer Behavior

Influence of Culture on Consumer Buying Behavior Focus on INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM Submitted to Prof. Avinash Kapoor

S U B M I T T E D B Y:

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express sincere thanks to our guide Prof. Avinaash Kapoor, for providing us an opportunity to perform a project on and widen my horizon of knowledge around various aspects of Consumer Behvior. I would also like to thank for invaluable guidance, excellent supervision throughout the course of this report. Also the pragmatic and invaluable advice of Prof. kept me motivated & enthusiastic to go through critical learning of the subject and timely complete our report.

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CONTENTS
Abstract Introduction Methodology Data Analysis Conclusion Reference 4 4 9 14 17 20

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Abstract
Impulse purchase or impulse buying describes any purchase, which a shopper makes though it was not planned in advance. This is an attempt to find out the factors that affect consumer impulse buying behavior. In this study we look at several stages of the consumer decision-making process and identified the possible differences between individualist and collectivist consumers and how it influences purchase decision. Based on a data collected from secondary/primary sources from individualist (secondary source) and collectivist (Indian-born) backgrounds an established scale was used to confirm the cultural values among the participants, if the respondents are aligned with the particular group. The present investigation examined individualist-collectivist orientations and achievement value in two groups of college students studying under different settings in NCR. One group of students was from management stream while the other group was studying engineering course. Findings indicate significant differences between the two groups with respect to vertical individualism, and horizontal and vertical aspects of collectivism. However coexistence of both individualism and collectivism were observed among the students, particularly in management students. The students differed significantly with respect to their upward striving for achievement in two different settings. A significant positive relationship between achievement value and individualism for general stream students and a significant negative relationship with collectivism for both groups was observed. The study demonstrates the impact of age and educational level on ones individualist-collectivist orientation and achievement value.

Introduction
Culture is a powerful force in regulating human behavior. It consists of a common set of behavior patterns that are transmitted and maintained by the members of a particular society through various means. For example, members within the same culture have similarities of language, pattern instruction and imitation, and they share the same values (Hofstede, 2001). These values are likely to affect consumer behavior and set the choice of criteria used by individual consumers. Cultural values are the vehicles, which carry culturally determined knowledge from one generation to another; that is, they are the form in which culture is stored and expressed. These values are socialized into a particular group and are passed on to the next generation. As a result, values persist over time and, therefore, may have an influence on the way consumers behave. This further influences the choices that individuals make regarding consumer decisions from everyday products to major or important purchases. The cultural value system includes cultural elements that people have in common with the group to which they belong, as well as idiosyncratic values unique to that individual. Thus, from the beginning of an individuals existence, he/she experiences the benefits and restrictions of a particular culture, and those benefits and restrictions may become a major influence upon consumers purchasing decisions. The use of individualism-collectivism for measuring cultural values is, therefore, a key concept that has been successfully used in cross-cultural marketing research. The Impact of Individualism-Collectivism on Consumer Behavior

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According to Hofstede (2001), every national population shares a national culture. National culture is the only culture within a nation, culturally distinguishing the population of one nation from the population of another. However, Alternative to Hofstede McSweeney suggested that alternative conceptions of culture should consider multiple, non-national influencing factors. Perhaps the most significant alternative view to Hofstedes national culture to have emerged is the view that cultural dimensions such as individualism and collectivism operate in all societies, and individualistic and collectivistic tendencies can be found within any given culture at different levels Cross-cultural researchers have recognized culture as one of the most influential determinants of consumer behavior. Consumers cultural background not only shapes their needs and wants, but also influences the way marketing strategies are developed to target market behaviors, attitudes and preferences. In collectivist cultures, it is expected that one will involve family and friends in the information search process. For example, in the situation of buying acellphone, consumers from collectivist cultures may seek the opinions of others regarding what information to collect and which types of sources are valuable to use. They are likely to first consult with their colleagues, friends and families, and to consider their advice or opinions before collecting information. They may also consider advice from friends and family in terms of which information sources are likely to be reliable such as internet, word of mouth, spending time with dealers etc., to complete the information search process. As a whole, consumers from collectivist cultures may look for social approval from others. Individualism is mainly reflected in being independent from others and being in control of ones surrounding environment, consumers from individualist cultures may be less likely to rely on others for example family members, peers and social groups in their purchase decisions. Individualist consumers rely on internal knowledge based on their personal experience, and seek out new experiences to expand upon that knowledge. They are less likely to rely on other peoples opinions. For example, in terms of cellphone purchase, they may spend a large amount of time looking at websites and extend their internal knowledge through their own personal experience. They are likely to utilize a much greater variety of patterns of information source rather than relying on friends and family. Friends and family might make suggestions, but decisions are made individually. Value is the hard core of culture; it is the motivating force of human beings. Values are defined as desirable, abstract goals that apply across situations. Values serve as guiding principles in peoples lives. They function as the criteria that people use to select and justify the actions and to evaluate other people and events. In Indian culture different patterns are observed in different contexts. In Indian Society, Hinduism is meant not only in the usual sense of the word as religion, but as a tradition or duty . Hinduism is an inheritance of thought and aspiration living and moving with the movement of life, an inheritance to which every race in India has made its contribution. Its culture has a unity though, on examination, it dissolves into a variety of shades and colours. This Hindu culture, intensely practical, taking in their totality the sum of human aspirations and needs has classified values as dharma artha kama moksha.

This lower tier of values i.e. artha (wealth), kama (sensuous pleasure) and dhara (morality or duty) always go together but dharma governs artha and kama, and it is given prominence. The upper tier of value in Hindu culture is moksha or mukti, which is the final end of human aspiration. The lower tier of

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values may be regarded as instrumental values, although they do not necessarily lead to moksha or mukti. Values motivate and regulate human action. Energy (prakriti or sakti ) is the causal power which is manifested in all existence and in all forces of human action. It has three qualitative aspects or gunas,namely, sattva which is reflected in the sharpness of intellect, rajas is expressed in the intensity of desire, the restlessness for achievement, and tamas is expressed in indifference to feeling, to pleasure or to pain. It is also expressed in depression, lethargy and inertia (Yuktananda, 1989). These gunas are inseparable in any manifestation of energy. However, at any moment one of the qualities may be dominant while the other two remain less forceful or dormant. The desire to accomplish interesting and challenging tasks and be recognized for this, is a desirable value found in individuals. This concept for the need for achievement is found mostly in individualist societies. It is observed that Australians reflect an individualist orientation in preferred achievement goals, whereas Sri Lankans, although predominantly more family and group oriented, still have important individual goals. In the context of individualism collectivism also, the coexistence of both are observed in the individuals behavior in Indian culture. The Indian form of collectivism contains strands of individualism as observed by coexistence of mutually contradictory things either in an individuals mind or in reality does not show or give surprise to an Indian. Consumer Decision-Making Process: Decision Making Process In the context of making a high involvement purchase, consumers are usually aware of all the positives and negatives of each choice in terms of brand, quality, price and innovation. Consumers attempt to forecast the outcome of each option in order to determine which is best for that particular situation so that they may make a reasoned decision. Consumers decision-making for high involvement purchases consists of a sequential process involving problem recognition, information search, brand evaluation and selection, purchase and post-purchase. The influence of cultural dimensions, such as individualismcollectivism in several stages of the decision-making process, is presented and illustrated diagrammatically. The aim of this section is to identify the influence that cultural background has upon individualist and collectivist consumers in several stages of their consumer decision-making process.

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Hypotheses Development
Cultural Influences and Consumer Purchase Decision

Consumer decision-making processes include the main aspects of information search, evaluation and selection and purchase behaviorand how cultural dimensions such as individualism and collectivism influence consumer decision-making within three stages:
INFORMATION SEARCH

The information search involves an active search for information that is appropriate to the decision being made. The information search can be divided into the categories of internal and external, and consumers for purchase decision utilize both of these types of search. The internal information search is memory-based and relies on the consumers experience with the product, based on their previous information search activity. An external or active information search is concerned with obtaining new information to assist in the making of the purchase decision, because the consumer feels that he/she does not have enough existing information with which to make an informed choice.

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The cultural dimension such as individualism and collectivism, may influence the pattern of information searches individual consumers are likely to follow for example, collectivist consumers information searches are likely to focus on friends, family and reference groups as sources of information. In contrast, individualist consumers are less likely to rely on the opinion of others.
H1: There is a significant relationship between cultural background and the number of family members and friends involved in the consumer purchasing decision. Collectivist consumers involve more family members/friends than individualist consumers. H2: Individualist consumers rely on Internet as the most important source of information. EVALUATION AND SELECTION

Once the consumer has gathered the appropriate information, he/she is likely to assess the product based on a range of evaluative criteria. The evaluation and selection stage is one of the most complex aspects of the decision-making process because of the wide variety of criteria. Evaluative criteria may vary according to product type, brand, price, quality, and prestige. Consumers evaluation and selection processes may be the result of their emotional desires, which drive consumers to select products that fulfill specific and particular needs Consumers need, can be a result how society portrays values in consumers mind. Consumers in different country/culture are expected to be different in terms of the way they perceive international brands, e.g. attributes they associate with those brands in their memories. It is because images and symbolic meanings attached to brands are shaped by a local society/culture where economic and social values of a brand might vary greatly based on collective ideas about the brand. Collectivist societies have a tendency to appreciate imported brands more than their own products/brands. Thus, they purchase expensive brands as a means of earning high social status However, imported and popular brands are used to convey different meanings to individualist consumers. Brands generally help individualist consumers to reduce time spent on decision-making, as the attributes associated with the brands are already familiar. Brand: Brand conscious style refers to a consumers orientation towards the purchase of expensive and well-known brands. Brands are symbols of status and prestige, and members from individualistic cultures might buy brands that they perceive suitable to their personality, since brands are symbols that convey meanings to consumers and fashion consciousness for individuals from an individualistic cultural background.
H3: There is a significant relationship between cultural background and brand ratings.

Quality: Perfectionist, high-quality conscious style belongs to consumers who search for the best quality in products, shopping more carefully, more systematically, or by comparison. They are not satisfied with the good enough product, so they are also considered perfectionists. Quality-conscious decision-making style implies the perception of a hierarchy of quality levels. Hofstedes (2001) cultural dimension of power distance deals with inequality in prestige, wealth and power and Hofstedes (2001) cultural dimension of individualism deals with I consciousness, which ones identity is based on the individual. In this line of thought, cultures with higher power distance or that are highly individualistic would be more likely to engage in the quality conscious decision-making style.

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H4:Consumers from individualistic cultures are more quality conscious than consumers from collectivistic cultures. PURCHASE

The purchase stage, in terms of consumer buying decision, is the culmination of the decision-making process. However, consumers may choose particular products/brands not only because these products provide the functional or performance benefits expected, but also because products can be used to express consumers cultural backgrounds/values, personality, social status or affiliation (symbolic purposes). Consumer needs to be fulfilled through consumption of particular products or brands, however, vary considerably with the socio-economic and cultural differences among consumer markets. Consumers product choice and preference for a particular product or brand are generally affected by very complex social influences. Price:Price-value conscious style refers to the characteristic of trying the best product out of the money consumers are willing to spend. According to study different cultures can have different attitudes toward spending money. Money attitudes may be independent of income, in that different national cultures have different attitudes toward money and related behaviors, such as saving and spending.
H5: Collectivist consumers buy more expensive product than individualist consumers.

Methodology
The research methodology that is used for the purpose and hypothesis formulating. It consists of the research process, sampling method, reliability of the research, data collection method and detailed of questionnaire design. A total of 90 student participants took part in this study, 40 students were from general stream, studying in a leading management college of Delhi-NCR and there were 34 students who were studying in an engineering college, and this was also located in Delhi-NCR. The age range of the subjects were from 20-39 years. The subjects were from middle socioeconomic class and from an urban metropolitan city exposed to modern facilities of life.
DATA COLLECTION

For data collection we reliedon two main sources in order to gather information, which are primary data and secondary data. First, primary data is collected for a specific research purpose. Next, secondary data is obtained via the relevant literature and information which have been collected from electronic journal, textbooks, academic journal and website.
QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

The questionnaire is the one method and important instrument in order to collecting the primary data. It is a very helpful and proven appliance for researcher. The designs of questionnaire have an effect on the reliability and validity of response rate. This research will create a questionnaire that can be divided into four parts.
Demographics and Screening Section

The first part is about the demographic and screening section, which is to gather the demographic data such as nationality, age, gender and the purchasing experience of respondent. It aims to screen the samples to identify whether the respondents are Collective and Individualistic behavior. This part can

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be save time and resources on analysis on valid/invalid samples.

Measures
The following measures were used in this study: 1. Individualism-Collectivism Scale: Individualism-collectivism scale developed by Triandis and Gelfand (1998), based on the original scale of Singelis et al (1995), was used in this study. The scale has a total of 16 items having four items in each of the following four areas: (i) Horizontal individualism (HI), (ii)Vertical individualism (VI), (iii) Horizontal collectivism (HC), and (iv) Vertical Collectivism (VC). The respondents were asked to indicate their responses on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) Horizontal individualism items: 1. I'd rather depend on myself than others. 2. I rely on myself most of the time; I rarely rely on others. 3. I often do "my own thing." 4. My personal identity, independent of others, is very important to me.

Vertical individualism items: 1. It is important that I do my job better than others. 2. Winning is everything. 3. Competition is the law of nature. 4. When another person does better than I do, I get tense and aroused.

Horizontal collectivism items: 1. If a coworker gets a prize, I would feel proud. 2. The well-being of my coworkers is important to me. 3. To me, pleasure is spending time with others. 4. I feel good when I cooperate with others.

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Vertical collectivism items: 1. Parents and children must stay together as much as possible. 2. It is my duty to take care of my family, even when 1 have to sacrifice what I want. 3. Family members should stick together, no matter what sacrifices are required. 4. It is important to me that I respect the decisions made by my groups.

Actual Questionnaire used Statement It bothers me when other people neglect my needs. When making a decision, I take other people's needs and feelings into account I'm not especially sensitive to other people's feelings.* I don't consider myself to be a particularly helpful person.* I believe people should go out of their way to be helpful. I don't especially enjoy giving others aid.* I expect people I know to be responsive to my needs and feelings. I often go out of my way to help another person. I believe it's best not to get involved in taking care of other people's personal (1) Extremely Uncharacteristic of Me (7) Extremely Characteristic of Me 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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needs.*

I'm not the sort of person who often comes to the aid of others.* When I have a need, I turn to others I know for help. When people get emotionally upset, I tend to avoid them.* People should keep their troubles to themselves.* When I have a need that others ignore, I'm hurt.

Scoring: Items with an asterisk are reverse scored. Keep scoring on a continuous basis

2. Achievement Value Scale: This forced choice sentence completion scale for measuring Achievement value was developed by Mukherjee (1965). This scale is used to assess an individuals verbalized desire for upward striving and can be regarded as an inner personality factor capable of influencing cognitive behaviors in general and ones perception of self in particular. This is somewhat similar to the need for achievement as conceptualized by McClelland (1961). The high score in this scale indicates an individuals desire for object ive accomplishment of the task with a standard of excellence. These two scales were administered on both the groups of students in group situation.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In this research use literatures that retrieved from the electronic databases such as Academic journals,Google Search and Google Scholar. The keywords for the search are cultural, consumer behavior, national culture, across culture, multi national, impact of culture, and the effect of different cultural, impact on consumer buying behavior. Furthermore, we have to use the library at MDI as one of the sources in order to check out the books to search and reach the relevant theories to support the research.

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EMPERICAL DATA Secondary Data

The main source of secondary data are documents, online materials, online journals and useful website. We also search to document such as the report of impulsive consumer buying behavior. Also, to collect data for Individualistic society we relied heavily on public sources such as Google, International marketing journal and various academic research reports.
Hofstedes Dimension of Individualism and Collectivism and Power Distance

This part focus on individualism/collectivism and power distance dimensions. There aims to identify whether significant different in culture effect on the purchasing behavior of consumers. Furthermore, there adopts in order to analyze to which extent values of individualism/collectivism. Focus on following factors Individualism & Collectivism: Team work Being Accepted Reference Group Influence Group Opinion Friends/Family Discussion Increase Interaction

Power Distance Factors: Prestige Impress Other People Successful Present Argument Express Disagreement Status

Buying decision factor

This part focus on various other buying decision factors such as consumers Intention to buy, social acceptance, services, brand image, price, feature, quality, promotion. That can play important role in

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Data Analysis
The means, standard deviations and t-tests for horizontal and vertical aspects of individualism and collectivism were calculated for the two groups of students and are presented in Table 1. Table 1. Mean, SD and t-value for Horizontal and Vertical aspects of Individualism and Collectivism in two groups of students

Dimension

Management College N=40 Mean SD HI 18.92 4.88 VI 19.02 5.58 HC 18.00 3.74 VC 18.38 4.86 Note: *p<0.5, **p<0.01

Engineering College N=34 Mean SD 19.20 4.77 16.7 3.87 23.06 3.03 22.29 4.37

t-Value

0.25 2.11* 6.43** 3.65**

HI = Horizontal Individualism VI = Vertical Individualism HC = Horizontal Collectivism VC = Vertical Collectivism As is obvious, Table 1 reveals significant differences between the two groups with respect to vertical individualism, and horizontal and vertical aspects of collectivism, which show that the students studying in management stream are more individualist, whereas students studying in engineering course are more collectivist. It is observed that the highest mean score for management stream students was in the area of vertical individualism (VI), and the lowest for horizontal collectivism (HC). Though participants scored the highest in vertical individualism, their scores in the other three areas were more or less similar. This indicates that both individualist and collectivist orientations coexist among these students. They want to be self-reliant, but at the same time they perceive themselves as an aspect of the in-group, while the members of the in-group are different from each other. On the other hand, engineering students in the present study, though living in an urban metropolitan atmosphere, were more collectivist in their orientations than individualists. They scored the highest in horizontal collectivism and the lowest in vertical individualism. That is, they perceive themselves as being similar to other people and emphasize common goals with others, interdependence and sociability. The means and standard deviations for the achievement value scores for the two groups of students were obtained and a t-test was calculated to find out if there is any significant difference between the two groups with respect to achievement value. The results are presented in Table 2.

Dimension Mean SD t-Value **p<.01

Management College N=40 23.90 9.58 4.28**

Engineering College N=34 16.32 5.30

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The values reported in Table 2 depict that the students differ significantly with respect to their upward striving for achievement in two different settings. Management students are more achievement oriented than engineering students. We may explain this on the basis of Indian philosophy. That is the students who are more achievement oriented, raja guna are dominant among themselves. On the other hand, this guna was not as prevalent in the engineering students. It may be that due to the impact of value orientation courses, students use the sattva aspect of guna dynamics for a value motivated action. The relationship between individualist-collectivist orientation and achievement value was analysed for these two groups of students and the correlation values are presented in Table 3 Correlation of coefficients between Achievement value and different aspects of Individualism-Collectivism in two different groups

Dimension HI VI HC VC **p<.01

Management College N=40 .82** .90** -.55** -.65**

Engineering College N=34 .12 .31 -.53** -.51**

The results reported in Table 3 indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between achievement value and horizontal and vertical aspects of individualism for management students. This shows individualism leads one to accomplish challenging tasks and to achieve higher goals that are related to ones further self-development or vice versa. On the contrary, for engineering students a significant negative relationship of horizontal and vertical aspects of collectivism was observed with achievement value. This indicates that in the engineering students, the more the collectivist orientation, the less the achievement value for upward striving or vice versa. In case of management students also, a significant negative relationship was observed for horizontal and vertical aspects of collectivism with achievement value. This shows that in management students the existence of both trends are present.

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Management Engineering

Analysis of some of the items from four different aspects of individualism- collectivism shows that there is variation in the responses of the two different groups. In one item of vertical individualism, for example, Winning is everything, the mean response of the management students was much higher than the engineering students. For one HI item for example, I often do my own thing the difference between the two groups was not so much, which the content of the item itself explains. The management scored higher in HC item for example, If a coworker gets a prize, I would feel proud, and also in one VC item for example, It is my duty to take care of my family, even when I have to sacrifice what I want. These response patterns indicate that collectivism is much more prevalent in engineering students while individualism is more prevalent in general groups of students.

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Conclusion
Diverse individualist and collectivist orientations and achievement value are observed in the students studied in the present investigation. There is coexistence of both individualist and collectivist orientations among management students, but their dominant orientation is towards vertical individualism. This indicates that they try to acquire status and want to become distinguished from others but at the same time believe in family integrity and see themselves as an aspect of the in-group. The findings corroborate with the findings of Sinha & Tripathi (1994) and Ghosh (2004) who observed that although individualist and collectivist elements often conflict with each other, Indians try to incorporate both orientations in their preferred modes of behavior. Sinha & Verma (1994) have also observed in their study that masters level students express more idiocentric than allocentric orientations, due to western influence, immediate life concerns and exposure to mass media. In Hindu philosophy and ethics also, similar juxtaposition of contradictory elements are to be found where dharma (morality or duty) and moksha (salvation) coexist with the pursuit of artha (wealth) and kama (sensuous pleasure). In general, the achievement orientation for upward striving is also high for these students. This could be explained as an impact of the urban metropolitan atmosphere where students are continuously exposed to Western modern influences and mass media. On the contrary students who were studying a engineering course, were found to be predominantly horizontal collectivist. That is they emphasize equality, interdependence and share common goals with others. This may be due to the impact of value orientation courses and the fact that they have been living in a family oriented structure till very recently , whereby emphasis on self development is based on Indian ethics, values and heritage. Apart from this, it may be that these students have inherited certain collectivist values from their childhood due to the process of socialization. Furthermore, they were not so achievement oriented for upward striving. It may be that sattva aspect of guna is predominant among this group students. This may be one of the reasons for opting for this value orientation course even living in an urban atmosphere and exposed to Western education and modern amenities of life. In summing up, it can be said that achievement value of students vary with respect to their individualistic-collectivist orientations. Values as defined in Hindu culture and their manifestations are expressed by students in different degrees in any action under different settings due to socialization practices and the impact of the course curriculum.

Alternative Thought Process Attempts to understand consumer impulse buying behavior based Western point-of-view and Asian point of view. The Western-individualist emphasis on the self, individual needs and desires, and hedonistic pleasure encourages impulsive buying behavior. However, Eastern-collectivist notions of the self, which emphasize interdependence, emotional control and moderation, and group needs and desires would seem to discourage impulse buying behavior as it is practiced and described in the West. Due consideration of these differences is warranted. Buying impulses are presumed to be largely universal in nature, but local market conditions, systems of exchange and various cultural forces will impact how consumers operate on impulse. The findings of the articles in the Journal of Consumer Psychology confirmed that cultural differences are a significant

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factor and need to be taken into account in the theories of consumer behavior. Our findings demonstrate that culture does have an influence on impulse buying behavior. Cultural factors do moderate consumer impulsive buying behavior. Overall, Asian collectivist consumers engage in less impulsive buying than individualist consumers, despite the highly developed shopping culture in East Asia. In addition, there is a weaker correlation between self-reported trait buying impulsiveness and the frequency of impulsive buying behavior for collectivists compared to individualists. This finding supports and extends previous research that found that collectivists are able to maintain inconsistent attitude-behavior relationshipsand to put their own feelings aside in order to act in an appropriate manner. Although collectivists possess the buying impulsiveness trait in equal measure with individualists, they suppress this trait impulse and act in a manner that is consistent with cultural norms, in this case, reducing their impulsive buying behavior, which has been characterized as a highly individualistic, emotionally charged behavior. The findings show mixed evidence for the application of Hofstedes cultural dimensions to consumer decision-making styles. It appears to be that even though a country receives a classification with cultural characteristics of Hofstedes typology of culture, these characteristics do not interact with each other. For instance, a quality conscious decision-making style relates to large power distance cultures but also to individualistic cultures. Therefore, if the power distance dimension stands out, Indian would be more quality conscious, and if individualism stands out, Western would be more quality conscious. Similarly, a brand conscious decision-making style is characteristic of large power distance and individualistic cultures. Thus, if the power distance dimension stands out, Indian would be the most brands conscious among the three countries, and if the individualism dimension stands out, Westerns would be the most brands conscious. In this type of decision-making style, individualism stood out, so Westerns are the most brands conscious. Price-value and impulsive shopping decision-making styles could not be identified accurately because of reliability and validity reasons. Therefore we recommend that in future research the adapted scale we used be validated in countries other than the US. Confusion by overchoice is a characteristic of an individualistic culture. Among the cultures, the Indian proved to be the most confused by overchoice, and the Americans, the least. Further research is necessary to analyze whether this situation occurred due the specific product (cell phone), since the literature indicates that individualistic cultures tend to have a more confused by overchoice decisionmaking style. A brand loyal decision-making style is a characteristic of a large power distance and collectivistic culture. Indian were shown to be the most brand loyal, followed by the Americans. The results are in line with the theory which states that Indian belongs to a larger power distance and more collectivistic culture than the Americans. An interesting area for future research would be to investigate the interaction between culture and the appropriateness of engaging in impulse buying in different situations. Although the ability to control the trait-behavior relationship appears to differ by culture, it is also likely that the appropriateness of the behavior would influence the desire and thus the extent of control. One limitation of this study was that the appropriateness of impulse buying was not investigated, although the countries included are all considered to be shopping cultures.

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Questions for focus groups Research groups were asked to think about their impulse buying behavior at homes while surfing and then asked the following questions. Q1. How much time do you spend on online shopping portals sites every day? 30 mins 1 Hour Between 3-4 Hours More than 5 Hours

Q2. From which product categories do you impulse purchase Online? Apparels Electronic Items Home Appliances Movie Tickets

This question was asked to see what the consumers actually purchase by impulse. Q3. Which online shopping portal site you consider best for you Flipkart SnapDeal Myantra Yebhi Sosasta

Q4. Do you impulse purchase online or electronic stores for yourself or for others as gift? If for others, please define your relationship to them?

Yourself Others o Child o Parent o Friend o Spouse

This question was asked to see what the focus groups buy and who they buy for. Q5. If you have extra time at office, what do you most likely do? Do you impulse buy on Online shopping portals to avoid boredom?

Do Online Surfing on Shopping Sites Read News Do Chatting on Wassapp

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Play games on mobile Talk to relatives/friends Listen Songs on Mobile None of the above

This question was asked to see whether the focus groups do impulse purchases at office in order to avoid boredom. Temporal factors.

Q6. When experiencing time pressure and feel technically challenged to know about which Smartphone to buy (if you are in a hurry to buy a new smart phone) do you make impulse purchases or do you only make-planned purchases, if any?

This question was asked to see whether the focus groups do impulse purchases when experiencing time pressure or technically challenged. Temporal factors.

Q7. Do promotions (in prices) have an increasing effect on your impulse purchasing behavior (at electronic store or online shopping portals)? Promotions and tax-free/in-store stimuli.

Q8. Please describe in what kind of stores you impulse purchase for electronics or smartphones? Are they soothing or exciting? What makes you enter a store?

(Soothing means light colors, relaxing music, exciting is bright colors and fast music) Atmospherics.

Q9. How do you shop at electronic stores/ Mobile Purchasing? Pre notion of what to buy? Decide based on Retailer feedback Discounts/Promotions based purchase Brand Stigma

Q10. Does the sales staff at electronic retail stores make you impulse purchase (in ways such as by providing information overload or by creating pressure to buy)? In what way? Malls and Showrooms as special buying environment, Situational factors

Q11. Do you feel like your impulse buying behavior at Electronic Shopping Stores differs from your im-pulse shopping behavior elsewhere? How?

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Q12. Do you feel like you are supposed to buy something at Malls electronic showrooms? (for reasons such as it would be common behavior or your companions are making purchases)? Effect of co-consumers, Appropriateness, Retail Stores as a special buying environment

Q13. Do you go through/Check out certain number of retail stores before buying smartphones more than others in your friend circle?

If yes, which Retail outlet/Showroom and how does it affect your impulse buying behavior in those places?

Q14. Does it affect whether you are purchasing through credit cards or buying at down payments hard cash?

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Reference

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