Arousal and Merriment as Decision Drivers Among Young Consumers

Arousal among young consumers plays a key role in buying decisions. Shopping arousal is largely driven by store attractions, interpersonal influences, self-reference criteria, and comparative gains. Arousal-led retail sales strategies for affordable fashion and entertainment products drive buying decisions of young consumers. Managers of retailing firms need to consider promoting shopping arousal with the advent of one-to-one marketing, media-targeted direct mail or Internet marketing and to explore the opportunities to develop relationships with young consumers. One of the challenges for success in retailing is to enhance the in-store ambience to influence young consumers for a prolonged stay in the store for shopping and exploring the zone of experience of new products. This paper attempts to analyze arousal and satisfaction as behavioral drivers that influence buying behavior of young consumers and measures the extent of satisfaction by purchases made through empirical investigation in Mexico. Discussions in the study are also focused on the role of in-store recreation, ambience, and point-of-sales strategies in influencing buying behavior of young consumers. Arguments in the paper are built around major factors that affect shopping arousal among young consumers in reference to recreational facilities and location of the store, shopping behavior, and store loyalty, which are influenced by product attributes and services, brand value, perceived values, and price. Taking these factors into consideration can improve the performance of retailing and increase sales. This paper contributes to the analysis of shopping arousal and merriment as influencing factors of consumer behavior, which has not been covered in many research studies.