Impulse buying and checkout donation: leveraging reparatory processes of purchase guilt

The study aims to leverage price promotion induced impulse buying for encouraging donation at the checkout. Through this attempt, the study examines the reparatory processes (problem-focused and emotion focused) for coping with impulse purchase guilt through checkout donation. State self-concept confusion determining regulation focus and reparation framing facilitating checkout donation are further examined as moderating influences. A 2-stage moderated mediation model is tested using scenario based 2X2 randomized between subject design with impulse purchase guilt (treatment vs control) and donation appeal framing (self-repair vs mood repair) as stimulus. 227 complete responses were received from retail shoppers using mall-intercept survey. The results show that problem-focused mediation effect is more pronounced when confusion caused to self-concept during checkout is high and the benefit sought from donation is self-repair. While emotion-focused coping is much more effective in encouraging donation when little to no confusion exists regarding self-concept during checkout and donation appeal satisfies mood-repair motive. The study findings have implications for non-profits working with retailers in making use of price promotion induced impulse purchases to encourage donations at the checkout. By leveraging on guilt and self-deficit experienced by the customer due to impulse buying, they can accordingly frame and promote donation at the checkout as self-repairing or mood repairing.