Sensory cue, emotion, cognition and impulse buying behaviour of fast-food vendors in Ghana
Fast food vendors use a sensory cue to trigger impulsive buying behaviour. Though impulse buying has gained interestamong researchers, little has been done concerning food in Ghana. The purpose of the study was to investigate thecontribution of the sensory cue on customer’s emotions and cognition and impulsive buying behaviour. The study findsanswers to the succeeding research questions: what sensory cue impacts on consumer emotion and cognition? And doesemotion and cognition influence consumer’s impulsive buying behaviour. A proposed theoretical model identifies visual,audio, and tactile dimensions as the sensory cue, emotions, and cognitive as mediation variable and impulsive buyingbehaviour as the outcome. Data were collected from 241 customers who were residence in Tema and have patronizedthe services of food vendors for a minimum of two years using a convenience sampling technique. The suggestedhypothesis was tested using structural equation modeling and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The result of thestudy shows that visual, audio, and tactile dimensions have a positive relationship with emotion but a negativerelationship with cognition. Regarding directs effect, the study revealed that there is a positive relationship betweenemotion and impulsive buying behaviour whiles cognition has a negative effect on impulsive buying behaviour. Thestudy recommended that managers must induce impulsive buying using characteristics of the food they serve and theenvironments in which they operate to stimulate customers' arousal and pleasure and provide enough information toalleviate the risk customers consider before buying food. The findings may not be generalized since the data wascollected in specific areas in Tema. Citation: Edward Markwei Martey, Racheal Markwei Martey and Kingsford Adenutsi. The influence of sensory cue onemotion, cognition and impulse buying behaviour of fast-food vendors in Ghana, 2020; 5(4): 12-29. Received: October 23, 2020Accepted: December 31, 2020