The Effect of Information Rate and Store Environment on Purchasing Value; Analysis of the Role of Confusion and Motivational Tendency

Objective A great number of customers spend much more time than expected on shopping because of a lot of reasons like variety in products. Thus, they may feel confused and disappointed. Such confusion can influence purchasing procedure and determine purchasing behavior. Such customers fail to purchase wisely and may face difficulty choosing appropriate and reasonable products. However, if the information rate is high in a shopping center environment, it may add to the confusion among customers because it goes beyond their cognitive capacity. Therefore, it is important to identify affecting factors on such confusion in order to be able to reduce it. The present study aims at finding out how information rate in a market can affect customers’ purchasing value considering different motivational tendencies.   Methodology This is a practical research in nature and exploratory regarding data collection procedure which is done using a questionnaire. The statistical population includes all the customers of a specific chain store in Tehran. A sample size of 300 customers was selected and from among 330 questionnaires distributed among those customers only 256 were responded correctly. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression were conducted via EXCEL, SPSS and LISREL to analyze the data.   Findings The findings showed that there is an acceptable correlation between the store environment and the customers’ confusion and also there is an acceptable correlation between customers’ confusion in retail stores and joyful purchasing value. However, there is an unacceptable correlation between customers’ confusion in retail stores and profitable purchasing value. Moreover, there is an acceptable correlation between the information rate and the customers’ confusion and also there is an acceptable correlation between customers’ confusion in retail stores and joyful purchasing value. But, there is an unacceptable correlation between customers’ confusion in retail stores and profitable purchasing value.   Conclusion Store environmental factors (music, color, odor, light and brightness), design factors (interior design and layout), and social factors (social connection between customers and employees) through creating confusion, anxiety and incompetence among customers had significant effects on joyful purchasing value. It can be concluded that store environment can be effective on profitable purchasing value through creating confusing customers in retail stores. Besides, purchasing environments can create emotional reactions in customers which are affective on shopping behavior and its consequences. At the end, functional motivational tendency can moderate the relationship between customers’ confusion and profitable purchasing value.