From Pester Power to Purposeful Co-Shopping, a Dual-Pathway PLS-SEM Model: The Influence of Children’s Food Purchases in Urban India

Children increasingly shape family purchasing decisions, not merely respond to them. Drawing on Consumer Socialization Theory, this study examines how in-store promotions affect children’s “pester power”, their persistence in asking parents to buy products directly and through peer influence. It also asks whether proactive parental engagement can redirect this pattern toward positive, collaborative shopping instead of conflict. Using PLS-SEM with survey data from 169 urban Indian parents of children aged 5–12, the study produces three findings. In-store promotions are the strongest market driver of both peer influence and pester power. Peer influence fully mediates advertising’s weaker, indirect effect on pester power, suggesting that market stimuli gain force mainly through social amplification among children’s peers rather than direct exposure alone. Pester power, in turn, strongly predicts parent–child conflict over food purchases. Third, and central to this study’s contribution, proactive parental engagement independently predicts positive co-shopping experiences, regardless of how much pester power a child exhibits. This suggests that parental engagement acts as a structural “circuit breaker,” not simply as a response to conflict. The findings also point to the need for marketers and regulators to look more closely at in-store promotional environments rather than advertising alone. Supporting parental engagement may do more to encourage healthy family shopping experiences than trying to manage children’s demands after they arise. The implications for FMCG marketers, public health regulators, and family consumer educators in emerging-market contexts are discussed.