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COVID-19 pandemic-related Government restrictions on the movement of people resulted in consumers moving away from retail outlets. However, sporadic instances of an unexpected surge in retail buying happened across the world immediately after the lifting of such restrictions. This uncommon phenomenon, termed revenge buying, offered an opportunity to revive retail businesses. This paper applies Reactance Theory (RCT) and Self-determination Theory (SDT) to model consumers' revenge buying intentions.

Data was collected from 384 respondents in India using validated scales. The study used structural equation modelling for model testing.

COVID-19 restrictions resulted in autonomy need frustration in consumers, which induced psychological reactance and perceived stress. Psychological reactance positively impacted, while perceived stress negatively impacted revenge buying intentions. Thus, revenge buying was observed only when the psychological reactance was more than perceived stress.

This study, conducted in only one country with a limited convenience sample, limits the generalizability of findings.

This research model the psychological consequences of need frustration to explain the sporadic incidences of revenge buying in retail outlets. Further, it proposes sales recovery strategies for retailers in the immediate post-pandemic market scenarios. Retailers' strategies should focus on alleviating stress and anxiety because of health concerns, highlighting the retail buying experience to stimulate the need to visit the outlet and positioning retail buying as a potential reactance response by consumers.

Crisis can bring out the true nature of people. Also in terms of consumers, this can be for better or for worse. On the one hand, irresponsible consumer behaviours rose, with for example people starting to hoard bulk quantities of toilet paper, rice and flour, which in turn increased scarcity perceptions and induced fear in others. Besides panic buying, impulse purchasing also rose, as a means to alleviate negative feelings and to treat oneself (particularly once the stores reopened again). For some consumers, this increased buying can become compulsive, leading to shopping addiction and financial problems. On the other hand, the crisis also forced a pause in the rat race we live, allowing people to reconsider their consumption behaviour and evolve towards more sustainable choices. This chapter provides insights on both directions, allowing retail managers to incorporate this new reality in further strategic decisions. In what follows, three consecutive stages in notable changes in consumer behaviour in the pandemic crisis are discussed: from reacting (e.g. hoarding), over coping (e.g. do-it-yourself behaviours), to longer-term adapting (e.g. potentially transformative changes in consumption).

Short-term changes in consumers' shopping behaviour due to the Covid-19 pandemic have been studied, but not the long-term effects. This study fills this gap by exploring the long-term changes in consumers' retail shopping behaviour, due to their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Qualitative data were collected from one hundred fifty-nine respondents, and grounded theory approach was applied for interpretation. Gioia thematic analysis method, open coding, and axial coding were used for analysis.

Individuals who positively approached their experiences during the Covid-19 demonstrated increased pro-sustainable and pro-environmental self-identity, resulting in sustainable consumption and a shift to online shopping. Individuals having overpowering negative experiences demonstrated heightened fear of missing out (FOMO), loss aversion, and rumination. While shopping, they demonstrated herd behaviour and shifted to online shopping.

This study highlights emotional and psychological mechanisms influencing long-term changes in consumer shopping preferences post Covid-19 pandemic. The generalizability of the findings is limited due to the study's exploratory nature and the sample size.

This study contributes to shopping behaviour literature by uncovering novel constructs of self-identity, loss aversion, FOMO, and rumination as antecedents to long-term shopping behaviour changes post-Covid-19. It provides a new conceptual model of consumers' shopping behaviour, which may be empirically validated.

COVID-19 disrupted the lives of consumers across the globe, and the retail sector has been one of the hardest hits. The impact of COVID-19 on consumers' retail choice behaviour and retailers' responses has been studied in detail through multiple lenses. Now that the effect of COVID-19 is abating, there is a need to consolidate the learnings during the lifecycle of COVID-19 and set the agenda for research post-COVID-19.

Scopus database was searched to cull out academic papers published between March 2020 and June 6, 2022, using keywords; shopping behaviour, retailing, consumer behaviour, and retail channel choice along with COVID-19 (171 journals, 357 articles). Bibliometric analysis followed by selective content analysis was conducted.

COVID-19 was a black swan event that impacted consumers' psychology, leading to reversible and irreversible changes in retail consumer behaviour worldwide. Research on changes in consumer behaviour and consumption patterns has been mapped to the different stages of the COVID-19 lifecycle. Relevant research questions and potential theoretical lenses have been proposed for further studies.

This paper collates, classifies and organizes the extant research in retail from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies three retail consumption themes: short-term, long-term reversible and long-term irreversible changes. Research agenda related to the retailer and consumer behaviour is identified; for each of the three categories, facilitating the extraction of pertinent research questions for post-COVID-19 studies.

After each of the COVID-19-induced lockdowns, an unprecedented surge in leisure travel was observed, resulting in tourists flocking to places of tourist interest. This phenomenon was termed revenge travel in popular literature. The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of revenge travel in detail through an academic lens. It examines the psychological and emotional motivations for revenge travel while studying the differences in travel behaviour pre- and post-pandemic.

The study applies an interpretive phenomenological approach to explore post-pandemic travel behaviour. Data were collected via personal in-depth semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis of the transcripts was conducted to arrive at discussion themes.

Drawing on the established theories, the findings of the study indicate that lockdown fatigue coupled with mortality salience induced individuals towards leisure travel. This in turn led to mood alleviation and compensation for the deprivation undergone.

The study reveals important insights into post-pandemic preferences of travel destinations (off-beat locations near urban clusters), accommodation options (more travellers choosing home stays and stand-alone properties) and vacation itineraries (a gradual shift towards slow tourism with more focus on immersive experiences). Further, there are indications that hotels may develop “workcations” and “staycations” as a new line of offering.

The study adds to the small body of knowledge on revenge travel. It adopts a phenomenological approach, thereby capturing the “lived experiences” of the participants and providing an in-depth look into the psychological and emotional motivations of revenge travel that have not been explored previously. The study provides insights into the travellers' psychology post a period of withdrawal and restraint.

This paper aims to examine the presence of impulsive and compulsive buying among consumers. It studies the various factors that affect and moderate the impulsiveness and compulsiveness of buying.

Literature review resulted in four constructs – social media influence, social media preferences, hedonic motivation and shop in COVID-19. On conducting factor analysis in statistical package for the social sciences, the variables were divided under the influence of social media, social commerce, electronic word of mouth (EWOM) of social commerce, hedonic happiness, hedonic fun and shopping in times of COVID-19. Structural equation modeling is conducted in AMOS (statistical software) for a diagrammatic representation of the relationship between the variables. Regression analysis is used to re-affirm the above relationship. Testing of hypotheses is done with the help of the chi-square test.

All six latent variables are significantly related to impulsive and compulsive buying. However, the regression analysis shows social media influence as the strongest predictor for impulse buying and hedonic happiness for compulsive buying. Also, the presence of the pandemic COVID-19 leads to impulsive buying as well as compulsive buying in the apparel and accessory segment.

Marketers should capitalize on spontaneous buying in both forms – impulsive buying and compulsive buying. Social media influencers, as well as more consumer engagement on social media, can promote impulsive buying. However, compulsive buyers will be more attracted towards great in-store experiences or hedonically driven advertisements, as they do not just shop for buying the product; they shop for the experience of shopping.

This study uncovers the difference in factors that affect impulsive and compulsive buying. Though both behaviours seem points of the same scale, they are inherently different and can be predicted with social media influence and hedonic happiness.

Counterfeiting is a large business involving the manufacturing or distribution of imitation goods. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated research model that combines neutralisation theory and perceived risk theory to explain consumers’ purchase intention towards counterfeit luxury goods.

Of the 280 distributed questionnaires, 230 were returned. Rigorous data filtering was performed to remove problematic data, leaving 213 usable questionnaires for analysis. To validate the proposed hypotheses, PLS analysis (a variance-based structural equation modelling technique) was conducted using Smart-PLS.

The results showed that denial of responsibility, denial of victim, performance risk and social risk are significant predictors of consumers’ purchase intention towards counterfeit luxury goods. However, denial of injury, appeal to higher loyalties, condemnation of the condemners, as well as psychological risk and prosecution risks, were found to have no significant relationships with purchase intention towards counterfeit luxury goods.

The integrated model is useful in predicting consumers’ purchase intention towards counterfeit luxury goods. This study discusses the research findings and concludes with managerial implications and limitations.

Reactance theory is applied to investigate consumer responses to “buy local” campaigns initiated by government to counteract the effects of an economic crisis, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an illustrative context.

A conceptual model is developed, aimed at revealing the extent to which “buy local” campaigns – explicitly justified by the need to fight an economic crisis – are likely to lead to (a) compliance (i.e. support for local products/retailers) or (b) freedom restoration (i.e. support for foreign products/retailers). The model is subsequently tested on samples of German (N = 265) and Italian (N = 268) consumers.

“Buy local” campaigns are likely to generate reactance amongst consumers and such reactance can lead to both non-compliance and, albeit less so, freedom restoration outcomes. At the same time, consumer ethnocentrism acts as a countervailing influence by attenuating the effects of generated reactance and its undesirable outcomes.

Psychological reactance theory offers a novel perspective for conceptually approaching the likely responses of consumers towards “buy local” campaigns and the empirical findings support the use of the theory in this context.

Policymakers seeking to encourage consumers to support the local economy during times of an economic crisis need to be aware that “buy local” campaigns may, against their intended communication goals, result in non-compliance as well as consumer responses in the opposite direction. Thus, the reactance-generating potential of such campaigns needs to be explicitly considered at the planning/implementation stage.

The findings confirm the relevance of reactance theory as a conceptual lens for studying the effects of “buy local” campaigns and have important implications for domestic/foreign firms as well as for policy makers seeking to encourage consumers to support the local economy during times of an economic crisis.

We aim to ascertain whether and how an individual’s social comparison affects their self-gifting motivations (SGMs).

We survey a North American sample comprising 619 Canadian and US respondents. We apply partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine relationships between social comparison, attachment orientation, parenthood, and self-gifting motivations.

We find that social comparison positively impacts self-gifting motivations. Additionally, we find that attachment orientation and parenthood can moderate social comparison’s impact on positively valenced SGMs and negatively valenced SGMs, respectively.

We elevate and expand existing scholarship on consumers’ self-gifting. Through the current study, we contribute new, empirical evidence illuminating how individuals’ attachment orientation (i.e. secure v. insecure) and parenthood status (i.e. parent v. non-parent) serve as agency-oriented moderators to temper social comparison’s influences on SGMs.