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The Effect of Risk and Uncertainity on Purchasing Decisions

  • The end of 2019 has brought upon the world a new virus called Covid-19 that has quickly evolved into a pandemic at the start of 2020. To control the spread of the virus, countries around the world were forced to implement various strict measures that includes travel bans, lockdowns, and limited social contacts. As per pervious pandemics, this crisis had severe consequences on economy, consumer behavior, purchasing decisions and people’s mental and physical wellbeing. Consumers were forced to adapt and find alternatives that would fit the “new norm”. This added to the psychological distress people were experi-encing and in turn increased their feeling of risk and uncertainty. Thus, this research con-ducts a semi-structured exploratory in-depth interview (N=16) to profoundly investigate the effect of risk and uncertainty on consumers’ purchasing decisions in Germany. Find-ings of this study suggests that consumers with high uncertainty avoidance and high per-ceived risk are more likely to have a changed behavior. Their purchasing decisions are more oriented toward necessities and self-development products. On the other hand, con-sumers with low uncertainity avoidance and risk perception have experiences less change in terms of consumer behavior and purchasing decisions. The results of this research would help companies understand consumers’ psychological needs which is often ne-glected in literature to provide the needed products and services. It would also benefit the academic and professional world by knowing what to expect during crisis and if changed behaviors will continue after the pandemic is over.

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Metadaten
Author:Hia Akbik
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:1383-opus4-15858
Examiner:Thomas Heun, Felix Sohnrey
Document Type:Master Thesis
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2022/08/31
Year of first Publication:2022
Publishing Institution:Hochschule Rhein-Waal
Degree-granting institution:Hochschule Rhein-Waal
Date of final exam:2022/06/02
Release Date:2022/09/01
Tag:Consumer behavior; Covid-19 pandemic; Phycological factors; Purchasing De-cisions; Risk; Uncertainity
Number of Pages:95
Faculties and Institutes:Fakultät Kommunikation und Umwelt
Licence (German):License LogoCC0 1.0 Universell - Gemeinfreiheit (Public Domain)