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The Impact of Children on Parental Purchasing Behavior

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Abstract

Children have a major influence on their parents' purchases of similar products. Children are a dominant market for marketers to consider when making strategy choices since they are part of a family unit. This market is active in three ways: first, it is a large market in and of itself; second, it is a key influencer in facilitating purchasing decisions; and third, it is a possible future market. The focus of this research is on children's second position. They become the focal point of family expectations, and parents are more receptive to their recommendations when making purchases. This research study explains the effect of children on parental purchase behavior in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi using a survey as a data collection method. Parents are among the participants in this research. The relationship between parental purchase behavior (PPB) and age of child (AOC), importance of child (IOC), product category (PC), communication pattern (CP), and family orientation is revealed by multiple regression analysis (FO). The age of the child (AOC), family orientation (FO), and Product Category (PC) are the three most significant factors that affect parental buying behavior. The paper concludes that children have a major influence on their parents' decisions.
Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 27, No. 2,2021
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P-ISSN: 2204-1990; E-ISSN: 2888-2901
DOI: 10.47750/cibg.2021.27.02.297
2888
The Impact of Children on Parental Purchasing Behavior
Azhar Khan
(Principal Author)
Department of Management Sciences, Islamia College Peshawar
Shabana Gul
Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar
Muhammad Nisar
Department of Sociology and Political Science, Bacha Khan University,
Charsadda
Fazal Hanan
Department of Sociology, FATA University FR Kohat
Mohib Ullah
IBL, Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan
Farah Nadir
GCGC, Gulbahar Peshawar
Abstract
Children have a major influence on their parents' purchases of similar products. Children
are a dominant market for marketers to consider when making strategy choices since they
are part of a family unit. This market is active in three ways: first, it is a large market in
and of itself; second, it is a key influencer in facilitating purchasing decisions; and third,
it is a possible future market. The focus of this research is on children's second position.
They become the focal point of family expectations, and parents are more receptive to
their recommendations when making purchases. This research study explains the effect of
children on parental purchase behavior in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi
using a survey as a data collection method. Parents are among the participants in this
research. The relationship between parental purchase behavior (PPB) and age of child
(AOC), importance of child (IOC), product category (PC), communication pattern (CP),
and family orientation is revealed by multiple regression analysis (FO). The age of the
child (AOC), family orientation (FO), and Product Category (PC) are the three most
significant factors that affect parental buying behavior. The paper concludes that children
have a major influence on their parents' decisions.
Key Words: Parental purchase behavior, Family orientation
Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 27, No. 2,2021
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INTRODUCTION
In this fast-paced business world, each company tries to research and comprehend
consumer behavior in order to remain in business by attracting and keeping customers.
The first move to a successful competitive plan in today's competitive landscape is a
marketer's understanding of the customer. The first aspect of the marketing concept's
focal point is to consider why and how people acquire products. Marketers care a lot
about how people want, buy, and use products and services, which means that only a
deep, systematic understanding of customer behavior can help a company achieve its
marketing objectives. Most advertisers now understand that customer behavior is a long-
term research project aimed at determining the various functions of decision-making
units in the purchasing decision process. Consumer behavior is a complicated subject, but
advertisers aim to learn as much as they can about their consumers and the mechanisms
they use to choose products and services. Consumer behavior is described as the
comprehension of this process.”
Consumer behavior refers to the actions people take when purchasing, using, and
discarding goods and services. Many advertisers look at families as a basic consumer
decision-making unit because decisions made by a family vary in many ways from
decisions made by a person or a company.
Internal factors (demographics, psychographics, personality, motivation, knowledge,
attitude, belief, and perceptions) and external factors (culture, subculture, locality, family,
social class, reference group, peers, and marketing mix) both influence consumer
behavior directly and indirectly; as a result, many businesses study the roles of various
family members in purchasing decisions. Similarly, the authors of this study have shown
how children influence parental purchasing behavior, especially in the age range of 1-14
years.
Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 27, No. 2,2021
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Primary Market
Influencer Market
Future Market
Children
Children
Previous research on child influence has focused on different dimensions such as age,
communication, socialization, ethnic identity, parental attitude, family size, child's social
forces, socioeconomic status, and household characteristics, and has found that all of
these variables have a greater effect on parental purchasing decisions.
The most significant factor in influencing parental purchasing decisions is an infant. The
majority of the literature on the topic has cited various factors that affect these purchasing
decisions. In terms of children's impact on parental purchasing decisions, research
identifies three major factors for such decisions, indicating that the importance of a
child's role in decision-making is recognized. For starters, the child market is rapidly
expanding. Second, children certainly influence family decisions, and third, adult
consumer behavior is a clear antecedent of child consumer behavior (Berey & Pollay,
1968).
Children as influencers
Children influence household purchase decisions. Not only do children influence choices,
they actually make purchases through family money and through their own too. A family
influence upon a child’s brand choice must be recognized by marketers because the
influence affects purchase decision later in life as well. In the same way, researchers of
this study have illustrated how children influence parental purchase behavior.
The decision to buy is influenced by the positions that different family members play in
product consumption and their effect on other family members who buy and consume.
The following three factors can influence a consumer's buying decision: personal,
psychological, and social. The marketer must know if any reference group has a major
impact on consumers, as well as which types of customers are affected by which
reference group. In order to formulate an acceptable marketing strategy for its target
market, the marketer must be aware of these factors.
When designing successful marketing campaigns, marketers must take into account shifts
in population size and age structure. Consumer behavior is heavily influenced by age.
Interests, tastes, buying power, political views, and investment behavior are all
influenced by a person's age. Pakistan's demographics indicate that 37.6% of the
population is between the ages of 0 and 14. This illustrates that advertisers have an ability
to target children under this age group because it is a wide market and businesses will
build lifetime value by targeting this age group.
Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 27, No. 2,2021
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This study looks at factors related to children that are likely to affect parental purchasing
patterns in Pakistan, as well as how marketers may use these findings to develop effective
marketing strategies. It aims to look into the effect of a child's age (AOC), value of the
child (IOC), contact pattern (CP) inside and outside the family, product category (PC) for
related goods, and family orientation (FO) on parents' purchasing decisions for child-
related goods.
Review of the Literature
Children as young as puberty play an important role in family buying decisions, and they
have the power to influence such decisions both directly and indirectly. These
manipulating tactics are most often used during high-stakes family buying decisions
(Thomson, Laing, & McKee 2007). Family, peers, and the media are main socializing
factors for children, and family specific characteristics such as parenting style, family's
sex role orientation (SRO), and contact habits also play important roles in family
purchasing decisions in the West and India, according to the study. (Singh & Kaur,
2006).
Children's and parents' views of children's impact on decision-making are based on
family dining out experiences (Labrecque & Ricard, 2001). Adults and children interact
in their daily lives, especially in the grocery store, with a focus on young people's
participation in food shopping. This interaction demonstrates how, in an informal way,
the family serves as a mediator of customer awareness. As a result, the store serves as one
of the primary venues for parents to educate and socialize their children (Petterson,
Olsson, & Fiellstorm, 2004).”
The position of children in various decision categories, such as appliances, cars, furniture,
groceries, investments, life insurance, vacations, and general household decisions, varies
as much as the decision category sector (Jenkins, 1979). The reasons for concentrating on
the role of children, according to Berey and Pollay (1968), are a variety of factors,
including (a) the child's age, (b) the number of other children at home, (c) the mother's
job working hours, (d) the number of trips to the store made by the child alone, and (e)
the number of trips to the store made by the child with his/her mother. Children have a
greater influence on the purchasing of related products, especially cereal, since they and
their parents consume this commodity on a regular basis, which is due to television
advertisements that have a significant effect on children's cereal requests (Atkins, 1978).
The control of children is influenced by the social power theory. Variations in children's
control can be explained using active social power, passive social power, desire strength,
and decision narration (Flurry & Burns, 2005).
Wang, Holloway, Beatty, and Hill (2007) demonstrated the impact of family contact
habits (FCP) on various dimensions of consumers' decision-making styles and influence
Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 27, No. 2,2021
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in family buying decisions as they grow up. There is a connection between the mother's
motivation level, family contact patterns (FCP), and consumer attitudes and behaviors
(MAB). This indicates that FCP may be interested in the purchasing of market place
MAB (Carlson, Walsh, Laczniak, & Grossbart, 1994).
Adolescents' decision-making styles can be determined by the mechanism of customer
socialization. The socialization agents and decision-making styles are linked by five
social structural variables (social class, gender, ethnicity, residence, and religion). Each
of the social systemic variables has a significant impact on how children communicate
with their socialization agents (Kamaruddin & Mokhlis, 2003).
Children grow up to be customers.
This developmental sequence describes how consumer awareness, skills, and values
evolve as children progress through childhood and adulthood. They will affect their
parents' purchases by knowing about goods, brands, ads, shopping, pricing, decision-
making strategies, parental influence strategies, and consumption motives and values
(John, 2003). To participate successfully in the adult marketplace, children must develop
appropriate consumer skills, behavior orientations, awareness, and attitudes (Cram & Ng,
1999).
From infancy to twelve years of age, children's consumer behavior changes. Consumer
behavior evolves in four stages, with each stage revealing one of the four features of
consumer behavior. A buyer will (1) feel desires and preferences, (2) look for ways to
satisfy them, (3) make a decision and buy, and (4) assess the product and its alternatives
(Valkenburg & Cantor, 2001). ‘ Children become customers at a young age, and their
purchasing preferences are shaped by a range of factors and experiences. Purchasing
power, attitudes, purchasing control of children and adolescents, and commercialism all
have an effect on their food purchasing actions. Preschoolers make far more demands
than elementary school students (Kraak & Pelletier, 1998).
Parents discuss consumption and advertising with their children. The contact habits of
parents from various age groups, as well as various factors, vary. In their families,
children can play the role of opinion leader (Chang & McNeal, 2003).
Moschis (1985) claimed that family communication (interpersonal communication) helps
in the learning and understanding of products and services by children and teenagers.
Communication may involve exchange of information and subsequent effects. Cross-
sectional designs may not be sufficient for studying certain types of family
communication processes. Mothers with alternative parental styles, number of consumer
socialization goals, restricting and monitoring consumption and media exposure, and
views on advertising also affect consumer learning (Moschis, 1985).
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Age of child
Importance of child (IOC)
(IOC)
Product Category
Communication Pattern
CHILD
Family Orientation
CHILD
Children’s purchase influence (CPI) is helpful in understanding family consumption
behavior and cultural adaptation, including the role of acculturation and ethnic
identification, which have effect on children’s role in family purchase decisions. Cultural
adaptation is of critical importance in understanding children participation in family
purchase decisions. (Laroche, Yang, Kim, & Richard, 2007).
There is a positive relationship between ethnic identification and husband dominance in
decision making (Hamilton, 2009). There is an issue of financial transfers’ motives from
parents to children. The motives role is twofold (i) the first one deals with the type of
transfer analyzed, (ii) the second one stems from the disaggregation of transfer motives.
This diversity of family motivations is considerable (Barnet-Verzat & Wolff, 2002).
The purpose of this research is to identify different factors affecting the purchase
behavior of parents. Earlier work done is in different dimension, i.e. either separately or
with two combined variables influencing parents purchase. Changes in the competitive
landscape in market has led researchers to demonstrate the importance of factors
affecting consumer purchase decision in context of children affecting parental purchase
behavior. The paper attempts to investigate the impact of Age of Child (AOC),
Importance of the child in family (IOC), Product Category (PC) in related goods,
Communication Pattern (CP) within and out of the family, and Family Orientation (FO),
on parental purchase behavior (PPB).
Methodology:
Conceptual Framework
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Operational Definitions
Variables’ Explanation
Age:
People switch between goods and services they buy over their lifetime. Tastes in food,
clothes, furniture, recreation, etc. are often age related. Children play a major role mainly
at the age between 9 to12 and influence most in parental purchase decisions.
Age is considered as one of the most important characteristic. Under this study, it is
categorized into three groups: pre-age (1-3 years), primary age (4-8 years), and secondary
age (9-14 years).
Importance of Child (IOC):
Adolescents influence family purchase decisions. Importance is given to the children
according to their position in the family, e.g. as an elder, younger, single or a sibling.
Product Category (PC):
A child is involved in parental decisions for purchase of goods. There is an interaction
between adults and children in everyday life, specifically in grocery store focusing on
young people’s involvement in food shopping (Pettersson et al., 2004). Children’s role
vary greatly with diversified product categories as major appliances, automobiles,
furniture, groceries, savings, life insurance, vacations, and general household decisions
(Jenkins, 1979). Children put influence more in the purchase of related goods, especially
focusing on cereal selection because this product is regularly consumed by them and their
parents (Later Atkins 1978).
Age
Pre-Aged (1-3)
Primary School
(4 -10)
Secondary
School (11-14)
Importance of child (IOC)
(IOC)
Gender of Child
Position of Child
No. of Children
Product Category
Toys
Garments
Food items
Stationary
Communication
Pattern
Formal
Informal
Knowledge
Peers
Media
Family Orientation
Educated
Joint Family
Single Parent
Working
parents
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Thus, a child takes part in parents purchase decisions in related products to them.
Related products are categorized as toys, food items, stationary, garments etc. for this
research.
Communication Pattern (CP):
Communication pattern (CP) within the family also forces the children to influence their
parents during their purchase. The family communication (interpersonal communication)
helps in measuring the consumer learning of children and teenagers (Moschis, 1985).
There is an effect of family communication patterns (FCP) on three different dimensions
as adolescent consumers’ decision-making styles and influence in family purchase
decisions (Wang et al., 2007). Parents communicate with their children about the
consumption and advertising (Chang & McNeal, 2003).
Consequently, in this study, communication pattern (CP) is divided as informal or formal
style within the family, knowledge of children about the product through other external
communications like, peers interaction and advertisement of the products.
Family Orientation (FO):
Relationships with other family members influence many aspects of consumer behavior.
Family members may also share many attitudes and values, consider each other’s
opinions, and divide various buying tasks between them.
Family structure mainly depends on child involvement in parental purchase behavior.
Family orientation (FO) is categorized as educated, joint family, single parent, and
working parents in this study.
Parental Purchase Behavior (PPB)
The purchasing behavior of parents in used as dependent variable in this study. Since
parents are the end purchasers of products, therefore data are collected from them, i.e.
both mothers and fathers are taken into account for this investigation.
Research Hypotheses
This study uses quantitative data to test hypotheses associated with children’s influence
on parental purchase behavior. These hypotheses are tested using survey data and are
based on the conceptual framework supported by the literature review. The research
intends to investigate the influence of age of the child (AOC), importance of child (IOC),
product category (PC), communication pattern (CP), and family orientation (FO) on
parental purchase behavior (PPB).
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H1: Age of the child has a positive impact on parental purchase behavior
H2: Importance of child in the family has a positive impact on parental purchase behavior
H3: Product category related to the child, has a positive impact on parental purchase
behavior
H4: Communication pattern within and outside family has a positive impact on parental
purchase behavior
H5: Family orientation has a positive impact on parental purchase behavior
Multiple Regression Equation
PPB = βo + β1 (AOC) + β2 (IOC) + β3 (PCP) + + β4 (CP) + β5 (FO) (1)
Where,
PPB= Parental Purchase Behavior
AOC =Age of the child
IOC = Importance of child
PCP = Product Category Purchased
CP = Communication Patterns
FO= Family Orientation
Sampling Design
This study is concerned with assessing the influence of children over parental purchase
decisions. Therefore, its respondents are parents. Sample consists of 225 parents. The
sample taken is from different schools. Stratified sampling procedure is used to collect
the data where strata are divided as (i) Private schools, and (ii) Government schools of
Islamabad and Rawalpindi; this is because we have only two major categories of schools
classified on the basis of structural ownership. 225 questionnaires were distributed among
parents taking their children to schools. Questionnaire items were formed using a 5 points
Likert scale (1 for strongly disagree, and 5 for strongly agree). Out of 225 questionnaires,
200 were returned which makes a response rate of 88.9%. Out of these 200 respondents,
mother respondents were 116 (58%) and the rest 84 (42%) were fathers.
Data Analysis and Results
Age of the child (AOC), importance of child in the family (IOC), product category (PC),
communication Pattern (CP), and family orientation (FO) are taken as the independent
variables, whereas parental purchase behavior (PPB) is considered the dependent
variable. Multiple regression is used to assess the relationship between these two types of
variables. In this study, researchers only wanted to identify whether any relationship
exists between dependent and independent variables, and to what extent the latter affect
Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 27, No. 2,2021
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parental purchase decisions. Data were collected through self-administered
questionnaires to test the impact of independent variables on dependent variable. Factor
analysis was run to get factors (concepts) from the questionnaire as the tool was self-
made. Factor analysis yielded the value of parental purchase behavior (PPB) (.65), Age of
Child (AOC) (6) Importance of Child (IOC) (.75) Product Category (PC) (.75)
Communication Pattern (CP) (.7) Family Orientation (FO) (.7).
Reliability coefficient indicates how well the items are positively correlated to one
another. It defines consistency and stability of the instrument used for the measurement.
In order to check the consistency and reliability of data, study used Cronbach’s Alpha
and its value was found to be 0.764. It shows that there is a high internal consistency and
reliability among questionnaire items.
Table 1 demonstrates descriptive statistics for each variable. The mean for Parents
Purchase Behavior (PPB) is 3.24 approximately 3 which is in neutral scale. This gives an
understanding that; Parents are not assessed hoe they are influenced by their children.
Age of Child (AOC) is 3.37 again in neutral scale, means age of the child sometime
affects the parents in their purchases. Importance of Child (IOC) and Product Category
(PC) mean lies in agreed scale. For Communication Pattern (CP) and Family Orientation
(FO) the mean is again in neutral scale. The standard deviation measured the variability
(or spread) of the values where N (200) is the number of cases with non-missing value.
Entire variable falls at the range of neutral and disagree.
Table 1: Descriptive statistics
Table 2 shows correlations of all independent variables with the dependent variable.
Results show that all variables possess a significant positive relationship with parental
purchase behavior.
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
PPB
200
3.2400
.68904
Age of Child (AOC)
200
3.3700
.78497
Imp of Child
200
3.4950
.67249
Product Category (PC)
200
3.6950
.71028
Comm. Pattern
200
3.4650
.70088
F. Orientation
200
3.4650
.77575
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Table 2: Correlations
Significance level >.01*
Regression Analysis
Table 3 displays R, R squared, and adjusted R squared values. The value of R (.485) for
model produced by the regression technique is very much within the range of 0 to 1. R-
squared value is 0.236, which shows that 23.6% of the variation in parents’ purchase
behavior (PPB) is explained by the independent variables considered.
Table-3: Model Fit
Table 4 summarizes the results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) model. The p-value of
F-statistic is 0.000, which shows that the model fit between dependent and independent
variables is significantly good. Table 4: ANOVA results
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Regression
22.267
5
4.453
11.964
.000
Residual
72.213
194
.372
Total
94.480
199
Table 5 shows regression results of the study, subject to equation (1). All variables
exhibit a significant positive relationship that the most important variable in the model is
the Age of the child (AOC) (t=3.394) at significance level of .001 and secondly the
product category (PC) (t=2.316) at the significance level of .022 effects the parental
Independent Variables
PPB Correlation
Age of Child (AOC)
.365*
Importance of Child (IOC)
.339*
Product Category (PC)
.366*
Comm. Pattern
.309*
Family Orientation (FO)
.270*
R
R Square
Adjusted R
Square
Std. Error
of the
Estimate
Durbin Watson
.485
.236
.216
.61011
2.045
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purchase behavior. It means that the (AOC) is closest variable affecting the parent
purchase behavior and also the child is considered the most specially in the product
category related to them by their parents. Such results were also illustrated by Thomson
et al., (2007), Wang et al., (2007), and Chang and McNeal (2003) respectively.
Table 5: Regression Results
Beta
t
PPB
Age of Child (AOC)
.232
3.394*
Importance of Child (IOC)
.118
1.559**
Product Category (PC)
.176
2.316*
Communication Pattern (CP)
.121
1.642*
Family Orientation (FO)
.034
.461***
Significance level >.01*, .05**, .1***
Conclusion
The aim of this study was to look into the role of children in influencing parental
purchasing decisions. To investigate this, a questionnaire was created and data was
collected from Pakistan's twin cities, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The results revealed a
connection between the dependent and independent variables. Using factor analysis, all
of the variables are also important. As a result, independent variables Age of Child
(AOC), Importance of Child (IOC), Product Category (PC), Communication Pattern
(CP), and Family Orientation (FO) affect Parental Purchase Behavior (PPB) by 21.6
percent. As a result, we don't rule out the null hypothesis entirely. It has been concluded
that children have an impact on parent purchasing conduct (PPB). The age of the child
(AOC) and the product type are the most important variables in this context, while family
orientation is the least important variable (FO).
Since the research was conducted in only two cities (Islamabad and Rawalpindi), which
have different demographic profiles than other small rural and sub-rural areas of
Pakistan, the findings may have been influenced by such a diverse group of respondents
with different geographic and demographic profiles.
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... In the scientific literature, purchase intention is defined as what consumers think they will buy (Blackwell et.al, 2001), and this type of consumer shows higher actual levels of purchase than those customers who demonstrate no intention to buy any products (Brown, 2003). Furthermore, there are three factors that can influence a consumer's purchase decision: personal, psychological and social (Khan, Nisar & Ullah, 2021). The marketer needs to know whether a reference group has a significant social influence on consumers, as well as which family members are affected by these groups (Thomson, Laing & McKee, 2007b). ...
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