Situational Factors of Compulsive Buying and the Well-Being Outcomes: What We Know and What We Need to Know

Abstract

Marketing as a discipline has evolved with the unintended consequences of making consumers spend more and buy things they do not need, resulting in significant consumer well-being challenges such as financial debt, negative emotional states, and ill-health. Even though the ill-effects of buying have been investigated in the extant literature, a comprehensive understanding of situational factors (or environmental factors) that socially responsible marketers can act upon has been missing. We find that compulsive buying behavior (CBB) poses significant challenges to consumer well-being but is rarely given due importance. CBB has been conceptualized by impulse purchase in its most basic form, progressing to obsession-compulsion, lack of self-control, and addiction in its extreme form requiring clinical interventions. After a thematic analysis of N = 67 articles around situational factors leading to CBB, the findings are arranged under five broad categories resulting in the BEEST framework (Brand, Environment, Economic, Sociological, and Technological). Further, ten sub-themes under these five broad categories and four sub-themes under psychological moderating factors affecting the relationship between situational factors and CBB are explicated. The study ends with future research directions in situational factors research in CBB area to increase consumer well-being or minimize consumer ill-being.