Shopping enjoyment to the extreme: Hedonic shopping motivations and compulsive buying in developed and emerging markets

This paper investigates the relationship between hedonic shopping motivations and compulsive buying in developed and emerging countries using a study with 520 female shopping mall visitors in four countries representing two developed (the Netherlands and Germany) and two emerging (Turkey and Russia) markets. Our results indicate that hedonic shopping motivations are significantly related to compulsive buying. However, different hedonic motivations appear to contribute to the development of compulsive buying in emerging and developed countries. In developed markets gratification seeking, idea shopping, and role play were found to be the key hedonic motivations contributing to compulsive buying. In emerging markets, however, the picture looks very different. Interestingly, neither of the two motivations (gratification seeking and idea shopping) closely related to key drivers of compulsive buying according to the existing literature, predominantly based on developed countries, is found to be linked to compulsive buying in emerging markets. Instead, in such countries the main motivation is found to be adventure seeking. Moreover, interestingly, role play has a negative effect on compulsive buying, which is the opposite of what we found in developed countries. Our results, together with the limited research in emerging countries, call for in-depth and thorough research in such countries on the moderating role of national culture and economic conditions in the development of compulsive buying and shopping motives. We additionally provide several implications for marketers.