INFLUENCE OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AND

VISUAL MERCHANDISING ON IMPULSE BUYING

BEHAVIOR OF STUDENTS

Submitted to:
Ma’am Nazia Saeed

Submitted By:
Sameer Ullah Khan (22332)
Khizar Sufian (19904)
Sharjeel Tariq (22939)
Ali Akbar (23006)
Talha Zafar (20808)

Submitted On:
17th May 2020

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 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

Ma’am Nazia Saeed

Course Instructor,
Methods In Business Research,
Institute of Business Management (IoBM)

Dear Nazia,

Subject: “Research Report”

Here is the Research Report which was approved by you toward the start of this semester
Spring 2020. This report fulfills the need of utilization of the considerable number of ideas
learnt in class of Methods in Business Research. As a group we select the topic to study on
the “Influence Of Personality Traits and Visual Merchandising On Impulse Buying Behavior
Of Students”.

Here We, as a group, submit this report to you.

May you get precious time to review this report.

Yours sincerely,

Ali Akber
Muhammad Khizar Sufian
Sameer Khan
Muhammad Sharjeel Tariq
Talha Zafar

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 LETTER OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Ma’am Nazia Saeed,

Course Instructor,
Methods In Business Research,
Institute of Business Management.

Dear Readers,
First, We would like to thank Almighty Allah, for helping us out in the legitimate tracks of
the discoveries.
We thank Ma’am Nazia, who bestowed us with the fundamental learning of Methods in
Business Research with the goal that we could achieve about right conclusions. This report
has empowered us to apply all that we learned in class and online sessions and allowed us to
open new gateways regarding aptitude.
Sincerely,
Ali Akber (23006)
Muhammad Khizar Sufian (19904)
Sameer Khan (22332)
Muhammad Sharjeel Tariq (22939)
Talha Zafar (20808)

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 ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to study influence of Visual Merchandising and Personality
Traits on Impulsive Buying Behavior of Students and How it affects their yearly budget. The
data was collected from a sample size 203 from students of different college. The data was
collected through an online questionnaire. The statistical technique that has been used to
analyze this data is non-probabilistic technique. The independent variable of this research
was visual merchandising and personality traits and impulse buying behavior were
considered to be dependent variable.
Keywords: Impulsive buying behavior, Influence of visual merchandising and personality
traits, Yearly budget

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Contents
INTRODUCTION:....................................................................................................................................4
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:..........................................................................................................4
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:.........................................................................................................4
“To study the influence of Visual Merchandising and Personality Traits on Impulsive Buying
Behavior of Students and How it affects their yearly budget”...........................................................4
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:.................................................................................................................4
SCOPE OF THE STUDY:.......................................................................................................................4
HYPOTHESIS:......................................................................................................................................5
REVIEW OF LITERATURE........................................................................................................................5
LITERAURE REVIEW:..........................................................................................................................5
VISUAL MERCHANDISING:.............................................................................................................5
IMPULSE BUYING BEHAVIOR:........................................................................................................5
PERSONALITY TRAITS:....................................................................................................................6
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:.............................................................................................................7
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:.............................................................................................................7
METHODOLOGY:................................................................................................................................8
DATA:.............................................................................................................................................8
VARIABLES:....................................................................................................................................8
INCLUSION CRITERIA:.....................................................................................................................8
SAMPLING TECHNIQUES:...............................................................................................................8
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS:..................................................................................................................8
ANALYSIS:..............................................................................................................................................8
Descriptive Statistics for Demographics:...........................................................................................8
Table # 4.1.1..................................................................................................................................8
Table # 4.1.2................................................................................................................................10
Table # 4.1.3................................................................................................................................10
Table # 4.1.3................................................................................................................................11
Table # 4.1.4................................................................................................................................11
Table # 4.1.4................................................................................................................................11
Table # 4.1.5................................................................................................................................13
CORRELATION ANALYSIS:.................................................................................................................13
Impulse Buying Behavior and Visual Merchandising:..................................................................13
Impulse Buying Behavior and Personality:...................................................................................14

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 TESTING HYPOTHESIS USING REGRESSION ANALYSIS:.....................................................................15
Impulse Buying Behavior and Personality:...................................................................................15
Impulse Buying Behavior and Visual Merchandising:..................................................................16
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION:.........................................................................................................17
SUGGESTIONS:.....................................................................................................................................18
LIMITATIONS:......................................................................................................................................18

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INTRODUCTION:
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:
People often perform tasks in today's world that they don't plan for in advance. The same is
the purchasing behavior case. People often go to stores and find out they end up buying items
they haven't paid for even if they need them or not. This is known as Impulse Buying.
"Impulse" is called "the momentary impulse." Impulse buying behavior, on the other hand, is
a sudden and immediate purchase without any intention of either buying the specific category
of product or fulfilling a specific purchasing task (Beatty & Ferrell, 1998, p170). This is quite
common among college students as they earn a little money and tend to spend it on their
needs and desires.
At the end of the month, most of the students who are used to impulse buying have to face
money issues. This makes it quite difficult for those who take parents ' pocket money and are
used to purchasing impulses, as well as those who live as bachelors and have to face
problems if they purchase impulses.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

“To study the influence of Visual Merchandising and Personality Traits on Impulsive Buying
Behavior of Students and How it affects their yearly budget”

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:

 To study the impact of visual merchandising on impulse buying of students
 To study the impact of personality on impulse buying of students
 To understand how impulse buying affects students
 To study for solution to overcome impulse buying behavior in students.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY:

Most customers buy a product because of visual merchandising and it looks from outside the
window. Most of the time they ignore the fact that they want the product or not and just buy it
because of good visual merchandising.
Most of the students do impulse buying which effects their yearly budget or they end up
buying things they don’t even need; they buy because of impulse buying behavior or
attractive visual merchandising.

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HYPOTHESIS:
Following are the hypothesis on which we will be working on in this research:

Ho: There is no significant influence of personality on the impulse buying behavior of

students.
H1: There is significant influence of personality on the impulse buying behavior of students.

Ho: There is no significant influence of visual merchandising on the impulse buying behavior
of students.
H2: There is significant influence of visual merchandising on the impulse buying behavior of
students.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
LITERAURE REVIEW:
VISUAL MERCHANDISING:
Have you ever seen a mannequin dressed in the perfect set of clothes? Has this
happened to you? If so, this is referred to as visual merchandising. It is a technique
used by retail stores to maximize sales by using floor plans and 3D displays. A way to
efficiently display products to maximize a product's desirability and affect the
purchasing behavior of a buyer.
The main elements of Visual Merchandising include:
Floor merchandising: retail system in conjunction with plan-o-gram / zone-o-gram, in
which merchandise is made available for sale to customers.
Mannequin display: the presentation of merchandise using mannequins to create the
interest of customers and the desire to buy.
In-store display: A unique way to present goods in order to provide buyers with
information about new items, fashion trends, or teamwork tips to inspire the urge to
buy from customers. The following in-store display styles have been studied for the
purpose of this study: form / mannequin show, floor merchandising, and promotional
signage.
In-store display: an innovative way to present goods with the goal of supplying
consumers with information on new products, fashion trends or teamwork tips to
inspire customers to buy.

IMPULSE BUYING BEHAVIOR:

“Impulse buying is a sudden and immediate purchase with no pre-shopping intentions
either to buy the specific product category or to fulfill a specific buying task (Beatty
& Ferrell, 1998, p170)”.
The purchasing impulse behavior happens after feeling an urge to buy and appears to
be spontaneous without much thought. Because impulse buyers are not actively
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looking for a particular product and have no prior plans or intention to make an
internal buying state and environmental / external factors may serve as triggers to
activate their impulse behavior.

PERSONALITY TRAITS:
One of the first things that hits us when we watch people around us is how different
people are from each other. Many people, while others are very quiet, are very
talkative. Some are involved while others are potatoes in the sofa. Many worry a lot;
others seem nervous almost never. Every time we use one of these words, such as
"talkative," "quiet," "active," or "anxious," to describe those around us, we're talking
about the personality of a person— the characteristic ways people differ from each
other. Psychologists of personality try to describe these differences and understand
them. The Five-
Factor Model is the most commonly used model of traits. The system includes five sp
ecific characteristics that can be summarized with the acronym OCEAN: Openness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Openness: Openness to learn is about the ability of individuals to try new things, their
ability to be flexible, and their ability to think outside the box.
Conscientiousness: Tendency to control urges and act in ways that are socially
acceptable, conducts that encourage goal-driven behavior. The ability to delay
gratification, operate within the rules, and efficiently prepare and coordinate.
Extraversion: The propensity for others to be talkative, sociable and enjoy. The
propensity to be dominant.
Agreeableness: The inclination to go along with others and not to make one's own
choices and options.
Neuroticism: The propensity to often experience negative emotions such as
frustration, anxiety and sadness and to be interpersonally reactive.

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CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
Visual Merchandising and Personality Traits are the factors that influence the impulse
buying behavior of college students and understand how impulse buying affects
students and come up with solutions to overcome impulse buying behavior in
students.
Individually Visual Merchandising and Personality Traits have a direct relationship
with impulse buying behavior.

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METHODOLOGY:
DATA:
Data was collected through questionnaire with the help of Google Forms.
 Primary research: through questionnaire
 Secondary research: through previously conducted researches

VARIABLES:
Dependent variables:
 Impulsive Buying Behavior
Independent variables:
 Visual Merchandising
 Personality Traits

INCLUSION CRITERIA:
Gender: Male and Female
Age Group: 17-28
Geographic location: Karachi (specific to college students)
Sample size: 203

SAMPLING TECHNIQUES:
Non-Probabilistic – Convenience

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS:
 Correlation Analysis
 Regression Analysis

ANALYSIS:
Descriptive Statistics for Demographics:

Table # 4.1.1
Gender

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid Male 144 70.9 70.9 70.9

Female 59 29.1 29.1 100.0

Total 203 100.0 100.0

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12
Table # 4.1.3

Institute

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Pevrcent Percent

Valid Institute of Business

1 .5 .5 .5
Management

Aptech 1 .5 .5 1.0

DUHS 1 .5 .5 1.5

Federal Urdu University Khi 2 1.0 1.0 2.5

IBA 2 1.0 1.0 3.4

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Institute of Business
1 .5 .5 3.9
Administration

Institute of business
1 .5 .5 4.4
management

Institute of Business
170 83.7 83.7 88.2
Management

Institute of Business
2 1.0 1.0 89.2
Management.

Iqra university 1 .5 .5 89.7

Iqra University 2 1.0 1.0 90.6

Iqra university Islamabad

1 .5 .5 91.1
campus

Ivs 1 .5 .5 91.6

JINNA WOMEN
1 .5 .5 92.1
UNIVERSITY

Karachi medical and dental

1 .5 .5 92.6
college

Karachi Medical and Dental

1 .5 .5 93.1
College

Karachi University 3 1.5 1.5 94.6

Karachu university 1 .5 .5 95.1

KU 1 .5 .5 95.6

Ned 1 .5 .5 96.1

NED University 1 .5 .5 96.6

Neduet 1 .5 .5 97.0

NEDUET 1 .5 .5 97.5

Nhu 1 .5 .5 98.0

NJV College Higher

1 .5 .5 98.5
Sec.School

Tsa 1 .5 .5 99.0

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 University of karachi 1 .5 .5 99.5

University of Karachi 1 .5 .5 100.0

Total 203 100.0 100.0

CORRELATION ANALYSIS:
To understand the relationship between the DV (Impulse Buying Behavior) and IVs (Visual
Merchandising and Personality), correlation analysis is conducted. Correlation Analysis helps
in indicating whether there is a statistical relationship between two variables or not and in
indicating whether the relationship is strong or weak. Following is the Correlation Analysis
of our variables:
Impulse Buying Behavior and Visual Merchandising:

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**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

According to the Correlation Analysis, there is a strong positive relationship between Impulse
Buying Behavior and Visual Merchandising. This is because the Pearson Correlation has a
value of +.642 which is close to +1. This relationship is also significant as sig value is less
than 0.01.

Impulse Buying Behavior and Personality:

According to the Correlation Analysis, there is a strong positive relationship between Impulse
Buying Behavior and Personality. This is because the Pearson Correlation has a value of
+0.469 which is close to +1. This relationship is also significant as sig value is less than 0.01.

TESTING HYPOTHESIS USING REGRESSION ANALYSIS:

To determine whether the hypothesis of our research is accepted or not we conduct regression
analysis which helps in identifying which variables have impact on a topic of interest. This

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helps in identifying which factor should be ignored and which should be considered.
Following are the Hypothesis:

Impulse Buying Behavior and Personality:

Ho: There is no significant influence of personality on the impulse buying behavior of
students.
H1: There is significant influence of personality on the impulse buying behavior of students.

The Regression Analysis indicates that the p-value (0.000) is <0.05 and F value (9.858) is >4,
therefore Ho will be rejected. This indicates that there is a relationship between Impulse
Buying Behavior and Personality. Therefore, we can accept H1 i.e. “There is a significant
influence of Personality on Impulse Buying Behavior of Students”

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Impulse Buying Behavior and Visual Merchandising:

Ho: There is no significant influence of visual merchandising on the impulse buying behavior
of students.

H2: There is significant influence of visual merchandising on the impulse buying behavior of
students.

The Regression Analysis indicates that the p-value (0.000) is <0.05 and F value (19.982) is
>4, therefore Ho will be rejected. This indicates that there is a relationship between Impulse
Buying Behavior and Visual Merchandising.Therefore, we can accept H1 i.e. “There is a
significant influence of Visual Merchandising by Brands on Impulse Buying Behavior of
Students”

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION:
The analysis of the research conducted indicated that there is a significant relationship
between the DV (Impulse Buying Behavior) and IVs (Visual Merchandising and Personality
Traits). According to the demographics, 36% respondents rarely go shopping, 49.2% often go
shopping and 14.8% frequently go shopping, which indicated that majority of our
respondents go shopping often.

To study whether there is a relationship between the DV and IVs of the research, Pearson
Correlation Analysis was also conducted which indicated a strong positive relationship
between theDV (Impulse Buying Behavior) and IVs (Visual Merchandising and Personality
Traits).

Regression Analysis was also done in order to study the hypotheses and conclude results
from. According to the regression analysis Visual Merchandising and Personality has a
significant relationship with Impulse Buying Behavior. Furthermore, different types of
Personality Traits also had a significant relationship with Impulse Buying Behavior.
However, out of the two Independent Variables Visual Merchandising has the highest impact
and Personality has the lowest.

If students wish to control over their Impulse Buying Behavior then they must highly
consider not falling for Visual Merchandising.

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SUGGESTIONS:
Following are certain suggestions to avoid Impulse Buying:

 Students should consider avoiding going to malls frequently as according to the research
we have observed that students who go to the mall less often, do not impulse buy.

 Students should set goals for big purchases and should decide upon a day to go shopping
once in a month

 Another cause of high impulse buying rate is high scrolling on online websites. Students
should not visit such websites.

 Students should consider the outcome of these purchases before they do.

 Students should also avoid using credit cards if they have, as they cause high impulse
buying as you do not have to pay cash if you are out of some.

 Students should also research before buying a product.

LIMITATIONS:
 The research survey was only restricted to students of Karachi (Majority of IoBM),
therefore it did not reflect the students of the whole city or country.

 The participants of the research might have failed to fill the questionnaire sincerely.

 There can be some biasness in the survey by the respondents.

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REFERENCES:
 Bashir, S., Zeeshan, M., Sabbar, S. and Sarki, H. (2013) Impact of Cultural Values
and Life Style on Impulse Buying Behavior: A Case Study of Pakistan. International
Review of Management and Business Research.
 Mills, K. H., Paul, J.E. & Moorman, K.B., (1995), Applied visual merchandising (3rd
ed.), Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
 Bellenger, D.N., Robertson, D.H. and Hirschman, E.C. (1978), “Impulse buying
varies by product”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 15-18.
 Chien-Huang, L. and Hung-Ming, L. (2005), “An exploration of Taiwanese
adolescents’ impulsive buying tendency”, available at:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-131363637.html (Accessed 20 December
2010).
 Dholakia, U.M. (2000), “Temptation and resistance: An integrated model of
consumption impulse formation and enactment”, Journal of Psychology and
Marketing, Vol. 17 No. 11, pp. 955-982.
 Abratt, R. and Goodey, S.D. (1990), “Unplanned buying and in-store stimuli in
supermarkets”, Managerial and Decision Economics, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 111-121.
 Vishnu Parmar, & Rizwan Raheem Ahmed. (2013, May). Factors influencing impulse
buying behavior. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rizwan_Ahmed12/publication/264383676_FAC
TORS_INFLUENCING_IMPULSE_BUYING_BEHAVIOR/links/53dab8f00cf2a19e
ee8b3d04/FACTORS-INFLUENCING-IMPULSE-BUYING-BEHAVIOR.pdf.

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