The behavioral responses to perceived scarcity – the case of fast fashion

Gupta, Shipra; Gentry, James W.

doi:10.1080/09593969.2016.1147476

Cited by 31 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Perceived scarcity is strongly linked to reactance theory which posits that individuals experience psychological reactance, a motivational state that is about protecting their behavioural freedom when they feel threatened or restricted [18,19].…”

Section: Perceived Scarcitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Psychological Causes of Panic Buying Following a Health Crisis

Yuen

Wang

et al. 2020

IJERPH

421

498

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Attributed to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, panic buying is now a frequent occurrence in many countries, leading to stockouts and supply chain disruptions. Consequently, it has received much attention from academics and the retail industry. The aim of this study is to review, identify, and synthesise the psychological causes of panic buying, which is a relatively new and unexplored area in consumer behaviour research. A systematic review of the related literature is conducted. The review suggests that panic buying is influenced by (1) individuals’ perception of the threat of the health crisis and scarcity of products; (2) fear of the unknown, which is caused by negative emotions and uncertainty; (3) coping behaviour, which views panic buying as a venue to relieve anxiety and regain control over the crisis; and (4) social psychological factors, which account for the influence of the social network of an individual. This study contributes to the literature by consolidating the scarce and scattered research on the causes of panic buying, drawing greater theoretical insights into each cause and also offers some implications for health professionals, policy makers, and retailers on implementing appropriate policies and strategies to manage panic buying. Recommendations for future research are also provided.

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Section: Perceived Scarcitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Psychological Causes of Panic Buying Following a Health Crisis

Yuen

Wang

et al. 2020

IJERPH

421

498

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“…In a recent systematic review [ 12 ], 27 relevant publications were identified that were predominately within the business, management, and accounting literature. Many of these papers were non-empirical, concerned with responses to non-distaster related scarcity [ 13 ] focused on the performance of supply chains and retailers [ 14 ], or involved economic models [ 15 ], simulations [ 16 ], or surveys about likely behaviour in a crisis [ 11 ]. Four themes relating to potential psychological mechanisms were identified in the review: the perception of threat and scarcity, fear of the unknown, panic buying as a form of coping bahviour, and social influences such as the observed behaviour of others and lack of social trust.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemic buying: Testing a psychological model of over-purchasing and panic buying using data from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2021

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The over-purchasing and hoarding of necessities is a common response to crises, especially in developed economies where there is normally an expectation of plentiful supply. This behaviour was observed internationally during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the absence of actual scarcity, this behaviour can be described as ‘panic buying’ and can lead to temporary shortages. However, there have been few psychological studies of this phenomenon. Here we propose a psychological model of over-purchasing informed by animal foraging theory and make predictions about variables that predict over-purchasing by either exacerbating or mitigating the anticipation of future scarcity. These variables include additional scarcity cues (e.g. loss of income), distress (e.g. depression), psychological factors that draw attention to these cues (e.g. neuroticism) or to reassuring messages (eg. analytical reasoning) or which facilitate over-purchasing (e.g. income). We tested our model in parallel nationally representative internet surveys of the adult general population conducted in the United Kingdom (UK: N = 2025) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI: N = 1041) 52 and 31 days after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 were detected in the UK and RoI, respectively. About three quarters of participants reported minimal over-purchasing. There was more over-purchasing in RoI vs UK and in urban vs rural areas. When over-purchasing occurred, in both countries it was observed across a wide range of product categories and was accounted for by a single latent factor. It was positively predicted by household income, the presence of children at home, psychological distress (depression, death anxiety), threat sensitivity (right wing authoritarianism) and mistrust of others (paranoia). Analytic reasoning ability had an inhibitory effect. Predictor variables accounted for 36% and 34% of the variance in over-purchasing in the UK and RoI respectively. With some caveats, the data supported our model and points to strategies to mitigate over-purchasing in future crises.

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“…Besides grocery retail stores, consumers also may encounter store messiness, as another store disorderliness cue in a fast-fashion retail store. Fast-fashion retailers such as ZARA, H&M and Forever 21, by implementing short renewal cycles for their products, tend to attract lots of consumers to their stores (Byun and Sternquist, 2008; Cook and Yurchisin, 2017; Gupta and Gentry, 2016a,b; 2019). High influx of consumers can lead to disorganized shelves, unsorted merchandise and messy racks within the store, while they try to find some products of interest.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, consumers may develop competitive behaviours such as in-store hoarding or in-store hiding to regain their freedom to make a choice. Behaviours such as in-store hoarding and in-store hiding exhibit strong desires of possessiveness that are generated due to the fear of scarcity in the environment (Gupta and Gentry, 2016a, b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Store disorderliness effect: shoppers' competitive behaviours in a fast-fashion retail store

Coskun

Gupta

Burnaz

2020

IJRDM

Self Cite

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of store messiness and human crowding on shoppers' competitive behaviours, in-store hoarding and in-store hiding, through the mediating effect of perceived scarcity and perceived competition.Design/methodology/approach2 (store messiness: messy × tidy) × 2 (human crowding: high × low) between-subject factorial experiment was conducted online to manipulate retail store atmospheric factors. A total of 154 responses were collected through Amazon MTurk. The hypotheses were analysed using ANOVA and PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) procedure.FindingsResults suggest that store messiness and human crowding within a fast-fashion store lead to perception of scarcity and competition that further affects competitive behaviours. When consumers experience store messiness, they are likely to hide merchandise in store, thus making it inaccessible for other consumers. Further, when they experience human crowding in the store, they feel that the products will be gone immediately so they have a tendency to hoard them.Research limitations/implicationsThis study examined the effects of scarcity perception by studying the case of fast-fashion retailers; generalizability needs to be established across different contexts.Practical implicationsRetailers by manipulating human crowding and store messiness can create a perception of scarcity in their stores, thus enhancing sales. However, they should also pay attention to deviant behaviours such as in-store hoarding and in-store hiding as these behaviours may decrease the store sales.Originality/valueThis research contributed to the retailing literature by finding a significant relationship between human crowding, store messiness and competitive behaviours through perceived scarcity and competition.

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The behavioral responses to perceived scarcity – the case of fast fashion

Cited by 31 publications

References 22 publications

The Psychological Causes of Panic Buying Following a Health Crisis

The Psychological Causes of Panic Buying Following a Health Crisis

Pandemic buying: Testing a psychological model of over-purchasing and panic buying using data from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic

Store disorderliness effect: shoppers' competitive behaviours in a fast-fashion retail store

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