Impulse buying online: a visual, comparative enquiry into two mediums of grocery retailing

Abstract: The purpose of our thesis has been to see how impulse buying could manifest itself online by comparing the offline and online mediums through visual enquiry, and build on the already extensive literature on offline impulse buying. The object oriented visual enquiry was used offline and online to observe grocery stores and their current and potential impulse buying stimuli. We gained an initial understanding of the differences between the offline and online mediums according to how they can manifest impulse buying stimuli. We do not believe that the offline impulse buying methods can be directly transferred to an online setting, due to differences in format. However, an online grocery shopping site can emphasize features connected to hedonism, interactivity and personalization to successfully induce impulse buying in the online medium