DOES COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS IMPACT ON MILLENNIALS' PROPENSITY TO INDEBTEDNESS THROUGH E-MARKETING?

Abstract

The introduction of electronic marketing (e-marketing) has a huge impact on consumer behavior as products are brought closer to consumers and barriers are lifted by breaking the time and physical constraints in marketing activities. A pertinent question to ask if the COVID-19 pandemic have further increased the tendency of consumers’ involvement in e-marketing? This study aims to explore the impact of e-marketing on the propensity to indebtedness among the Millennials in Malaysia during the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the literature, the purchasing intention and behavior of consumers are influenced by advertising in its various forms. Constant exposure to advertisements encourages people to make unplanned purchases and increases the likelihood of tolerating compulsive shopping. As a result, financial complications and over-spending are the most obvious problems associated with compulsive shopping, as people more often spend beyond their means. With the temptations presented by marketers and easy access to a wide range of payment methods, the financial well-being of customers, especially the technology-oriented generation, is threatened. Thus, it is expected that being constantly exposed to e-marketing could lead to risky financial situations, with greater tendency to incur debt. In testing this hypothesis, the study adopts a quantitative research to determine the impact of e-marketing on respondents' tendency towards indebtedness. A survey was conducted for data collection, with relevant questionnaires being designed to address this issue in the context of the undergraduate and postgraduate students at several universities in Malaysia. In analyzing the data, descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis techniques were applied using the SPSS and AMOS software.