Unusual purchasing behavior during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: The stimulus-organism-response approach

By Samuli Laato, A. K. M. Najmul Islam, Ali Farooq, Amandeep Dhir. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2020

767 citations recorded by the source corpus.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, unusual consumer behavior, such as hoarding toilet paper, was reported globally. We investigated this behavior when fears of consumer market disruptions started circulating, to capture human behavior in this unique situation. Based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, we propose a structural model connecting exposure to online information sources (environmental stimuli) to two behavioral responses: unusual purchases and voluntary self-isolation. To test the proposed model, we collected data from 211 Finnish respondents via an online survey, and carried out analysis using PLS-SEM. We found a strong link between self-intention to self-isolate and intention to make unusual purchases, providing empirical evidence that the reported consumer behavior was directly linked to anticipated time spent in self-isolation. The results further revealed exposure to online information sources led to increased information overload and cyberchondria. Information overload was also a strong predictor of cyberchondria. Perceived severity of the situation and cyberchondria had significant impacts on people's intention to make unusual purchases and voluntarily self-isolate. Future research is needed to confirm the long-term effects of the pandemic on consumer and retail services.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e4edab9d85bb359ce00368859ff3af50ab86a75

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Citations in the corpus

• Revisiting food delivery apps during COVID-19 pandemic? Investigating the role of emotions (2021, background): “Research shows unusual consumer purchase behavior during the pandemic (Laato et al., 2020) including financial attitude (Talwar et al., 2021).”
• Managing the effectiveness of e-commerce platforms in a pandemic (2020, unknown): “In this regard, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed consumer purchasing behavior as consumers fear contagion (Laato et al., 2020; Prentice et al., 2020).”
• The panic buying behavior of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining the influences of uncertainty, perceptions of severity, perceptions of scarcity, and anxiety (2021, background): “During the COVID-19 outbreak, observers noticed changes in consumer behavior such as panic buying among grocery shoppers (Laato et al., 2020).”
• Online Shopping Motives during the COVID-19 Pandemic—Lessons from the Crisis (2020, background): “Another study found a positive relation between the intention to self-isolate and unusual buying behavior [38].”
• I love you, but you let me down! How hate and retaliation damage customer-brand relationship (2022, unknown): “Not only are our efforts in consonance with recent calls for examining brand hate at the product level (e.g., Jayasimha et al., 2017), but they are also timely due to the COVID context that has altered consumer behaviour considerably (Laato et al., 2020).”