Human Crowding or Spatial Crowding? The Impact of Perceived Crowding on In-store Impulse Purchase

Abstract

The influence of shopper's perception of the physical environmental factors on impulse buying at the retail level has attracted the attention of researchers since the last three decades but the role of perceived crowding and in-store browsing attracted little attention. This paper attempts to develop and empirically valid a model to investigate the role of perceived crowding and in-store browsing in impulse buying along with the psychological variables. Mall-intercept survey technique was used to collect data from 335 participants from 18 branches of a supermarket chain in different parts of Kolkata. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Contrary to prior research the relationship between human crowding and other variables in the model was not supported whereas spatial crowding was found to have significant negative impact in impulse buying. The findings are discussed along with managerial implications and scopes for future research.

Keywords

• perceived crowding
• in-store browsing
• urge to buy
• impulse buying