The Impact of Scarcity of Medical Protective Products on Chinese Consumers’ Impulsive Purchasing during the COVID-19 Epidemic in China

Abstract

In 2020, during the peak period of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, the scarcity of medical protective products significantly influenced consumers’ impulsive purchasing and affected the public order. It is important to identify the effect of scarcity on consumers’ impulsive purchasing during this difficult time. However, scant research has been conducted on the impact of scarcity of medical protective products on Chinese consumers’ impulsive purchasing. This paper investigates the impact of the scarcity of medical protective products on consumers’ impulsive purchasing during the pandemic in China based on the theories of scarcity, S-O-R and bandwagon effect. Simultaneously, this study identifies the different mediating mechanisms (fear of missing out and perception) and the moderation (bandwagon) in the relationship between scarcity and impulsive purchasing. Finally, 509 validity data were collected by using an online questionnaire, and SmartPLS was used for data analysis. The findings present that the fear of missing out, perception and bandwagon dominate the scarcity effect on impulsive purchasing. The findings provide more information on consumers’ impulsive purchasing in the context of scarcity of medical protective products. Marketers and the Chinese government can adopt measures to reduce their effect, which may help maintain the public order during the epidemic.

The Impact of Scarcity on Consumers’ Impulse Buying Based on the S-O-R Theory

“…The last factor in the S-O-R model is the response which can also be called behaviour (Kamboj et al, 2018). The S-O-R model has been used to explain the relationship between scarcity and impulse buying (Chen and Yao, 2018;Islam et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2021) and therefore deemed appropriate for this study to adopt and to guide the path of the environment (scarcity of medical protective equipment) on consumers' impulse purchases. This study assumed that scarcity of medical protective equipment (environment) affects consumers' impulse buying (response) through the mediating mechanism of fear of missing out (organism).…”

“…The ongoing spread of COVID-19 with a high risk globally (Du et al, 2020), impacted global healthcare systems and public health (Alves et al, 2020;Abbas, 2021), with citizens across the globe suffering from the symptoms of the virus and/or associated health concerns, such as psychology issues (Arafat et al, 2020). For China, which was the first country to be impacted by COVID-19 (Sun et al, 2021), the rapid spread of COVID-19 led to immediate pressure on the demand and supply of medical protective equipment (Zhang et al, 2021). Medical protective equipment became a scarce product, with no vaccines available for preventing COVID-19 at the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in China (Li M. et al, 2020).…”

“…The shortage of medical protective equipment brings a variety of issues which impact on the general public, one of which is the changes to consumer behaviour, such as impulse buying (Zhang et al, 2021) and/or panic buying (Arafat et al, 2020(Arafat et al, , 2021. Given the research focuses on impulse buying, it is important to provide a distinction between the two concepts to justify the focus and differentiate between impulse and panic buying.…”

Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Consumers’ Impulse Buying: The Moderating Role of Moderate Thinking

“…In regions with more severe pandemics, fears of shortages and price increases have triggered large-scale impulse buying, which has disrupted livelihood patterns and social stability [ 10 , 11 ]. For example, in April 2020, Americans spent 18% more on impulse buying, with an average expenditure of USD 182.98 [ 12 ].…”

“…The British also spent an average of GBP 13 more per person, per week during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 13 ]. In China, the scarcity of medical protective supplies also significantly increased consumers’ impulse buying [ 11 ]. Impulse buying was a common occurrence during the COVID-19 pandemic, which not only disrupted public order and was detrimental to the macro-control of the pandemic, but also disrupted people’s rhythm of life and compromised their health.…”