The Relationship Between Consumer Life Orientation and Panic Buying Behavior in the COVID-19 Pandemic Process

Abstract

The impact of COVID-19, which was declared a pandemic in 2020, has greatly decreased. However, although its lethal effect on humans is low, different variants continue to emerge. The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between consumer life orientation and panic buying behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the effect of consumer life orientation on panic buying behaviour through buying impulsivity, temporal focus, and purchasing risk perception variables was also investigated. In this research, a relational research technique was used to examine the relationship between consumer life orientation and panic buying behaviour. The universe of the research consists of consumers who shop in the retail sector. Since it was not possible to reach all of these consumers within the scope of the research, the research was carried out with the convenience sampling method. In this context, using the data of the online study with n=422 participants, the relationships between the variables were tested, and the hypotheses put forward were theoretically tested. In this research, a questionnaire explaining the latent variables of consumer life orientation, buying impulsivity, temporal focus, purchasing risk perception and panic buying behaviour was used. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were performed using statistical package programs. In line with the research findings, it has been determined that the consumer life orientation variable has a statistically significant and moderate effect on panic buying behaviour through buying impulsivity and purchasing risk perception variables (p<0.001) during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, it was determined that consumer life orientation did not have a statistically significant effect on panic buying behaviour through the temporal focus variable (p>0.005). These findings, which show that life orientation affects purchasing impulsivity and panic buying behaviour through purchasing risk perception, show that there is a positive correlation between consumers’ life orientations and purchasing tendencies. In other words, the COVID-19 Pandemic process caused a change in the life orientations of consumers in psychosocial terms; emotions such as stress, anxiety and uncertainty triggered panic buying behaviour. In similar studies to be conducted in this direction, the relationship between consumer decision-making styles and panic buying behaviour can be examined. In addition, research can be conducted on consumer groups other than the retail sector.