Materialism, Impulse Buying and Conspicuous Consumption: A Qualitative Research

Consumer behavioural traits or characteristics are the most imperative part in the study of consumer behaviour. Researchers and marketers have always been interested in understanding consumer behaviour so that apt marketing strategies can be formulated. This article deals with three important traits, namely, materialism, impulse buying and conspicuous consumption. All the three traits relate to the imaginative, emotional and evaluative components of consumption behaviour. This article is the author's attempt to generate new knowledge and insight about the topic by integrating significant research work conducted by authors world over using qualitative research techniques. It is the form of research that reviews, critiques and synthesizes the literature of the topic, such that a new framework and perspective on the topic is generated. Synthesizing knowledge from the existing literature on all the three above-mentioned traits is a significant value-added contribution to the body of literature, and thereafter, the use of the structured in-depth interviews further help in developing a comprehensive framework. The study has also opened up many provocative questions for future research, and is useful as a foundation to practitioners and scholars who are interested in the same field. The article provides a broad overview of the factors that motivate a consumer to exhibit a particular consumption trait through a comprehensive framework, and for this purpose, first, the extant academic literature is studied extensively, and then the study undertakes structured in-depth interviews with 20 individuals in the hypermarket. The article concludes with the generation of the framework and a series of recommendations for international/domestic marketing managers.