Factors Affecting the Decision Process of Online Purchase of Sports Good under the background of COVID-19: Application of Goal Oriented Behavior Model

Abstract

PURPOSE This study used a sporting goods goal-oriented behavior model (SG-MGB) to predict and test consumers'' behavioral intentions for purchasing sporting goods online. Based on the original MGB, the study added three constructs related to online consumption, and examined the factors that influence the online consumer''s consumption decision-making process. METHOD A conceptual model containing 13 hypotheses was empirically tested using data from 271 Shanghai residents who have purchased sports goods online in the past 12 months. RESULT The results showed that consumers'' positive anticipated emotion, negative anticipated emotion, past behavior frequency, and brand image all positively affected desire. Desire had the most significant positive effect on behavioral intention. Desire played a positive mediating role. CONCLUSION The study found that brand image is an important variable that affects consumers'' willingness to buy sports goods online. The SG-MGB is a strong predictive model for online consumers'' behavioral intentions.