Understanding Offline Shopping Intentions During Pandemic

Abstract

The transmission of the coronavirus disease 2019 in Indonesia has forced the government to impose a large-scale social restriction. This restriction has lowered the chances of contact with the virus and at the same time encouraged people to shop online for their necessities. However, despite the high risk of being contaminated by the virus, a large crowd of people was seen in offline stores in many cities to have their last-minute shopping days before Eid. The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors that motivate people to shop offline during a pandemic. The influence of cognitive social characteristics such as attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on shopping intentions were investigated using the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Data from 300 respondents were collected in the period of social restrictions, two weeks prior to the Eid celebration 2020, and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The findings show that perceived behavioral control, attitude, and subjective norms all have positive effects on offline shopping intentions. The findings of this study further emphasize the importance of subjective norms in influencing attitudes about offline shopping during a pandemic. This study significantly improves our knowledge about consumer purchasing behavior during pandemics.