A Study on Factors Influencing the Role of Children in Parental Purchase Intention

Abstract

Children are an indispensible part of any household decision making. Often ignored as a significant consumer group, children have slowly emerged as an important driver of purchases worldwide. There is a strong need to study the purchase intentions of parents under the influence of various behaviors displayed by the children for purchasing the products that they desire. The present study focuses to identify the purchase intention from a parental point of view, under the influence of various factors which generates child influence strategies namely bargaining, emotional, persuasion and request strategies. The study adopts descriptive approach for answering the research problem. The study uses quantitative methods of research enquiry. The hypotheses are formulated and the variables were measured using questionnaires. Samples were chosen from metros namely Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai based on probability and non-probability sampling. The study used structural equation modeling to determine the measurement model, structural model and to test the hypotheses. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze data. Qualitative study was conducted limited to the context of understanding the select variable of child influence strategies by using observational method. The factors considered for the study are namely advertisement exposure, packaging, peer group and family communication patterns (Socio-oriented and Concept-oriented families) in generating child influence strategies. Socio-oriented family communication patterns and peer group have emerged as the most significant predictor of child influence strategies leading to parental purchase intention followed by packaging and advertisement exposure. Contrary to the popular belief, the study reveals that rather than child directed marketing efforts such as advertisements and packaging, children are more influenced by factors such are peer groups and family communication patterns. The study bridges the gap in the literature regarding parental purchase intention under the influence of child influence strategies. The study has proposed an integrated model on parental purchase intention. The proposed model can act as a guideline to create suitable marketing strategies by aiming at giving more information about the products to peer group and parental units.