TY - JOUR
T1 - Panic buying in the COVID-19 pandemic
T2 - a multi-country examination
AU - Islam, Tahir
AU - Pitafi, Abdul Hameed
AU - Arya, Vikas
AU - Wang, Ying
AU - Akhtar, Naeem
AU - Mubarik, Shujaat
AU - Xiaobei, Liang
N1 - Funding Information:
This project is funded by the National Social Science Fund of China grant # 20AZD059 and China Postdoctoral Foundation grant # 2020M671235 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - The global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the world economy and healthcare, igniting much fear, panic, and uncertainty among billions of people. As lockdowns being implemented in many places, panic buying has emerged as a reliable feature of the Coronavirus outbreak. Therefore, it is of urgent needs to examine consumers' panic buying behaviors during COVID-19 to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon and to provide managerial insights for policy-makers and marketers alike. In this study, under the theoretical guidelines of the Stimuli-Organism-Response model and the Competitive Arousal model, we investigate how in the panic situation created by the pandemic, external stimuli such as Limited Quantity Scarcity (LQS) and Limited Time Scarcity (LTS) affect the emotional arousal among people, which in turn influences consumers’ impulsive and obsessive buying behaviors. This study is conducted in a multi-country setting including the U.S., China, India, and Pakistan. Online surveys were conducted during the peak time of pandemic. Our findings show that LQS and LTS significantly increase perceived arousal in consumers, which further leads to more impulsive and obsessive buying. In addition, our results also reveal that excessive social media use intensifies the relationship between scarcity messages and perceived arousal whereas the urge to buy impulsively moderates the relationship between perceived arousal and behavioral outcomes in all selected countries except for India. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in details.
AB - The global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the world economy and healthcare, igniting much fear, panic, and uncertainty among billions of people. As lockdowns being implemented in many places, panic buying has emerged as a reliable feature of the Coronavirus outbreak. Therefore, it is of urgent needs to examine consumers' panic buying behaviors during COVID-19 to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon and to provide managerial insights for policy-makers and marketers alike. In this study, under the theoretical guidelines of the Stimuli-Organism-Response model and the Competitive Arousal model, we investigate how in the panic situation created by the pandemic, external stimuli such as Limited Quantity Scarcity (LQS) and Limited Time Scarcity (LTS) affect the emotional arousal among people, which in turn influences consumers’ impulsive and obsessive buying behaviors. This study is conducted in a multi-country setting including the U.S., China, India, and Pakistan. Online surveys were conducted during the peak time of pandemic. Our findings show that LQS and LTS significantly increase perceived arousal in consumers, which further leads to more impulsive and obsessive buying. In addition, our results also reveal that excessive social media use intensifies the relationship between scarcity messages and perceived arousal whereas the urge to buy impulsively moderates the relationship between perceived arousal and behavioral outcomes in all selected countries except for India. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in details.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Impulsive buying
KW - LTS)
KW - Obsessive buying
KW - Panic buying
KW - Perceived arousal
KW - Scarcity messages (LQS
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096926751&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102357
DO - 10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102357
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85096926751
SN - 0969-6989
VL - 59
JO - Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services
JF - Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services
M1 - 102357
ER -