Marketing and Branding Research 5(2018) 31-43

MARKETING AND BRANDING

RESEARCH
WWW.AIMIJOURNAL.COM

Effects of Personality on Impulsive

Buying Behavior: Evidence from a
Developing Country

Dania Shakaib Farid1, Mazhar Ali2*

1
Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science & Technology Karachi, Pakistan
2
Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science & Technology Karachi, Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Keywords: Normally impulse buying is considered to take place in the presence of extrinsic factors
Impulsive Buying, which lure customers into unplanned buying. The role of intrinsic factors in generating
Personality, Big Five, impulse buying remains under-researched, especially in the context of a developing
Openness, country like Pakistan. This study aims to study the impact of personality on impulse
Conscientiousness, buying behavior. The effect of personality on impulse buying is measured through five
Extraversion,
personality traits, namely Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and
Agreeableness,
Neuroticism, Pakistan Neuroticism-also known as the OCEAN Model. It is an explanatory research study
involving 400 people of diverse backgrounds and wide age brackets. Results indicated
Received
12 October 2017 significant effects of Openness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism and
insignificant effect of Agreeableness on Impulse Buying Behavior. This study has
Received in revised form
14 May 2018 valuable implications for Practitioners as well as Academics.
Accepted
21 May 2018 

Correspondence:
[email protected]

©AIMI Journals

Introduction
Consumers are the source of revenues and profits for the companies. It is imperative for
marketers to understand consumer behavior. Impulse buying is an appealing aspect of
consumer behavior for companies because consumers end up buying more than what they
originally had planned for. The additional sale, to retailers and companies, entices them to

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

 
 D. Shakaib Farid & Ali 32
 
encourage impulse purchases by means of soothing store atmosphere (Hussain & Ali,
2015) and promotional incentives (Dawson & Kim, 2009). Impulsive buying behavior has
become the most significant trend in today’s world (Muruganantham & Shankar Bhakat,
2013; Sirhindi, 2010). Millennial are 52% more likely to indulge into impulse buying
compared to other generations (Tuttle, 2012). Pakistan as a developing country is witnessing
the mushroom growth of international and local modern trade retailers. Now consumers
spend a lot of time at these capacious outlets to buy goods needed for the whole month. These
consumers tend to involve in impulse buying in response to the attractive display of products
at shelves.
Impulse buying is often described as a very spontaneous purchase or taking ownership of
the product without any deeper thinking (Thompson & Prendergast, 2015). Individuals who
are highly involved in the impulse buying are the ones who usually get emotionally
connected to the product very easily and get convinced to buy the product on the spot. It is
not necessary that impulse shopping always ends up with the satisfaction; sometimes
consumers regret taking such a quick decision and wasting their money over it (Zhou & Gu,
2015).
Irrespective of consequences of impulse buying, it continues to attract researchers around
the world to conduct researches on its phenomenon. Normally impulse buying is considered
to take place in the presence of extrinsic factors which lure customers into unplanned buying.
The role of intrinsic factors in generating impulse buying remains under-researched,
especially in the context of a developing country like Pakistan. This research study aims to
study the impact of personality (intrinsic factor) on impulse buying behavior.

Impulse Buying Behavior

There has been a long history of impulsive buying behavior. Initially, this term was
associated with acts of childishness, immaturity, stupidity and lack of intelligence (Böhm-
Bawerk, 1959; Freud, 1911). Rook (1987) redefined impulse buying as “Impulse buying
occurs when a consumer experiences a sudden, often powerful and persistent urge to buy
something immediately”. Impulse buying is often assumed to be unplanned. Unplanned
purchases and impulse buying were considered similar in the literature (Stern, 1962) though
they are not the same. Unplanned purchases are not necessarily impulse buying. Some
purchases may be unplanned because they were somehow left out in earlier purchases but
may not involve strong hedonic aspect which is a precursor for a purchase to be categorized
as impulse (Amos, Holmes, & Keneson, 2014). On the similar lines, Kacen and Lee (2002)
observed that impulsive buying behavior involves prompt convincing and motivating hedonic
purchase action; in which the decision regarding buying the product does not depend on the
deep thought process. It is just fulfilling an individual’s desire.
Impulse buying may result due to external stimuli. External stimuli are controlled by
marketers to lure customers into impulse buying (Youn & Faber, 2000). Impulsive buying
behavior has a significant effect on boosting up the sales of the products (Amos et al., 2014).
Marketers play a vital role in planning their strategies starting from creating awareness to the
placement of the products in the store, which plays a major role in leading an individual to
make an impulse purchase (Floh & Madlberger, 2013). Some purchases may be caused by
33 Marketing and Branding Research 5(2018) 

internal emotional stimuli like mood. People usually having positive mood are most likely to
go for impulse buying; and tend to be more excited about the shopping as compared to the
people with negative mood (Ozer & Gultekin, 2015; Park & Kim, 2008). Sneath, Lacey and
Kennett-Hensel (2009) observed that impulse buying also plays an effective role in reducing
the depression and helps in improving the mood towards the positive side. Verplanken and
Herabadi (2001) analyzed that impulse buying helps individuals to divert their minds from
negative destructive psychological thinking, negative emotional state and low self-
confidence. Hirschman (1992) posits that an individual does not go for impulse buying being
influenced by the external factors, but his thoughts and emotions play a major role in impulse
buying. Sharma, Sivakumaran and Marshall (2010) suggest that impulse shopping is
associated with hedonic behavior in which an individual gets engaged in impulse purchases
due to the feelings and psychological and emotional motivations rather than considering the
functional benefits. Another major internal stimulus for impulse buying is personality. This
study aims to study the impact of personality traits-openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness and neuroticism- on impulse buying behavior.

Personality
The word “personality” has been derived from the Latin term persona, which means to cover
or mask. In old days this term was used for the actors for their roles they had been performing
on stage. Personality can be defined as a set of an individual’s thoughts, attitudes, behaviors,
perceptions, activities and other various characteristics (Chan, 2006). Bozionelos (2004)
analyzes that personality is comprised of intellectual, rational, behavioral and social patterns.
Allport (1961) defines personality as a dynamic and energetic organization which is
comprised of the inner and mental system of an individual which helps him/her to adjust to
the living environment. Whereas, Robbins, Francis and Kay, (2001) define personality as the
sum total of the way a person responds and interrelates with other individuals. In simple
words, personality can be defined as human features, appearances, and variables. Schiffman
and Kanuk (2008) define personality as a unique, distinctive and dynamic group which is
comprised of various physical and psychological characteristics of an individual, having a
direct impact on the attitudes, actions, and reactions to the social and physical surroundings.
Larsen, Cervone and Butterworth (2010) define the personality of an individual as a bundle
consisting of mental and emotional features.
Impulsivity is considered as an aspect of the personality which enables an individual to
make quick actions without deep thinking or considering alternative better option (Roberts,
Pullig, & Manolis, 2015). This trait of personality differs from one individual to another
individual (Andreassen, Griffiths, Gjertsen, Krossbakken, Kvam, & Pallesen, 2013).
Impulsive shopping also deals with the lack of self-control of an individual which is
eventually linked to the personality. The tendency to indulge into impulsive buying is due to
abrupt and instant urge to buy the product (Liu, Li, & Hu, 2013).
To understand the role of personality in causing impulse buying, this study will utilize
OCEAN Model of personality. It stands for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeableness and Neuroticism. It is also called Big Five Model. It covers the entire human
personality features (Andreassen et al., 2013; Roberts et al., 2015). This model has been an
 D. Shakaib Farid & Ali 34
 
innovative and groundbreaking concept which helps to identify the rare, exceptional and
unusual characteristics of an individual (Goldberg, 1990). The big five model characterizes
the personality of an individual at an extensive and wide-ranging level of generalization and
abstraction (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). It helps an individual to study the fundamental
and essential set of behavioral traits (Feldman, 2010; Larsen, Cervone, & Butterworth, 2010).

Openness
McCrae and Costa (2008) define openness as the person’s level of imagination and their
broad-mindedness. Mondak (2010) defines openness as a trait in which an individual tends to
have flexible behavior; neither is he rigid for himself nor for others. Hogan, Barrett and
Hogan (2007) link openness to the individual’s creativity. Furthermore, openness can also be
defined as the opposite of conservative and close-mindedness (John & Srivastava, 1999).
Open minded people are quick at learning new things, are adventurous and their interests are
diversified (John et.al, 2008). Individuals who score low in this trait, are considered to be
quite conservative, having a limited mental level and behaviorally conventional. They are
quite reserved and do not share their emotions too. Whereas, people scoring high in this trait
come up with new ideas and love entertaining people. They are always ready to experience
new things and are quite adventurous (Hirsh, 2010). It is expected that open minded people
tend to adopt or try out new products. Therefore, it is assumed that:
H1: Openness has a positive effect on impulsive buying behavior.

Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is a personality trait which defines the socially prescribed impulse control
that enables task and goal-oriented behavior of an individual. It is a personality trait which
reflects how one individual differs from another in terms of self-control, responsibilities,
reliability and hard work (McCrae & Costa, 2008; Roberts, Lejuez, Krueger, Richards, &
Hill, 2014). According to Barrick, Mount and Li (2013), this personality trait involves
individuals who energetically and dynamically plan out everything, organize and focus on
their objectives, which help them to carry out their task effectively. The individuals, scoring
low on this trait, are pretty much careless, do not focus much on their life and the goals to be
achieved and can be distracted easily. The individuals scoring high in this trait focus more on
their future planning and expenses, which eventually limits them to go for impulse purchases
(Donnelly, Iyer, & Howell, 2012; Leong, Jaafar, & Sulaiman, 2017; Verplanken & Herabadi,
2001). Therefore, it can be concluded that:
H2: Conscientiousness has a negative effect on impulsive buying behavior.

Extraversion
This trait mainly deals with characteristics such as socializing, confidence, assertiveness,
anticipation and enjoyment (Mooradian & Swan, 2006). Extravert people are talkative and
get even more energetic when interacting with others (John et al., 2008). Individuals, scoring
low on this trait, are not so friendly. They like to be independent and don’t prefer to rely on
other people. People who have a high score on this trait are always positive minded,
confident, constructive (Watson & Clark, 1991), energetic, enthusiastic, and quite active who
35 Marketing and Branding Research 5(2018) 

love to socialize (John & Srivastava, 1999). Their sociability not only includes their
interaction with family and friends, but also sales staff and retailers. The individuals scoring
high on this trait love to explore new things in life which make them go for an impulse
purchase in order to experience new things, as they have low self-control over themselves
(Eysenck, Barrett, & Barnes, 1993; Judge, Simon, & Hurst, 2014; Leong et al., 2017).
Therefore, it can be concluded that:
H3: Extraversion has a positive effect on impulsive buying behavior.

Agreeableness
According to McCrae and Costa (2008), this personality trait deals with the motives that
drive people to sustain and uphold positive relations with other people. Individuals falling
high in this trait are noble, self-sacrificing, philanthropic, concerned and compassionate.
They are always ready to help others and expect others to help them in the same way as they
did wholeheartedly. Individuals with the high score on this trait tend to be sensible and think
before act. They are less likely to go for impulse buying (Verplanken & Herabadi, 2001).
Therefore, it is expected that:
H4: Agreeableness has a negative effect on impulsive buying behavior.

Neuroticism
People who score high on this trait are not emotionally stable and possess quite negative
emotions. Individuals having this trait are short-tempered, moody and are stressed out (John
et al., 2008). This trait is associated with the normal personality, which facilitates the
tendency of an individual to experience destructive and damaging effects of anxiety, distress,
grief, unhappiness, humiliation, embarrassment, antagonism, guiltiness and antipathy.
Individuals scoring high score in this trait might be facing some psychiatric issues, as this
trait leads an individual to come up with irrational, illogical and unreasonable ideas, which
might end up with negative outcomes. According to Hough, Eaton, Dunnette, Kamp and
McCloy (1990), a low score in this trait indicates emotional stability; such individuals face
their challenges and problems strongly and don’t let themselves break down. Dunn, Mount
and Barrick (1995) found out that emotional stability is the opposite of this personality trait.
McCrae and Costa (2008) believe that the individuals scoring high in this trait tend to be
highly depressive, conscious about them, very much impulsive and defenseless. There is a
positive relation between neuroticism and impulse buying behavior because the anxiety or the
emotional distress leads people to make an impulse purchase after which they feel bit relieved
and relaxed (Shahjehan, Jaweria, Qureshi, Zeb, & Saifullah, 2012; Silvera, Lavack, & Kropp,
2008). Therefore, it is assumed that:
H5: Neuroticism has a positive effect on impulsive buying behavior.

Openness
Conscientiousness IMPULSE
Extraversion BUYING
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

Figure 1. Conceptual framework

 D. Shakaib Farid & Ali 36
 
Method
This study was basically quantitative. Its design was explanatory aiming to find a causal
relationship between independent and dependent variables. The sample size for this research
study was 400. The sample size has been taken from Parker’s sampling table (Rea & Parker,
2014) keeping the 95% confidence interval level and margin of error ± 5. The data for survey
was gathered, with the help of non-probability sampling using mall intercept technique, from
people ranging from 20 years to 40 years belonging to SEC A, B, and C. The reason behind
selecting this age bracket is because the individuals belonging to this age group are mostly at
the earning and decision-making stage and can make purchase decisions on their own.
The instrument for data collection was a well-structured questionnaire. The scale items of
5 personality traits were adopted from Rook and Fisher (1995) and scale of Impulse buying
from John and Srivastava (1999). Out of 400 sample size, 381 were found usable as rest of
them were not filled completely or left out. The reliability was ensured through an adequate
score of Cronbach’s alpha. Table 1 summarizes individual and combined Cronbach’s alpha
scores of all constructs. The combined reliability of all constructs is .80 which is considered
good. The validity of the instrument was ensured through convergent and discriminant
validity. Convergent value shows the extent to which items of a construct are correlated to
construct itself. Table 2 shows that Average Variance extracted (AVE). Ideally AVE should
be .5 or more. Four factors have more than .50 AVE while two factors have less than .50
AVE. According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), if a construct's AVE is less than .50 but
composite reliability (CR) more than .60 then the construct would be assumed to have
convergent validity. It is very clear from Table 2 that all constructs have more than .60
composite reliabilities. The second type of construct validity is discriminant validity. It
actually shows the uniqueness of a construct compared to other constructs (Cooper &
Schindler, 2008). It is established if the square root of AVE of a construct is higher than its
squared correlation with any other construct. It is evident in Table 2 that AVEs of all
constructs are higher than their squared correlation with other constructs.
In addition to reliability and validity analysis, factor analysis was run to find data structure
of underlying factors (Bryman & Cramer, 2009). To check the adequacy of the sample size to
run EFA, Kaiser-Meyer-Olken (KMO) was run. More than .6 value of KMO is considered
desirable (Pallant, 2010). The value of KMO was .788 which was higher than the desired
threshold. The value of Bartlett's test of sphericity was 2634.16 with 276 degrees of freedom.
The values of both KMO and Bartlett's test of sphericity were suitable to proceed to factor
analysis. Varimax Rotation Method was used to extract the factors. The factors having more
than 1 Eigenvalue were considered for further analysis. Overall, six factors were extracted.
One item was removed from constructs of openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness due
to either low loading or cross loading. The retained items with their respective factor loadings
are part of Table 4.

Demographic Analysis
The demographic information of respondents has been mentioned in Table 5. Out of 381
respondents, 68% of them were females, whereas 32% of them were males, which means that
the majority of the respondents were females. In the case of age, the majority (50%) of them
37 Marketing and Branding Research 5(2018) 

were from the age bracket of 20-25 years, 30% of them were from the 25-30 age group, 9%
of the respondents were from 30-35 age bracket and the remaining 11% of them were from
the age group of 35-40 years. Therefore, the majority of the respondents were the young
individuals. Analyzing the marital status of the respondents, the majority (67%) of the
respondents were unmarried, 31% of them were married and 2% of the respondents were
widow and divorcee. In terms of education, the majority (37%) of the respondents was
graduates, 33% of them were postgraduate and remaining 30% of them were undergraduate
students. In case of employment, most of the respondents (44%) were unemployed, 42% of
them were employed and the remaining 14% of them were self-employed.

Data Analysis
The result of multiple regression has been summarized in Tables 6 and 7. It is evident in
Table 6 that the value of p is less than .05, which shows the model overall is a good fit. The
total variance explained by the model is 9.6 %. All independent variables have a significant
impact on impulse buying while agreeableness has an insignificant impact on impulse
buying.
H1: Openness has positive effect on an impulsive buying behavior
Openness (b = .12, p < .05) has significant impact on impulse buying. We fail to reject the
above stated hypothesis. This result is contradictory to the finding of Badgaiyan and Verma
(2014) where this hypothesis was rejected. The influence of openness in leading an individual
towards impulse shopping has also been supported by Leong et. al, (2017). This trait is
opposite to the conservativeness. According to McCrae and Costa (2008), the people who
score high in this trait seem to be quite impulsive and are more likely to make impulse
purchases as they are creative, open and try to experience new things as compared to the
people who tend to score low in this personality trait.

Table 1
Reliability Analysis
Variables No. of items Reliability
Openness 7 .696
Conscientiousness 3 .761
Extraversion 5 .774
Agreeableness 4 .771
Neuroticism 5 .782
Impulsive Buying 6 .826
Overall Reliability 30 .800

Table 2
Convergent and Discriminant Validity
Correlation
Constructs CR AVE AVE(sqrt) Open Cons Extr Agre Neur IB
Openness (Open) 0.78 0.33 0.58 .04 .10 .02 .00 .01
Conscientiousness (Cons) 0.83 0.62 0.79 .10 .06 .00 .01
Extraversion(Extr) 0.83 0.49 0.70 .02 .00 .02
Agreeableness (Agre) 0.83 0.56 0.75 .01 .00
Neuroticism (Neur) 0.82 0.53 0.73 .03
Impulsive Buying(IB) 0.87 0.53 0.73
 D. Shakaib Farid & Ali 38
 
Table 3
KMO and Bartlett’s Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy .788
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity
Approx. Chi-Square 2634.16
df 276
Sig. 0.00
 
Table 4
Factor Analysis
Items Factor Loading
Openness
Is original, and comes up with new ideas .499
Is ingenious, a deep thinker .467
Has an active imagination .622
Is inventive .667
Value artistic, aesthetic experiences .636
Likes to reflect, play with ideas .525
Is sophisticated in art, music or literature .618

Conscientiousness
Is a reliable worker .804
Preserves until the task is finished .800
Does things efficiently .750
Extraversion
Is talkative .719
Is full of energy .713
Generates a lot of enthusiasm .742
Has an assertive personality .574
Is outgoing, sociable .750
Agreeableness
Is helpful and unselfish with others .694
Is generally trusting .671
Is considerate and kind to almost everyone .833
Likes to cooperate with others .787
Neuroticism
Is depressed ,blue .664
Can be tense .802
Worries a lot .843
Can be moody .592
Gets nervous easily .722
Impulsive Buying
I often buy things spontaneously .721
I often buy things without thinking .754
“I see it, I buy it” describes me .805
Sometimes I feel like buying things on the spur-of-the-moment .718
I buy things according to how I feel at the moment .665
Sometimes I am a bit reckless about what I buy .719

Table 5
Demographics
Gender Male 32 %
Female 68 %
Marital Status Married 31 %
Unmarried 67 %
Widow 1%
Divorced 1%
Age 20 - 25 50 %
25 - 30 30 %
30 – 35 9%
35 – 40 11 %
Education Undergraduate 30 %
Graduate 37 %
Post Graduate 33 %
Employment Status Employed 42 %
Self-employed 14 %
Un-employed 44 %   
 
39 Marketing and Branding Research 5(2018) 

Table 6 
Regression Analysis
R- Square .096
Adjusted R- Square .084
F- Value 7.925
Significance .000

Table 7
Regression Coefficients
β t p
Openness .12 2.22 .03
Conscientiousness .18 -3.28 .00
Extraversion .20 3.71 .00
Agreeableness -.01 -.26 .80
Neuroticism .17 3.36 .00

H2: Conscientiousness has negative impact on an impulsive buying behavior

Conscientiousness (b = .18, p < .05) has also a significant impact on impulse buying. But
this impact is positive while the hypothesis was about the negative relationship between
impulse buying and conscientiousness. This trait involves individuals who are focused, goals
oriented and always work according to the plan in order to achieve their target. Therefore, the
individuals who score low in this trait tend to be more impulsive as compared to the people
who score high. The result of this study is contradictory to the findings of earlier studies
(Donnelly et al, 2012; Verplanken & Herabadi, 2001). The results of earlier studies have not
been validated in this research. This result has initiated the need to revisit the relationship
between these two concepts.

H3: Extraversion has positive effect on an impulsive buying behavior

Extraversion (b = .20, p < .05) has significant positive impact on impulse buying. People
having this trait are energetic, enthusiastic, and love to socialize and meet new people. They
are excited and take life very easily. Therefore, individuals scoring high in this trait tend to be
more impulsive. It has also been supported by literature too (Badgaiyan & Verma, 2014;
Leong et al, 2017). Judge et al., (2014) concluded that the individuals who tend to score high
in this personality trait, have positivity in themselves, which makes them more open to
everything, and this positivity leads them to engage in impulse shopping; as they have a craze
to explore new things which eventually lowers their self-control leading them into shopping
impulsively.

H4: Agreeableness has negative effect on impulsive buying behavior

Agreeableness (b = -.01, p > .05) has a negative but insignificant impact on impulse
buying; hence, we fail to accept the above mentioned hypothesis. The study of Badgaiyan and
Verma (2014) also didn’t find significant support for this hypothesis. This trait involves
individuals who are focused, goal- oriented and work harder to achieve their targets. They are
intelligent enough that they do not prefer making decisions on the spot without considering
the pros and cons in detail. The result of this study did not support the stance of Verplanken
and Herabadi (2001) which posit that the people scoring high in this trait are sensible enough
to make proper decisions and are less likely to indulge into impulse buying impulsively.
 D. Shakaib Farid & Ali 40
 
H5: Neuroticism has positive effect on impulsive buying behavior
Neuroticism (b = .17, p < .05) has a significant impact on impulse buying: We fail to
reject the above mentioned hypothesis. This result is in conformity with the findings of
Thompson and Prendergast (2015) but contradictory to the result of Badgaiyan and Verma
(2014). This personality trait includes individuals who are highly depressed and stressed out
and face negative and destructive feelings. This trait is opposite of the emotional stability.
The individuals, who score high in this trait, are not emotionally or mentally stable, which
pushes them to shop impulsively to feel better. Usually, anxiety and emotional breakdown
also lead an individual to buy things impulsively. The findings of this study support the
findings of Shahjehan et al. (2012) and Silvera et al., (2008) that identified that the
individuals who are highly depressed tend to make purchases impulsively.

Conclusion
Due to the complex nature of impulse shopping, it has become a major challenge for the
researchers working on it to understand its phenomenon. According to Hausman (2000),
impulse shopping is complicated, huge and multi-dimensional concept due to which very
large number of products and services are sold yearly. The need of studying impulsive buying
is more in developing countries as compared to developed countries due to the recent
development in the retailing sector in developing countries (Kacen & Lee, 2002).
The main objective of this research study was to investigate the role of personality trait
namely openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism in leading
an individual to engage in an impulsive buying behavior. From the data that has been
collected from the target audience, it has been analyzed that openness, extraversion, and
neuroticism play an important role in encouraging an individual to shop impulsively. The
individuals, scoring high in these traits, tend to buy things immediately, right on the spot. The
literature also shows that openness, extraversion, and neuroticism are positively associated
with the impulsive buying behavior, whereas conscientiousness and agreeableness are
negatively associated with the impulsive buying behavior. But the result of this study could
not find significant effects of agreeableness and conscientiousness on impulse buying
behavior. It may pinpoint unique behavior of Pakistani consumers compared to other
developed countries.
This study contributes to the deeper understanding of Pakistani consumers. Overall, the
role of personality variables to explain variance explanation in impulse buying has been
small. One probable reason could be that personality is an intrinsic trigger of impulse buying
while main drivers of impulse buying are extrinsic and they are promotional offers or
motivating factors of store atmosphere. Intrinsic factors work behind the scene. They may
intensify or reduce the effects of extrinsic triggers. A person who is highly open-minded may
be more inclined to promotional offers of a retailer compared to a person who is very
reserved in nature. Marketers have to be cognizant of both internal and external antecedents
of impulse buying.
This study confirmed the role of personality in encouraging impulse buying at retail
outlets. The specific dimensions, which have portrayed positive correlation with impulse
buying, are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism. Marketers should
41 Marketing and Branding Research 5(2018) 

identify ways to reach out open-ended and extrovert people to target their promotional offers.
The environment of retail stores should be refreshing and entertaining so that people high on
neuroticism could enjoy shopping to reduce their stress.
This study adds to the sparse number of studies done exclusively on finding the impact of
intrinsic factors on impulse buying. Intrinsic factors don’t work in isolation; they rather work
in conjunction with extrinsic factors. Future studies may further be aimed at finding the
collective impact of intrinsic and extrinsic factors to cause impulse buying. It will be
interesting if research studies could be conducted on how intrinsic and extrinsic factors
interact with each other to instigate impulse buying. In addition to these areas, future research
studies could draw a comparative trend of different product categories with respect to the
tendency of consumers of indulging into impulse buying.

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