A research about undergraduate students behavioural response to sales promotion tools in supermarkets

Originally, sales promotion was used as a support tool that was seen as less important than advertising and personal selling in the marketing communication mix. Nowadays sales promotion can support or complement other marketing communication tools, or it may serve as the main tool. In conclusion, money appropriated to the sales promotions in marketing communication budgets of the companies increase. Supermarkets are heavy users of sales promotion devices and need to be able to assess the effectiveness of these tools. In the literature, there are many studies concerning effect of sales promotion tools. These studies emphasize that how marketing spending can be effective. On this account, determination of the sales promotion effectiveness should be important to the practitioners. The aim of this study is to find the most effective sales promotion techniques (among price discounts, sampling, bonus packs, sweepstakes and games, premiums and in-store demonstrations) in inducing undergraduate students? responses (of brand switching, purchase acceleration, stockpiling, product trial, spending more and brand loyalty) in supermarkets. According to our findings, it can be said that price discounts were felt by the consumers to be the most effective promotional tool for inducing purchase acceleration and brand switching. Furthermore, coupons, sweepstakes and games and in-store demonstrations were felt to be relatively ineffective in terms of generating all types of consumer response