The History Of The Hypermarket Industry Marketing Essay

The History Of The Hypermarket Industry Marketing Essay In the chapter 1, we will giving an overview of our research topics and also will study the background of the research topic. Besides, this chapter will also explain about the research problems and outline the research objectives that are need to be achieved by us, research question to be answered, hypotheses to be tested and lastly the significance of the study. Research Background Scholars have attempted to build a better definition of impulse buying for over fifty years (Karbasivar Yarahmadi, 2011). Moreover, Lim, Badarulzama, and Ahmad (2003) also claimed that the retail trend in Malaysia keep increasing over years. In other words, retailers such as supermarkets and hypermarkets will substantially increasing in the future and the competition between these retailers will keep rising continuously. In addition of retail trend, there is potential growing trend in impulse purchasing as well (Bayley Nancarrow, 1998). During the research on the topic of impulse buying behaviour, researcher has identified several of essential information. Firstly, Hausman (2000) summarise the previous studies finding and stated that there are almost 90 percent of people making occasionally impulse purchases and 30 percent and 50 percent of all purchases were classified by the buyers themselves as impulse purchases. Besides, Rook and Fishers (1995) also pointed that consumers try to manage their innate impulsive tendencies as they feel that impulse buying as immature or lacking of behavioural control and it is normatively wrong. Yet consumers still insist on purchase product impulsive from retailers especially hypermarket. For these reasons, marketers have the tendency to increase knowledge and understand of the process, of influential factors and of effects of impulse buying (Hair, Bush Ortinau, 2003). Impulsive buying behaviour of consumers often occurred in hypermarket as hypermarket consists of one-stop and all-under-one-roof features (PricewaterhouseCoopers [PwC], 2005). In other words, shoppers who shop in hypermarket will make their purchase on all desired products at once and at the same, they able to enjoy the entertainment facilities provided under the same roof such as bowling alleys, cinema, and snooker centre. In addition, the citizens in Malaysia are becoming wealthier and making them afford to purchase plenty of products including luxury products. In addition, the citizens in Malaysia are becoming wealthier and making them afford to purchase plenty of products including luxury products. Wong (2010) also claimed that the price war among retailers including hypermarkets, supermarkets and small-scale retailers to compete to be low cost leader, resulting the Malaysian to purchase unnecessary product impulsively. 1.1.1 Hypermarket Industry Hypermarket started entering Malaysia in the early 1990s (Lim et al., 2003). Hypermarket is a superstore that merges both supermarket and department store to become a very huge retail facility which carries a tremendous variety of products under one roof, as well as full lines of groceries and general merchandise (Matamalas Ramos, 2009). Most of the hypermarkets are foreign retailers such as Giant, Carrefour, Tesco and so forth while for famous Malaysian-owned hypermarket is MYDIN hypermarket. Due to the significant growth in retail of Malaysia for the past few years and the expansion of foreign brand retailers by entering into our country, it helps to provide consumers with more choice in selection of brands and styles (Wel, Hussin Omar, 2011). Through shopping in hypermarket retailing, consumers will benefit in terms of lower prices, good quality and reliable supply of plenty of variety and assortments of goods including after sales services (Mohd Noor, Mamat Darawi, 2009). Retailers have long discovered the influence power of impulse buying, which is indeed a focal point in many purchasing activities (Mattila Wirtz, 2008). Hypermarket retailers will also value this opportunity as impulse buying will bring substantial amount of profit for them. Furthermore, some grocery retailers especially hypermarkets are starting to compete with purely non-grocery retailers such as home appliances as consumers demanding for more choices (Mohd Noor et al., 2009). The reason that hypermarket retailers took this action is to capture more sales profit from the consumers. 1.1.2 Students Purchasing Power The purchasing power of students must not be underestimated as they could generate a portion of sales for the hypermarket retailers. Besides, there is a new trend emerged from retailers such as supermarket, hypermarket, and shopping mall to build their shop near the higher education institution such as college and university as they have found the importance of students as key segments for their business (Ahmed, Ghingold Dahari, 2007). Basically, it is known that the students resources are mainly come from their parents and the student loan from government or private institutions. Danes, Huddleston-Casas and Boyce (1999) pointed that college students had many resources to spend and tended to be purchase impulsively. While Sabri and MacDonald (2010) revealed that college and university students in Malaysia would like to shop and purchase non-academic goods aggressively once they receive their student loans. Their study also shows there are about 45 percent of students in Malaysia spe nt all their loans before the end of semester (Sabri MacDonald, 2010). Moreover, some high education institutions in Malaysia have introducing their students to visit hypermarket near the students hostel and institution as the price offered by hypermarket will be cheaper than any small specialty shops, leading these students to make purchase in hypermarket (Berjaya University College of Hospitality, 2013; MONASH University, 2013). Apart from that, researches had shown that the students who visit hypermarket possesses greater proportion to purchase impulsively compare to other segments (Lim et al., 2011; ET Bureau, 2012). In addition, the continuous expansion of education services in Malaysia has made students as an important consumer market segment (Economic Planning Unit, 2006). There are two reasons why they will become an important consumer market segment. The first reason is the students purchasing power in Malaysia has growing, due to the availability of student loans; second, among all the market segments of population, student segment is the segment that has great potential earnings in future (Sabri, MacDonald, Masud, Paim, Hira Othman, 2008). Problem Statement Retailers have long discovered the influence power of impulse buying, which is indeed an essential point in many purchasing activities (Mattila Wirtz, 2008). As the result, it produce intensive competition among the retailers such as supermarkets, hypermarkets, discount stores, convenience stores and even the small-scale retailers in the form of shop houses. The fierce competition among retailers especially supermarkets and hypermarkets required them to figure out any approaches to attract consumers and lead them to make impulsive purchase as consumer impulse buying is one of the greatest ways for retailers to generate high profitability. Specifically for students, as there are previous studies shown that students cover high percentage of sales from impulse purchasing (Lim et al., 2011; ET Bureau, 2012). Although there are consumers including student who always revisit their favourite retail stores and tend to be loyal to a particular store but some consumers are often to be cherry pickers (Wel et al., 2011). In other words, they are not usually loyal to one store, while on the contrary, they will easily switch to other retail stores in order to bargain for the best price before they purchase any of the products. Therefore, in order to survive in the current marketplace, retailers must find out the ways to attract and retain significant share of consumer impulse purchases (Dlamini, 2006). As the result, as to achieve competitive advantage and stand out in marketplace, it is crucial to examine the effect of impulse purchases and highlighting factors that will direct and indirectly affect consumer impulse buying behaviour towards retail setting industry such as hypermarket. Hausman (2000) stated that impulse buying is an enigma within marketing world as it is considered wrong by the literature and consumers, yet it still account for a large amount of sales for retail industry every year. In addition, information about impulse buying and its numerous influential variables is still considered less (Abdolvand, Hanzaee, Rahnama Khoshpanjeh, 2011). Hence, scholars and researchers should participate further in this challenging topic. Although researches might face plenty of complicatedness during the process of investigating and examine, this topic has generated substantial amount of research interest for over thirty years (Beatty Ferrell, 1998). The topic of impulse purchases has received substantial research interest in marketing literature (Beatty Ferrell, 1998; Rook Fisher, 1995; Hadjali, Salimi Ardestani, 2012). However, research on impulse buying is often focused on consumers in the United States, yet fewer researches are done in non-western country such as Malaysia (Kacen Lee, 2002). Therefore, this study is to gain better understanding of how in-store environment, positive emotions and social norms influence consumer impulse buying behaviour in Malaysia. This study will investigate whether in-store environment, positive emotions and social norms have the power to influence consumer impulse buying behaviour in Malaysia corresponds to the western countries. Research objective According to the problem statement mentioned above, the researches of the topic of impulse buying behaviour is still ambiguous and it is requires for scholars or researchers to implement more researches in order to remove the ambiguous and acquire more accurate information of impulse buying behaviour. Apart from that, due to the tense competition among the hypermarket in Malaysia, hypermarket owners must clearly identified the important elements or factors that will truly influence the consumers to make purchase impulsively in their respective hypermarkets. 1.3.1 General objective This research is concentrated on underlying factors that influencing impulse buying behaviour. Besides, this research also studies on analyzing the relationship between the factors and impulse buying behaviour. Specific Objective To examine the relationship between in-store environment and impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket. To examine the relationship between positive emotion and impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket. To examine the relationship between social norms and impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket. Research Question Does in-store environment positively influence impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket? Does positive emotion positively influence impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket? Do social norms positively influence impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket? 1.5 Hypothesis of the study Findings from previous research together with the objectives of the study lead toward the development of the following hypotheses: There is a relationship between in-store environment and impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket. There is a relationship between positive emotion and impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket. There is a relationship between social norms and impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket. 1.6 Significance of the Study This research is determining whether impulse buying behaviour of college and university students has significant influence on stores sales and profit, and most of the stores and hypermarket had started implemented the impulse buying strategy. Due to this reason, our research is to study what are the critical factors that trigger the customer impulsive buying behaviour. This research is relatively important to all retailers especially hypermarket owners. By going through this research study, retailers are able to understand the critical factors that will greatly affect their store sales. For example, the enhanced store design or store environment that is varies from the conventional store design which is believed that it is unique by comparing to other stores, thereby it will play as a role of catching the attention of the pass by customers. Therefore, it can increase or trigger the tendency of impulse buying behaviour of the customers. 1.7 Chapter layout 1.7.1 Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter will provide an overview of the study which includes the background of studies, problem statement, general and specific objectives, research questions, hypothesis, and significance of the study, chapter layout and conclusion that explaining the purpose of the research. 1.7.2 Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter shows the literature review that includes a full relevant of the relevant research work for the research topic. It describes the relationships for every independent and dependent variables. The research study reviews the relevant theoretical models, and then proposes the theoretical framework and hypotheses development. 1.7.3 Chapter 3: Research Methodology This chapter describes how the research study is carried out and gathers the data, by using the appropriate research design, data collection methods, sampling design, research instrument, construct measurement data processing and method of data analysis. 1.7.4 Chapter 4: Research Result This chapter presents the patterns of the results and analyses of the results which are relevant to the research questions and hypotheses by using SPSS analysis. 1.7.5 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion In this chapter, the research study summarizes the research findings which are included statistical analyses, discussions of major findings, implications of study, limitations of the study and recommendations for future research. 1.8 Conclusion This chapter will provide an overview of the research study. The background, problem statement of this study, research objective and questions has been identified. Hypotheses of this study have been formed and it will be used to focus on factors that influence impulse buying behaviour in hypermarket. A further review of the previous relevant studies and researches will be conducted in the next chapter.