Have your cake and eat it too: how invoking post-purchase hyperopia mitigates impulse purchase regret

Jamie L. Grigsby (), Robert D. Jewell () and Colin Campbell ()
Additional contact information
Jamie L. Grigsby: Missouri State University
Robert D. Jewell: Kent State University
Colin Campbell: University of San Diego

Marketing Letters, 2021, vol. 32, issue 1, No 6, 75-89

Abstract: Abstract Impulse purchases are encouraged by retailers and can comprise a significant portion of a retailer’s sales. However, both consumers and researchers generally see impulse purchases as something to be avoided because they tend to be incongruent with consumers’ long-term goals. Using a goal congruence framework, this research finds that taking a broader temporal perspective of a virtuous choice made some time ago (i.e., a distant-past hyperopic choice) is one way for consumers to reduce the regret associated with an impulse purchase. Specifically, recalling a distant-past virtuous choice provides justification for a recent impulse purchase, reducing goal incongruity and thereby reducing associated regret. This effect allows retailers to both encourage impulse purchases and mitigate their potential negative consequences.

Keywords: Impulse purchasing; Hyperopia; Regret; Justification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11002-020-09536-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:32:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s11002-020-09536-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... etailsPage=societies

DOI: 10.1007/s11002-020-09536-6

Access Statistics for this article

Marketing Letters is currently edited by Joel Steckel and Peter Golder

More articles in Marketing Letters from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().