ABSTRACT
Fast fashion relies on impulse buying. Fashion retail in general has developed a gradual proclivity toward embracing the impulse purchasing model. The reason for this fact is historic and has to do with discretionary spending. Developed in the United States, the impulse-buying retail model was a product of the gradually increasing disposable income and discretionary spending of Americans after World War II. Madhavaram and Laverie (2004) offer a thorough chronology of impulse purchase marketing and track its advent and proliferation as a managerial and academic subject to the 1950s, starting with the seminal definition of impulse-buying behavior by Clover (1950). The author outlined the phenomenon in the natural experimental context of what are known as the unplanned 1948 gas holidays. That year, in three Texas towns, gas shortages forced all businesses to close for the day on two occasions. Clover (1950) interviewed hundreds of local retail managers trying to understand strategies for dealing with lost sales. The results revealed that impulses strongly influence sales, and that these impulses could be stimulated by retail environments, and therefore were subject to in-store experiences.
