Antecedents of impulsive online shopping behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey

Abstract

Technological improvements lead the world towards digitalization, shaping new marketplaces and changing consumer buying behaviors. When these rapid changes meet a global pandemic, an atmosphere that further speeds up change emerges. Theories of consumer behavior in traditional marketing have also been affected by this significant global situation and therefore have had to evolve. The purpose of this study is to understand the antecedents of a well-known consumer behavior, impulsive buying in online platforms during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The impact of two psychographic variables (i.e. fear of missing out and fear of pandemic), three demographic variables (gender, age and income) and two motives (hedonic and utilitarian) are studied as potential antecedents of impulsive online shopping behavior. The study contributes to the literature by taking into account the impact of Covid-19 Pandemic and by investigating the impact of a scarcely studied issue, fear of missing out, on impulsive online shopping. Data have been collected by the use of a questionnaire developed on the basis of an extensive literature review and hypotheses have been tested on a sample of 150 consumers with different demographic and socio-economic backgrounds. Findings of the study point out to fear of missing out and hedonic shopping value as two significant determinants of impulsive online shopping behavior. Income, as expected but contrary to the mainstream literature, does not have an impact on online impulse buying. Although impacts of fear of pandemic and demographic variables of gender and age are in the expected direction, they are not statistically significant.