Abstract
This bibliometric review of research aims to
synthesise research trends in the domain of ‘impulse buying’ over the past 25
years. This study utilised extensive bibliometric analysis of articles
published in Scopus-indexed journals from 1998 to 2022. It found that research
on impulse buying has increased, with over 80% of the relevant documents
published since 2013, and most of it in the form of concept papers and
empirical research. Despite the low number of publications relating to impulse
buying as compared to the publications in other disciplines, it has potential
directions for future research.
Introduction
Impulse buying has become the new normal for consumers
since the start of the pandemic. Based on Slickdeals’ latest survey of 2,000 US
adults, revealed that 64% of them have increased their impulse spending habits
in 2022. Currently, on average, a person spends $314 per month on impulse
buying, up from $276 in 2021 and $183 in 2020 (Tronier,
2022). The
research found that the surveyed shopper admitted to having bought items on
impulse, with the most spontaneous purchases being clothing (35%), food and
groceries (30%), household items (29%), shoes (28%), and consumer technology
(27%) (Slickdeals,
2022).
Surprisingly, most shoppers who impulse buy have saved their money because, in
their shopper’s community, they help one another to find the best prices at any
given time, helping them save their budget. This critical issue of impulse
buying among consumers merits further study, especially to understand the trend
of this irregular consumer behaviour through bibliometric analysis. Hence, this
study aims to synthesise research trends on impulse buying over the past 25 years.
In recent
years, consumer buying behaviour research has received massive attention among
scholars, and yet it has proven that the number of results in this research
area shows dramatic growth. One of the intensifying consumer issues that have been
actively debated is impulse buying behaviour, which has affected consumers'
financial planning globally. Unexpectedly, the research found that impulse
buying tends to increase during inflation, presidential elections, and economic
downturns, which later contribute to stronger economic growth (French
& Koh, 2023). Hence,
the objective of this study is to analyse the growth trajectory and geographic
distribution of literature on impulse buying, determine topics in impulse
buying research that have received the greatest attention in the literature,
and identify the citation metrics from the retrieved documents.
Literature Review
Impulse
buying is defined as an action that is unplanned spontaneous, and involves the
purchase of items for which there was no previously identified need (Sohn & Ko, 2021). Impulsive behaviour is caused by an inability to
evaluate its consequences and an irresistible urge to purchase (Rodrigues, Lopes & Varela,
2021). By acquiring and
possessing material goods, consumers attempt to restore their degraded,
uncertain, threatened selves. Despite being aware of the negative effects of
non-intentional buying, there is a strong desire to satisfy consumer’s pressing
needs (Meena, 2018).
The history of
impulse buying dates back to the year 1950, when researchers focused on
products versus consumers and analysed different retail environments (Applebaum, 1951; Clover, 1950). Impulse buying has been studied from several
perspectives, namely the effects of advertising on consumer behaviour,
emotional resources, rational processes, persuasive communication, and the
cognitive currents arising from the theory of social judgment (Malter et al., 2020).
Recent years have
seen a burgeoning literature on impulse buying among researchers in terms of
the influence of product’s hedonic appeal, shopping enjoyment, and interactive
advertising screen on impulse buying (Lord et al., 2023; Moes et al., 2022; Sharma, 2021). Some researchers measured the influence
of livestreaming (i.e., online promotion) on impulsive consumption in the
gastronomy industry (Yu et al., 2022) while others measured conscious
and unconscious impulse buying during emergencies such as pandemics (COVID-19) (Nigam et al., 2022). However, Kursan Milaković and Ahmad (2023) investigate impulse buying among
online users in two distinct countries and recommend that future research be
conducted on various product categories. Consequently, these observations about
the emergence of impulse buying as a field of study structure this bibliometric
review of research.
Bibliometric analysis is known as “the application of
mathematics and statistical methods to books and other media of communication” (Pritchard,
1969).
Bibliometric studies have been used to evaluate the quantity and quality of
published documents to observe the trend or pattern of a specific research area. Bibliometric analysis is a
rigorous method for analysing large volumes of scientific data. The importance
of bibliometric analysis is reflected in its utility for producing high
research impact and handling large volumes of scientific data (Donthu et al., 2020).
This study employs
this approach to provide a holistic perspective on impulse buying. In addition,
academics interested in impulse buying literature can use this study as a
reference in the future. The analysis spanning the past 25 years enables
researchers to examine patterns of past studies based on historical data. As a
result, it forecasted the visibility of topics and the future development of literature.
For instance, previous researchers utilised bibliometric analysis within 25
years (i.e., from 1999 to 2021) to investigate sustainable consumption behaviour
(Vergura et al., 2023) and within 46 years (i.e., from
1976 to 2022) to analyse business sustainability (Dima et al., 2022). In addition, researchers can analyse
the critical issues related to impulse buying over the past 25 years based on
the publication’s details, such as authors, keyword frequency, citation
analysis, and geographical distributions.
Method
This study employs bibliometric
analysis to examine the expansion and production of studies on impulsive buying
behaviour. To achieve the objective of this study, data from the Scopus
database was obtained. The Scopus index, which was chosen as the data
repository, was the source of the documents. Using empirical data, comparisons
reveal that, outside of the medical and physical sciences, Scopus's coverage of
sources is broader than Web of Science's (Hallinger
& Kovačević, 2019). The
review included journal articles, books, book chapters, and conference papers
to provide comprehensive coverage of the topic. The Scopus search commenced
without a start date, allowing the database to locate the earliest papers
possible.
On February 8, 2023, the search query "impulse
buying" was applied to the article title in the Scopus database. This
search yielded a total of 698 documents for further examination. As part of the
data sets, the data has been exported in CSV and RIS formats. To analyse the
gathered documents, Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer, and Harzing's Publish and
Perish software were utilised. The review adopted PRISMA (Preferred Reporting
Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines for conducting
systematic reviews of research. The search string “impulse buying” was entered
into the Scopus search engine. This initial search yielded 698 documents.
After the time frame was applied, the database was reduced to 668 documents. Additional documents were excluded based on the document type. For example, retracted and undefined documents were eliminated at this stage. After the screening of documents was completed, the final database included 666 documents on impulse buying. The 'data' analysed for this study were bibliographic descriptions of the 666 Scopus-indexed documents. This 'meta-data' included the document authors' names, titles, publication dates, and author affiliations, as well as an abundance of citation information. Utilising descriptive statistics, trend analyses regarding the growth and geography of the impulse buying literature were conducted. Besides, we utilised VOSviewer software to synthesise patterns of knowledge production in impulse-buying literature.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this
study demonstrates bibliometric analysis as a scientific method to reflect on
the expansive fields of business research to provide new insights to evaluate
the academic trend of impulse buying research. The results of the bibliometric
analysis reveal a comprehensive picture of trending topics for discussing
future trends of impulse buying through a data repository. Moreover, the growth
trajectory of this literature suggests that it will more than double it size
over the next decade.
The limitation of the study is that the data sources used are restricted to Scopus. Future studies can supplement other pertinent data sources such as the Web of Sciences, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and others to get a holistic view of this topic. Future studies can provide a more detailed and comprehensive analysis of the trend of impulse buying and formulate several specific contexts to facilitate the development of studies on impulse buying. Additionally, meta-analytical review approaches are also suitable to help future research achieve a better understanding and clearer vision of the results of the present study.
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