Traditional vs. organized retailers affect differences on impulse buying behavior for healthy vs. unhealthy products: A study on Turkish students

Previous impulse buying studies for the Turkish market focused on the general environmental and trait related factors (Aydin, 2010; Unal ve Ceylan, 2009; Bati ve Atici, 2010). They were important milestones for understanding the buying behavior for Turkey in general. The present study, however, is novel in terms of comparing the purchasing attitude in different store environments. In particular, this study develops a model by combining impulse buying antecedents and different store types in Turkey by answering the following interrelated research questions:?Does impulse buying behavior differ for traditional and organized retailers in Turkish retail environment??Do the products chosen differ for traditional and organized retail channels??Do the consumers have a pre-conditioned impulse buying attitude for different retail settings for certain product types?In order to responding to these research questions three consecutive studies were conducted. The three studies were designed with scales from previous studies from the literature. Time orientation, mood and time limitation were determined as three of the most important factors which is rarely a focus for Turkey, especially while shopping in different store environments. The impulsiveness trait factor with was measured for every single study. The overall aim was to identify the type of products that consumers preferred within traditional and organized retailers along with other antecedents. The type of products was determined as either healthy or unhealthy products again based on previous literature by Zhang, et al., 2009). Findings were consistent with 4 proposed hypotheses within this thesis. It was discovered that, consistent with the previous literature, impulsive buyers purchased more compared to prudent buyers in every store environment. The novel findings for this dissertation is the fact that traditional store environments triggered the purchase of unhealthy items whereas the organized retailers in for some conditions triggered the purchase of healthy items. The most important factor influencing this fact is the consumers? preconditioned attitudes towards different food retailers.