Impulse purchasing during Covid-19: a quantitative study in Kuala Lumpur

COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown has had a tremendous impact on consumer behavior of people. This paper seeks to evaluate how COVID-19 has affected consumer behavior. Aim – To investigate the antecedents of impulse purchasing using widely researched constructs, focusing on Kuala Lumpur during the COVID-19 pandemic Design and methodology – A quantitative cross-sectional research design was adopted for this study, to investigate the chosen constructs i.e., hedonic consumption, money available, panic due to COVID-19, promotional signage, social needs, and shopping enjoyment tendency. Data was collected from survey using Qualtrics online survey and SmartPLS software was employed to analyze the data. Findings – Significant relationship was observed the constructs hedonic consumption, money available, panic due to COVID-19, promotional signage, and the dependent variable urge to purchase. In the moderation analysis, it was shocking to find that fear of COVID-19 had no moderation effect on any other independent variables except for Money Available. Value added – COVID-19 is a new phenomenon that has not been researched much. In this paper, the author used panic due to COVID-19 as a moderator to understand the extent to which COVID-19 played a role in impulse buying