Purchase experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and social cognitive theory: The relevance of consumer vulnerability, resilience, and adaptability for purchase satisfaction and repurchase.

Abstract

This study explores consumer behavior during the pandemic through the lens of social cognitive theory (SCT). Using the SCT framework and assessing the pandemic as an environmental set, this study strives to fill the gaps in the underexplored impacts of the personal processes of consumer vulnerability, resilience, and adaptability on the behavioral processes of purchase satisfaction and repurchase. The research results show that consumers are self‐efficacious to a degree when it comes to purchase decision making in the context of pandemics. Vulnerability and resilience directly influence the purchase satisfaction and indirectly influence the repurchase intention via satisfaction. Furthermore, purchase satisfaction positively affects the repurchase intention. In addition, research results show that consumer adaptability to online shopping moderates the relationship between consumer resilience and purchase satisfaction. These findings have practical implications in terms of marketers’ communication strategy development.