A study investigating the impact of Gender, Age and Personality on levels of impulse buying behaviours

Impulse buying can be defined as an unplanned rapid purchasing behaviour which is suddenly initiated, involving the experiencing of an urge to buy. This urge is felt abruptly and strongly and is often irresistible. Must of the research investigating this phenomenon, has focused on the variables of age, gender and personality traits, however, this has not been done simultaneously. The current study aims to investigate and identify an association between gender personality and impulse buying together, being one of the first studies, particularly in Europe to do so. The main hypothesis presented by the study suggests that gender and personality do have an impact on the levels of buying behaviours. The second hypothesis offered in this study is that younger individuals will be have higher levels of impulse buying than older individuals. The sample of the current study consisted of a total of N=499 participants, with 9.6% being male (n=48) and 90.4% being female (n=451), with n=11 participants being excluded from the study due to being underage or choosing not to disclose their gender. The design of the current study was a quantitative survey design, with participants recruited for participation through convenience and snowball sampling. The study employed the descriptive cross-sectional survey design and was used in order to examine the influence of consumers’ demographic characteristics such as age and gender and their personality type on impulse buying. Multiple regression analysis was performed to determine how well Impulse buying behaviours could be explained by three variables including gender, age and personality type. Results show that age and personality do have a significant effect on impulse buying behaviours and no significant influence was found regarding gender