Search results

During coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, owing to several reasons, consumers behaved impulsively while shopping. Impulse buying has led to a distortion in the availability of various items in the stores. This study aims to explore the factors affecting the impulse buying behavior of consumers during a pandemic like COVID-19 in India.

Using an online questionnaire, 304 Indian consumers were surveyed using a convenience sampling technique. Proposed hypotheses and model were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The study confirmed that fear and resource availability are the most significant factors affecting consumer’s impulse buying behavior during a pandemic. The findings suggest that retailers can minimize the consumer’s fear and manage impulse buying to their advantage by providing better resources to their patrons while they shop.

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, in the context of businesses, it is being observed that the purchase preferences of consumers have become chaotic and significant swings are visible in their shopping behavior. Thus, the study is an attempt to shed light on the factors that affect consumer impulse buying behavior in such disruptive settings.

This paper examines the direct relationship between perceived corporate citizenship (CC) and purchase intention. This study also tests the mediating role of brand trust (BT), consumer–brand identification (CBI) and the moderating effect of personal norms and fear to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by contributing social exchange theory (SET), brand relationship theory, social cognitive theory (SCT) and fear appeal theory.

Quantitative research was carried out by means of a survey with a sample of 411 regular consumers who work for national retail brands, where the unit of analysis was an individual. The study analysed the data to test the research hypotheses using SPSS and SMART partial least squares (PLS).

This study found a significant positive impact of perceived CC on purchase intention (direct path), and furthermore, a partial mediation was shown for the indirect approach. In addition, personal norms and fear to COVID-19 have a significant impact on the relationships between perceived CC on purchase intention, BT on purchase intention and CBI on purchase intention.

This study provides useful insights for managers to implement CC strategies to enhance consumer purchase intention and brand relationship in the retail sector within the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current study is perhaps the first to investigate the impact of perceived CC on purchase intention across BT, CBI, personal norms and fear to COVID-19 in the retail industry, period of COVID-19 pandemic. The study also makes some significant theoretical contributions and previously did not shed light on customer behaviour in this context.