Role of Children in the Case of Parental Food Store Choice

Family as a primary decision making unit of society have a significant role in purchase decision making processes of individuals. It has a significant role in consumer socialization and in the process how children become consumers. It is a frame, within what children learn to behave as consumers, acquire all competencies concerning to purchase and consumption, and hence become competent to other consumers. Change of childrens role within the family is in the air in the last period, and this has an effect on purchase decision making processes within the family maybe on food store choice too.


INTRODUCTION
Family as a primary decision making unit of society have a significant role in purchase decision making processes of individuals. It has a significant role in consumer socialization and in the process how children become consumers. (Lehota 2001) It is a frame, within what children learn to behave as consumers, acquire all competencies concerning to purchase and consumption, and hence become competent to other consumers. Change of children's role within the family is in the air in the last period, and this has an effect on purchase decision making processes within the family. Children became more and more equal within the family, and in most of the cases has wider knowledge as their parents do, so their role especially in the case of competency decision has significantly grown. They become consumers-purchasers much earlier as they did a few decades earlier. (T!r"csik 2007) Nevertheless we should not forget that always parents play a primary role in the process how children become and develop to consumers, they facilitate their children to appear in the market as a potential buyer and decision maker by financially funding them. Lowest border of consumption generation is dilated: even kindergarten generation appears as an independent purchaser and self-conscious consumer. Hence the size of children market is growing rapidly; consumer behavior of adults is a direct antecedent of children's consumer behavior. (McNeal 2007) Relations within the family are changing in point of purchase decision processes: families live in a freer, more liberal spirit, hence role of different family members changed in this process. Children gained a greater voice in purchase processes, but also role of men and women has changed in this process. It is more and more characteristic that spouses make decisions commonly, both party take part in purchase what used to be typically the competence of wives or husbands. Over time close emotional boundaries are evolved among family members and this influences the decision making process and its output. Hence purchase decisions have serious emotional implication, and emotional strategies used by different family members have an effect on other emotional aspects of family life.
Nevertheless purchase decision making processes goes beyond problem solving and can fulfill several other aims. They can be occasion for talking among each other within the family, given questions can be discussed and also family members can do daydreaming. As a result of problem solving a kind of inhesion can develop among family members and this process can fulfill an important role in children's socialization. (T!r"csik 2007) Why the role of children has changed nowadays? Today children are influenced very much by computer world, they are internet experts and learn much faster; they cooperate with their mates, they constantly network with each other, they play different games, do more things, and they are smarter consumers (Coffey et al., 2006). Children become consumers even before they learn to write, read and count. (Roedder John and Peracchio, 1993). Hence the size of children market is rapidly growing, and the consumer behavior of adults is a direct antecedent children's consumer behavior. (Berey and Pollay, 1968) However we should not forget the fact that parents always play a primary role in their children's development by financing their purchases and foster them to appear on the market as a consumer and decision maker. (McNeal, 2007). Even at kindergarden age they have purchase power and appear as a consumer. . (Lipi, 2000) Children between the age of 8-12 definitely knows what they need; though for them purchase is more like a hobby , it is the method how they acquire conquest of world, decision making, status and power demonstration. (M&ller, 2001). By Yee and Flanagan (1985) active acquirement to decision making happens between the age of 9-13, though decision autonomy (autonomous decision without parents influence) made usually between the age 12-17. (Dornbusch and Carlsmith, 1985) Influence of children on purchases and consumption can betide in two ways: either in a direct form when they actively latch on to process, or in an indirect form (McNeal, 1992), when family makes different decisions just because of their existence. We should not forget the fact that children also mean a future market as time elapses. (T!r"csik, 2003) Hence it is really important for marketers to deal saliently with this age group. We should not forget that they mean themselves a remarkable market, as they do shopping independently. Henceforward they can affect their the decisions of their parents and as they are becoming consumers it is expedient to acquaint the brand and support brand loyalty. (Foxall et al., 2006) Depending on the product type children can have an influence on family decision making in different ways. (Golombok and Rust, 1993) Influence is at higher level in the case of children related products like toys for example. In general influence level is lower in the case of products they do not use personally. Older studies introduced family purchase decision making as a rational decision by all family members it was not taken into consideration how personal emotions influence the different actors. Nevertheless this type of assumption ignore that people are not totally rational decision makers, but in many cases influenced by their emotions. (Gelles and Straus, 1979) Among family members close emotional bonds emerge over time, that influence the decision making process and its output. Emotions (like love, sympathy, anger, guilt) can connect to different steps of purchase decision making.

STORE CHOICE
In the stages of the purchasing decision process -mainly in "decision making" and "purchasing" -store choice has become an element due to its importance (Hofmeister-T ). According to many researchers, this process can be related to many factors: Hofmeister-T•th -T!r"csik (1996) believe it to be the product category, Veres-Szil•gyi (2006) to a well known brand, again Hofmeister-T•th -T!r"csik (1996) to consumer behaviour, then T!r"csik (1998) refers it as from a situative point of view, and also Lehota et al. (2005) and Lantos (2010) suggest the possibility of inversion between store and brand choice. This latter also depends on product category and the situation. Nowadays the typical consumer behaviour is that due to time shortage, when that certain daily consumer product or brand cannot be bought in the chosen retail store, the customer will buy another brand or a substitution product depending on the selection in the store, instead visiting another shop. The customer makes the decision "on the spot" (T!r"csik, 2009).

Factors of store choice
Store choiceaccording to Lantos (2010) -is like brand choice. Customers evaluate the alternate stores according to their norms of factors. The main difference between store choice and brand choice is the type of assessment factors. According to these, the customer evaluates the type of store and the competitors and then chooses the store. Before the choice of the retail chain, the customer decides which type of stores he/ she can choose from. The characteristics of the store will have to be in accordance with the charactheristics and expectations of the customer and the factors of purchase. (Blackwell-Miniard-Engel, 2006 image and the role of selection in store choice, Bhatnagar and Ratchfor (2004) examined store choice among all types of stores, and according to their findings, the optimal store for the customer depends onamong othersthe costs of stock. The construction of the basket affects the decision as to which retail chain to choose. According to Inman, Shankar and Ferraro (2004), certain product categories will actually be bought in the stores associated with them. Not all retail unit have the same stock of brands, so brand preference can also have an influence on store choice. According to Luchs (2008), brand (own or manufacturer's) is a dichotomic factor. ). According to Nagy (1997) it is a weekend shopping with a car, Beliczay just says (1998) "car goods", and while according to T!r"csik (2006) it is "bulk-routin", and Kov•cs's concept is (2007) "shopping by car", Nagy-Nagy (2008) state it to be "combined shopping routes". Under these denominations further sub-groups have been identified from the point of view of purchasing frequency, using the expressions "weekly", "weekend", "bi-weekly" and "monthly" shopping.

Qualitative research (structured interviews)
The main purposes were to understand better the reasons behind the changes in food purchasing behaviour and that in store choice. Also to disclose customers' opinion concerning similarities and differences between store choice in the case of daily and bulk purchase, as well as to get to know the relationship between store choice and Hungarian ownership of the store. Another objective was to examine the participation of family members in daily and big shopping, as well as children's -as the main influencing factors among family membersimpacts when it comes to store, product and brand choice.
The subjects for the structured interviews were chosen from families with children still living with them, as we aimed to disclose the opinions from the point of view of parentsas the main food purchasersand that of children as the potential influencing factors.
These interviews were made with the assistance of the members of the Istv•n Bethlen Special College research team (Anita Bajd•, Brigitta Balogh, Judit Hal•sz, L•szl• Alex Ecs•di) from 16 March to 30 March 2012. After making an appointment personally, by email or phone, 40 structured interviews were made in the homes of the people questioned. These interviews were recorded with a dictaphone with the interviewees' approval. The processing of the interviews was done with the "wordcloud" method, to which the program on the website http://wordle.net gave assistance. This method helped to analyze the contents of the answers, despite the fact that it was used for all the structured questions.
The interview with the main buyer of food involved 30 questions in 3 topics, while with the children it only contained 21 questions in 3 topics. The distribution of the interviews according to topics and questions can be seen in Table 1. The quantity of questions in each topic was not evenly distributed, depending on the complexitiy of the topic.

Topics
Parents ( The changes in customer behaviour, habits and store choice and the children's influencing role cannot totally be described with quantitative methods, hence food purchasers' and children's opinions were disclosed with the help of structured interviews according to the topics below. Because of the extensiveness of the research, we will just focus on 2 questions in the topic of children's influencing effects on store choice.

Children's influence and its extent on store choice relating to daily and bulk purchase
According to most of the interviewees, their children do not affect their store choice concerning daily food shopping. Some of them say, that this is because of the children's small age or the force of habit in store choice. According to their replies, the extent of influence is the following: "not really", "not definitely", "partly", "quite so" and "very". In the case of bulk purchases, though, children's influence was more significant, depending on the children's age. Influencing power also plays a role. "Their children try to influence her regarding store choicewith more or less success". (H.K.) The extent of the influence is quite significant in several families among the interviewees, but according to them, the quality of product selection is also an important factor in the decision making.

Children's influence and its extent in store choice in the case of weekend and weekday purchases
Most of the children, asked in the interview, cannot influence their parents' store choice in either cases. Even with those who have a deeper impact on their parents, it is not consequent which they can influence more: the location of the weekend or the weekday purchases, as some play a greater role in one than others. In the case of weekday shopping, some parents do their shopping on the way home from school. "He cannot influence them on weekdays, since they rarely do shopping together. But in the case of weekend shopping, he tells them where he would like to go, and in most cases this is where they will go in the end." (G.G.)

Qualitative research
The main purposes were a deeper understanding of the reasons behind the changes in food purchasing behaviour and that in store choice. Also, to disclose customers' opinion concerning similarities and differences between store choice in the case of daily and big shopping as well as to get to know the relationship between store choice and Hungarian ownership of the store. Another objective was to examine the participation of family members in daily and big shopping, as well as children's -as a main influencing factor among family memberseffects when it comes to store, product and brand choice.
The focus group interviews were made with the assistance of the members of the Istv•n Bethlen Special College research team (Bianka Barta, Anna Sebesty"n, Henrietta T#th, Szilvia Ol!h, Rita Ag#cs) in March and April 2013. Each member moderated two focus group interviews: the first one with the parents and the second one with the children. So altogether 5-5 interviews were carried out with the parents and their children.
The subjects for the focus group were chosen from families with children still living with them, as we aimed to disclose the opinions from the point of view of parentsas the main food purchasersand children as the potential influencing factors. After making an appointment personally, by email or phone, 10 focus group interviews were made in the moderators' homes. These interviews were recorded with a dictaphone with the interviewees' approval. The processing of the focus group interview reports was done with the "word-cloud" method, to which the program on the website http://wordle.net gave assistance. This method helped analyze the contents of the answers, despite the fact that it was used for all the questions. In this essay only a part of it will be analyzed and demonstrated.   Figure 1 Children's influence on food store choice in the case of daily shopping according to parents

Source: own research
There are parents who do not take their children with them for the daily purchases.
Parents' opinions relating to children's influence on food store choice in daily shopping are illustrated in Figure 1.

Children's influence on food store choice in the case of bulk purhases according to parents
According to the majority of parents their children do not influence the location of bulk purchases. Some parents admit that they are influenced to a smaller extent, and in this case they spend more time and money too. There was a parent, who can be convinced by her children: "Yes, he does list the reasons why they should go that shop." (M.K.) Children's influence on food store choice in the case of big shopping according to parents is demonstrated in Figure 2.

Parents' influence on food store choice in the case of weekday and weekend purchases according to their children
According to most children, they do not influence their parents' store choice in either cases. Some kids usually do, some only sometimes and others only to a small extent play a part. Only one child of the interviewees mentioned the extent of her influence according to purchasing frequency: she thought she had an influence in both weekend and weekday purchases as to the location. Some of them could even name a few arguments which make their parents decide to their favour: "Yes, by saying there is a better sale in that shop and the goods are cheaper." (Cz.N.) "Yes, by saying that it is the closest to us." (J.A.) Parents' influence on food store choice in the case of weekday and weekend shopping according to their children is demonstrated in Figure 3.

SUMMARY
As it can be seen purchase decision making and food store choice is a quite composed problem. In our paper we tried to highlight the main aspects of the decision making process and some of the influencing factors. Main focus were on children's role and their influencing power. Though we assumed that children should have a significant role in their parents food store choice, it occurred that in most of the cases this assumption was not valid. Children make efforts to convince their parents and have some general arguments, but most of these proved to be quite week. Topic itself still has a research potential, in the future we plan to reveal more information and results.