Impulse Buying

Our book, Marking Express, defines impulse buying as an unplanned buying behavior resulting from a powerful urge to buy something immediately. When I first read this I questioned how certain companies advertise their product to make it become something that someone would buy impulsively. I then realized that I do not think it is necessarily the promotion of the product but other parts of the marketing mix that are more important. For example aspects like price and place. For me the majority of my impulse buys seem to depend upon where I am. For example if I am in a store grocery shopping I hardly ever consider going down the candy isle. However I often find myself upon check out picking out a pack of gum or a candy bar that is easily accessible and putting in on the conveyor belt to be purchased. This is often times impulsive for me because the candy is so conveniently place. I do not need to take more of my time to get this item, I am already standing right there and my items are already being checked out. Along with the physical place of something I noticed price is a huge factor of impulse buying for myself. I find myself often times seeing something I have seen before for more money and picking it up not necessarily because I need it but because I feel as if I may at some point need it and it is too good of a deal to pass up. I think impulse buying adds a difficult aspect to marketing. Companies cannot anticipate these purchases and in turn this makes them extremely difficult to market. There is a lot of money to potentially be made or lost in efforts to predict these purchases.

Impulse buying also helps out retail stores rather than just the actual companies supplying the product. How and where items are placed within a specific store can have a significant impact on sales. For example I did a remodel for a retail store and in doing so I set up planograms which are essentially blueprints for what item will go where on a shelf. However, space on the end caps of each row was saved for only the top selling items in each particular section. With this being a new store and people not knowing the lay out it made it easier for them to find certain items or it acted as a reminder that the product was there. This is an interesting thing to pay attention to as you go into stores.

What factors most heavily impact your impulse buying? Do you think companies can predict impulse buying, if so how? If not what can they do better to predict them?

Online Profiling

Online profiling consists of collecting information about consumers by tracking or observing their actions as they browse the Internet. This can be done simply by tracking what links the consumer clicks on, what websites they visit most often, or even the amount of time they spend on each website. In doing this companies are able to collect valuable information about consumers and in turn use this information to target specific audiences by placing ads on specific websites. Online profiling is a great tool for businesses to get to know their consumers. However, many people are concerned with this profiling interfering with their personal privacy as well as question the business' ethics in doing so.
Many privacy advocates claim these companies are creating profiles and using them to figure out political, religious, or even sexual orientations and then selling this information unethically. However, the companies that are collecting this information claim they are making consumer's lives easier. They claim these profiles are saving their customers time so they do not having to look around at multiples sites, they also claim they save their customers time by saving previous information so they do no have to retype it into frequently visited sites.
For me personally I am a little bit weary of online profiling. I know for a fact that certain sites I visit partake in it. Multiple sites that I visit regularly store my information and allow me to stay signed in, for example Facebook and even my Yahoo mail account. I have also noticed banners on sites that mention specifically my hometown and I have wondered how they knew this information. I think a lot of people have the false notion that because you are on the Internet no one is watching and this in turn gives them a false sense of security.

Do you think this profiling is helpful or hurtful to consumers? Do companies take advantage of unknowing consumers or is it the consumers responsibility to know what they are making known to the public?