Perceived impact of COVID-19 on impulsive buying of essential safety products: a moderating role of over-burdened stream of communication

Abstract

COVID-19 produces severe negative effects on every form of business and restricts people in their homes. Hence resulted in a significant increase in panic which causes an increase in impulsive buying which is extensively linked with essential safety goods. However, there is a lacking of studies associated with an increase in impulsive buying due to the spread of COVID 19 and prior research was not mainly focused on emergency goods. Therefore, there is a significant need to examine the effect of COVID-19 on the impulsive buying of emergency products concerning Pakistan. Data collection has been made from customers of retail stores of Karachi analysis has been done through SMART-PLS. Findings indicated that COVID-19 is fostering panic in inhabitants of Karachi which are resulting in impulsive buying of emergency products. However, an over-burdened stream of information is found to be a potent moderator that diminishes the impulsive purchase of some categories of emergency products.