This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University *Corresponding author. E-mail: zrinka.blazevic@vuv.hr Business, Management and Economics Engineering ISSN: 2669-2481 / eISSN: 2669-249X 2022 Volume 20 Issue 1: 41–58 https://doi.org/10.3846/bmee.2022.15919 THE INFLUENCE OF MEDIA ON IMPULSIVE BUYING IN THE ERA OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Zrinka BLAŽEVIĆ BOGNAR *, Nikolina PLEŠA PULJIĆ Department of Economic, Virovitica University of Applied Sciences, Virovitica, Croatia Received 10 November 2021; accepted 18 March 2022 Abstract. Purpose  – With the appearance of COVID-19, epidemiological measures were imple- mented which significantly changed the customer behaviour. Media became an important source of information. The fear phenomena in the lockdown era compelled consumers to buy impulsively. Therefore, this paper determines the changes in consumer behaviour in the era of the pandemic and the influence of media on consumer’s impulsive buying during lockdown. Research methodology – The research was carried out with a questionnaire (N = 298). The descrip- tive, multivariate, and correlation analysis, and the t-test were used to process primary data to confirm changes in consumer behaviour. Findings  – The research results show that impulsive buying does exist during a lockdown and is influenced by media. Such indicators give a clear direction for creating marketing campaigns in future crises. Research limitations  – The research sample was random so, to prove hypothesis H2, the database of the intensity of buying in lockdown needed to be filtered out so only impulsive buyers could be selected (n = 89). Practical implications  – The findings could help in the creation of future marketing campaigns in crises. Originality / Value – This research gives a new look at consumer behaviour in crises, the intensity of fear influence, and the influence of media on consumer behaviour. Keywords: consumer behaviour, impulsive buying, media, COVID-19 pandemic. JEL Classification: M31. Introduction Changes in the environment drastically affect buying habits, directly influencing consumer decisions and behaviour. This is why consumer behaviour has been the focus of researchers for a very long time (Kesić, 2006), and the significance of such research has even more inten- sified in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic when substantial changes. With the beginning of 2020 and the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic, significant changes in consumer http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.3846/bmee.2022.15919 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0515-6915 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6986-6393 42 Z. Blažević Bognar, N. Pleša Puljić. The influence of media on impulsive buying in the era... behaviour were also noticed (Xiao et  al., 2020). Epidemiological measures were intended to reduce physical contact between people and introduce a higher degree of hygiene and disinfection. This is why from 19th March 2020, the lockdown was put into place in the Re- public of Croatia, which meant that most types of jobs were prohibited (or they were done from home). In addition, unnecessary movements and public gatherings were also forbidden, including travelling which was only possible with travel permits issued by the local Head- quarters of Civil Protection. The aforementioned measures lasted until 11th May 2020, after which they were slightly alleviated. All of the above had drastically changed consumer behaviour, which was under the influ- ence of societal factors in the newly emerged situation. It was paramount to avoid shopping unless absolutely necessary, so consumers started to plan the dates when they went shopping, which became rarer, but quantity-wise they bought more products and mostly impulsively. Impulsive buying emerged because of different factors, such as the fear of missing out on certain products, fear of shortages, societal influence, and the influence of social media (Islam et al., 2021; Jurčić, 2017). It is important to emphasize that because of the relevance of the topic it was not possible to rely on earlier equivalent research, so the theory is based on behavioural analyses in past pandemics (Spanish flu etc.) and on the Nielsen research conducted in March and April 2020 on consumer behaviour in Croatia during the COVID-19 pandemic (Nielsen, 2020). Since this topic is relatively unexplored, this empirical research analyses the consumer behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis with an emphasis on the intensity of impulsive buying in the first lockdown period, as well as further down the line of the pandemic, and determine which factors had led to this situation (Hua & Shaw, 2020). The expected scientific contribution mainly entails identifying the key factors of impulsive buying, all to predict future patterns of consumer behaviour in similar crises.  Therefore, this paper has the goal of answering whether consumers did actually buy impulsively and whether the media were the cause of this. Considering the goal of the research, the following hypotheses are put forward: Hypothesis 1. Consumers were buying impulsively at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. Hypothesis 2. The media had an intensive influence on impulsive buying during the CO- VID-19 crisis. The empirical research was carried out on the results of the primary survey on a sample of 298 respondents. 1. Literature review Consumer behaviour is focused on how people decide and manage their resources when buying products. Or, in other words, what, when, where, what incites them, and how often do individuals buy certain products, and use what they bought (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2004). Therefore, to be successful on the market, marketing experts need answers to all of the above questions, meaning they need to gather all available information on consumer behaviour (Solomon, 2017). “Consumer behaviour is a study of individuals, groups, or organisations, and all the activities which involve buying, using, and disposing of goods and services. It involves the consumers’ emotional and mental reactions and their behaviour before and after Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 2022, 20(1): 41–58 43 the aforementioned activities” (Kardes et al., 2014, according to Matohanca, 2018, p. 2). The literature most often mentions three crucial activities studied by consumer behaviour: buy- ing, consumption and the activities after buying something. In addition, marketing experts also evaluate the reactions of consumers to all of these activities. The reactions of consumers can be emotional, mental and behavioural (Kardes et al., 2014). “In modern business, there is an ever-increasing need to establish marketing strategies in the business planning phase” (Ribić & Pleša Puljić, 2020, p. 160), but to discover marketing tactics that lead to an increase in sales, one has to be familiar with the psychology of human beings. The main goal of all of these types is to provoke the consumer to buy a product they initially had no plans of buying (Kotler et al., 2014). Unfortunately, “most consumers are not aware to what extent they are victims of company strategies” (Kotler et al., 2014, according to Blažević Bognar et al., 2017, p. 592). 1.1. Consumer behaviour Consumer behaviour distinguishes between two types of purchases: routine and impulsive (Kesić, 2006). The routine consumer behaviour mainly involves the consumer making a de- cision based on their knowledge of the product, or finding further information about the product, but they will not take “more time than required, nor will this influence the direc- tion of their decision” (Soče Kraljević et al., 2016, p. 28). One mainly focuses on the person’s previous experience with the actual product or service (Čičić et al., 2009). On the other hand, impulsive buying is characterised by unplanned purchases, which are happen at the spur of the moment, or in other words, the consumers make their purchasing decision without any preparation. Therefore, impulsive buying can be defined as an emergence of a sudden, strong, and irresistible need to buy something as an unplanned purchase, or as a feeling that a purchase is urgent, or as an urge which cannot be resisted by the individual (Barbić & Lučić, 2018, according to Živković 2020, p. 2). 1.2. Impulsive buying behaviour Impulsive buying behaviour is defined as behaviour that necessarily relies on instant gratifica- tion, or in other words, satisfying a strong urge to buy something (Mihić & Kursan, 2010). Impulsive buying is frequently connected with the feeling of anxiety, and the results are low levels of self-control. A lack of self-control in consumers, especially if it is caused by stress, intensifies significantly the impulsiveness of purchases. It is important to mention that when people lack self-control they are more susceptible to environmental stimuli which further contributes to impulsive buying. Rook and Hock (1985) highlight five crucial characteristics of impulsive buying which is manifested in spontaneous desire for doing something without control, psychological conflicts and reduction of cognitive evaluation involving irrational spending. Likewise, indicators for this type of purchases are emotions such as joy, fear, love, sexuality, hope, fantasy, etc. The rational thought process is present to a much lesser degree, and affective activities are emphasized (Živković, 2020). The classical phases of making pur- chasing decisions do not exist in impulsive buying, considering that the purchase happens immediately after the need is established. The phases which involve seeking information and 44 Z. Blažević Bognar, N. Pleša Puljić. The influence of media on impulsive buying in the era... alternatives are under the influence of external and internal factors. “External factors could be the marketing activities of companies, and the internal factor is the individual’s personal- ity” (Ban, 2018, p. 10). 1.3. Previous research on consumer behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic The beginning of 2020 marked the appearance of the COVID-19 virus which had started suddenly spreading worldwide. To combat the virus, world governments implemented dif- ferent epidemiological measures which affected all aspects of life. Most countries started implementing lockdowns to prevent physical contact between people, which caused changes in consumer behaviour (INSEAD, 2020). The Nielsen Agency carried out a survey (during March and April 2020) on consumer behaviour in Croatia during the COVID-19 pandemic and determined six phases in customer behaviour (Nielsen, 2020). The first and second phases which began at the end of February were characterised by proactive and reactionary purchasing, with an emphasis on health. After the appearance of the COVID-19 virus, an increase in the purchasing of canned foods, pasta, flour, and rice was noticed in Croatia compared to the previous year. The third phase involved preparing supplies, which occurred between 9th and 15th March 2020. Retail chains detected an aver- age increase of 65% in the purchase of food and toiletries compared to the same period of the previous year. In the abovementioned week in Croatia, a record increase of purchasing was noted for the following top three food products: flour (+410%), rice (+303%), bakery products (yeast, baking powder, pudding +221%), while the top three toiletries were soaps (+232%), toilet paper (+162%), toilet cleaners (+165%) (Nielsen, 2020). In the same period shortly before the lockdown, according to global surveys, the most commonly bought prod- ucts were also food products rich in carbohydrates, canned food, disinfectants, and even toilet paper (Martin-Neuninger & Ruby, 2020).  This phase was marked by fewer shopping trips, but an excessive amount of products in the cart. It can be concluded that a specific purchasing pattern of one or more consumers can encourage the rest of the population to behave identically. This is what exactly happened during the pandemic, where a vast major- ity of consumers followed the purchasing patterns of their peers, whether they were shop- ping offline or online (Kim & Su, 2020). “We can observe that the largest influence on an individual’s behaviour have been reference groups” (Kesić, 2006, p. 102). Images of long lines at cash registers in supermarkets and empty shelves for certain products had been seen worldwide through media, causing the rest of consumers to rush to shops to buy supplies (Iyer et al., 2020; Addo et al., 2020). Oberst et al. (2017) claim that biased behaviour begins in the part of the brain responsible for impulsive decisions (Kaur & Sharma, 2020), which is also responsible for emotions, and which was during the pandemic under the substantial influence of 24-hour media reporting (Crabbe, 2020; Addo et al., 2020). Based on previous research (Nielsen, 2020; Kaur & Sharma, 2020), a research gap on impulsive buying in the COVID-19 period in the Croatia was observed. Hypothesis H1 was created from the mentioned research problem. Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 2022, 20(1): 41–58 45 1.4. The role of media during the pandemic The role of media during the pandemic was considerable, especially when it comes to influ- encing the development of negative emotions, spreading fabricated news and fear. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led to more time spent at home, which caused longer periods spent consuming media content. Social media have become the primary source of informa- tion for most people (Addo et al., 2020), despite contributing a lot of disinformation (Zhang et  al., 2019). The research that had been carried out have confirmed that there is a positive correlation of the influence of media on consumer behaviour (Kalaitzandonakes et al., 2004). Also, survival psychology indicates that people change their behaviour due to crises (Forbes, 2017). This leads to the emergence of phenomena such as panic buying, herd mentality, sup- ply hoarding, and impulsive buying. This type of buying is influenced by the individuals’ per- ception of the health crisis, fear caused by negative emotions, changes in consumer behaviour due to the need to alleviate anxiety and take control, social-psychological (Yuen et al., 2020) and societal factors (Li et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020). Consumers make decisions more easily once they see the experiences of their acquaintances, unknown people, or even influencers, whose adverts consumers consider to be reliable and convincing, especially when it comes to a very popular influencer (Blažević Bognar et  al., 2019). Impulsive buying occurs when consumers experience an intensive impulse to buy something right away (Parsad, 2020), where the purchasing decision is not part of a deep thought process (Suryaningsih, 2020; Zafar et  al., 2019), but rather is under the influence of emotions, or in other words, people buy products that make them feel good or have some emotional value (Husnain et al., 2016, according to Iriani et  al., 2021). Impulsive buying is characterised by unplanned purchases which are based on irrational thought, (Chan et  al., 2017, according to Iriani et  al., 2021) and which can be induced by external stimuli such as economic conditions, personality, time, place etc. (Wu et al., 2016, according to Iriani et al., 2021) but also the phenomena of fear in the lockdown which had prompted consumers to buy without thinking (Wiranata & Hananto, 2020; Kim, 2020; Addo et al., 2020). The fourth phase, marked by preparation for life in quarantine, came just before the com- plete lockdown which began in the Republic of Croatia on 19th March 2020, where problems in the supply chain started to appear, leading to empty shelves. Despite the government ef- forts to warn against irrational behaviour, most people started panic buying (Turkalj, 2021). Impulsive buying of essential and non-essential products had suddenly increased (Crabbe, 2020). This type of buying was characterised by a disproportional purchasing of disinfectants, toilet paper, hygiene items, protective masks (Turkalj, 2021), flour and yeast. Many shops could not satisfy all the consumer needs, which lead to a short term breakdown in the supply chain, and all of the above resulted in even greater panic among consumers (Kim & Su, 2020; Rajan et al., 2020), which again resulted in more panic and impulsive buying (Kim, 2020). This type of consumer behaviour, including impulsive and panic buying, can even further deepen scarcity (Zafar et al., 2019; Bergel & Brock, 2019). Fear overpowers the capacity for rational thought (Witte & Allen, 2000), and this is why some surveys have already suggested that fear is an important mediator in impulsive buying (Iyer et  al., 2020; Addo et  al., 2020; Przybylski et al., 2013). To alleviate fear and uncertainty, consumers started hoarding supplies 46 Z. Blažević Bognar, N. Pleša Puljić. The influence of media on impulsive buying in the era... to gain a feeling of safety and preparedness (Mathes et al., 2017). The above is confirmed by Loxton et al. (2020) who claim that the behaviour of consumers during the pandemic, where they consumed essential products, reflects the satisfaction criteria of the lower-level needs of Maslow’s hierarchy. Consequently, consumers were relentless in satisfying lower-level needs until the crisis was over. During the aforementioned state of the market, consumers started looking for alternative channels for obtaining supplies, whereby they mostly used Internet shopping and products from local manufacturers. Based on previous research (Kim & Su, 2020; Iyer et  al., 2020; Addo et  al., 2020), a re- search gap was observed on the influence of the media on impulsive buying in the period of COVID-19. Hypothesis H2 was created from the mentioned research problem. The fifth phase- limited living, was marked by a growth in online shopping, which became dependant on high delivery standards, while the sixth phase- life in the new normal, entailed consumers returning to formal buying habits but with a focus on newly adopted hygiene habits (Nielsen, 2020). 2. Research methodology The overview of the literature unquestionably shows that the era of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to certain changes in consumers’ buying habits. The largest number of surveys discuss panic and impulsive buying that had been influenced by the feeling of fear and information from the media. Previous studies indicate that perceived excitement leads to a purchasing de- cision (Malhotra, 2010; Sneath et al., 2009). For example, Wu et al. (2020) have discoverd that scarcity is positively correlated with perceived excitement which affects impulsive buying. The research that was conducted during the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis also indicates that fear and panic caused by scarcity has raised customer stress, i.e. has caused high levels of excitement which affected impulsive and obsessive buying (Islam et al., 2021). Therefore, this paper has the goal of answering whether consumers did actually buy impulsively and whether the media were the cause of this. Considering the goal of the research, the following hypotheses are put forward: Hypothesis 1. Consumers were buying impulsively at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. Due to the great uncertainty of the situation, consumers were encouraged to continu- ously search for information and spend their cognitive resources which frequently leads to information overload (Farooq et al., 2020; Hua & Shaw, 2020), i.e. negative emotions are con- tinuously stimulated (Moors et  al., 2013). Previous studies have indicated that information anxiety could be stimulated by a perceived information overload (Hwang et al., 2019), which leads to impulsive buying (Liu et  al., 2019; Yi, 2012). Xiao et  al. (2020) conducted a study during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and have determined that the uncertainty of the situation has led to information overload and information anxiety which consequently has caused impulsive buying. Therefore, the following hypothesis is put forward: Hypothesis 2. The media had an intensive influence on impulsive buying during the COVID-19 crisis. Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 2022, 20(1): 41–58 47 The empirical research was carried out on the results of the primary survey. The sur- vey was carried out on a sample of 298. The main survey tool was a questionnaire that consisted of closed multiple-choice questions, where the Likert scale was used with five levels of intensity. The first part of the questionnaire contained general information about the purpose of the survey, and also the anonymity of the questionnaire was emphasised in this part. The first set of questions involved the social-demographic characteristics of the respondents. The second, third, and fourth set of questions examined with the Likert scale whether consumers were buying impulsively before the pandemic, just before the pandemic, and after the lockdown. The fifth set of questions examined which factors had influenced impulsive buying in the lockdown, while the last set of questions examined which information sources had been used by consumers. The survey was carried out over the Internet during June and July 2021. The descriptive statistical analysis, multi-variant statistical analysis (multiple regression method), correlation analysis and the t-test were used in primary data analysis to determine the direction and strength of the correlation between the observed variables and to confirm the differences in behaviour. The descriptive analysis was carried out to create profiles of the buyers and analyse their behaviour before, after and during the lockdown. To prove H1, the differences in behaviour in these three periods were tested with the t-test. To analyse H2, a sample of consumers who acted impulsively (n = 89) in lockdown was derived (with the help of the descriptive analysis) from the general sample. The goal was to analyse which factors affected this behaviour and to determine the strength of the correlation between consumers and the factors that affected this behaviour. Next, the correlation analysis determined the direction and strength of the connection between the information sources that the user used during the lockdown and the impulsiveness of their purchases. This was done to determine the influence of media on impulsive buying. The multi-variant regression demonstrates the intensity of the influence of each factor on impulsive buying. In addition to the data analysis method which was carried out in the Excel programme package, the method used for presenting results is done in the form of tables and graphs. Descriptive statistics were performed on all variables to describe the observed differences clearly, and when it comes to differential statistics, the level of statistical significance was determined to be 5% (p < 0.05). To evaluate the formulated hypothesis, the dominant method used was the correlation method which measured the inter-dependency of observed variables in the conceptual mod- el. In this paper, this correlation was used to determine the direction, intensity and signifi- cance of the analysed connections. 2.1. Sociodemographic indicators This survey used a sample size of N = 298. The survey sample was random and the structure of the survey sample is presented in Table 1. 48 Z. Blažević Bognar, N. Pleša Puljić. The influence of media on impulsive buying in the era... Table 1. Sociodemographic characteristics of respondents (source: prepared by authors) Sample characteristics, N = 298 % Gender Female Male 76.85 23.15 Age 15–18 19–25 26–40 41–60 61 and more 8.39 38.59 37.25 12.75 3.02 Qualifications Lower expertise Medium expertise Higher expertise High expertise 2.35 27.85 48.32 21.48 Note: N – number of participants, % – percentage of participants. The main limitation of the survey was the random survey sample, which would mean the survey sample contained a population that did not have a pronounced impulsiveness in their purchases, which might have made the sample inadequate. Therefore, to prove hypothesis H1, the entire survey sample was used to prove that there was a change in behaviour of the entire population before, during and after the lockdown. However, to prove H2, the database needed to be filtered out according to the intensity of buying during the lockdown, meaning that certain consumers were selected who stated that during lockdown they bought essential products (masks, flower and yeast, toilet paper, and disinfectants) despite having already supplies, indicating they behaved impulsively during the lockdown. This sample contained 89 respondents. Below is a graphical overview that shows the intensity of purchases of prod- ucts in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. 16.75 11.63 10.46 6.95 6.58 2.12 6.58 8.71 9.22 6.95 14.05 0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10,00 12.00 14.00 16.00 18.00 Protective masks Flour and yeast Toilet paper Meat Fruit Milk Bread Oil Pasta Coffee/tea Disinfectant Percentage Pr od uc ts Figure 1. Products that were bought immediately before the lockdown which began on 1.4.2020. (source: prepared by the authors) Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 2022, 20(1): 41–58 49 From the Figure 1 it can be seen that consumers exhibited the highest demand for pro- tective masks (16.75%), disinfectants (14.05%), flour and yeast (11.63%) and toilet paper (10.46%), which coincides with the already previously mentioned surveys (Martin-Neun- inger & Ruby, 2020). It is important to mention that the beginning of the lockdown was the time when the craze for these products had begun in shopping malls, which caused short- ages of these products on shelves, and fear in buyers they would not be able to buy these products. This situation influenced impulsive buying, which is why the part of the sample which emphasised they had bought all four of the mentioned products can be considered a population that was impulsively buying due to the fear of scarcity. 3. Survey results and discussion The survey’s primary intention was to give insight into the opinions of consumers and their buying habits during the lockdown, and the differences in their behaviour before and after the lockdown. Therefore, the following hypothesis was put forward: Hypothesis 1. Consumers were buying impulsively at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. To prove the hypothesis, factors which characterise impulsive buying (unplanned pur- chases, lack of rational thought, not postponing shopping, and in the event of a crisis, hoard- ing supplies) were analysed, and these factors were presented to respondents in the form of statements to which they could express their agreement or disagreement with a Likert scale (from 1 to 5). Respondents had to express their agreement for the identical statements 3 times, for the period before, during, and after the lockdown. To determine user behaviour, the statements were summarised into one indicator (named consumer behaviour) which was compared to identical indicators with a t-test, but in different periods (before, during, and after lockdown). Table  2. Results of the t-test for the period before (<2020), during (2020), and after the lockdown (>2020) (source: prepared by authors) t-Test: Paired Two Sample for Means Variable <2020 Variable 2020 Variable 2020 Variable >2020 Variable <2020 Variable >2020 Mean 3.166107383 2.833053691 2.833053691 3.194630872 3.166107383 3.194630872 Variance 0.547231261 0.463407142 0.463407142 0.522597338 0.547231261 0.522597338 Observations 298 298 298 298 298 298 Pearson Correlation 0.300551849 0.176575735 0.322225659 Hypothesized Mean Difference 0 0 0 df 297 297 297 t Stat 6.833220856 –6.925863224 –0.578207553 P(T<=t) one-tail 2.35415E-11 1.34359E-11 0.281781077 t Critical one- tail 1.650000301 1.650000301 1.650000301 P(T<=t) two-tail 4.7083E-11 2.68718E-11 0.563562154 t Critical two-tail 1.967983525 1.967983525 1.967983525 50 Z. Blažević Bognar, N. Pleša Puljić. The influence of media on impulsive buying in the era... From the Table  2 it can be clearly seen that there is a statistically significant difference in consumer behaviour before and during lockdown (in April 2020), which is proven with the t-test (t (298) = 2.35415E-11, p < 0.05). This issue is also confirmed by previous research Nielsen (2020) and Kaur and Sharma (2020). A significant contribution of this research lies in comparing behavioural changes during and after lockdown. In addition, there is a statisti- cally significant difference during the lockdown and after (t (298) = 1.34359E-11, p < 0.05), but slightly less pronounced than in the previous comparison. The results indicate that there was a significant change in behaviour during the lockdown, which is confirmed by the fact that there was not a statistically significant difference between the before and after lockdown indicators for consumer behaviour (t (298) = 0.281781077, p > 0.05). The indicators confirm hypothesis  H1: Consumers were buying impulsively at the begin- ning of the COVID-19 crisis,  as well as indicating that impulsiveness decreased after lock- down, meaning that behaviour returned to its pre-lockdown level. All of the above points to the fact that the amount of information and level of fear during lockdown had a drastic impact on changes in consumer behaviour and had intensified impulsive buying, which will be analysed further in the paper. Considering that the factors of impulsive buying are: unplanned purchases, lack of ratio- nal thought, not postponing shopping, and in the event of a crisis hoarding supplies, these factors were also analysed in this survey. The factors are shown on the Figure 2, where con- sumers could express their agreement/disagreement for all three periods. It is evident that consumers had been planning their purchases before the pandemic, but in lockdown, plan- ning became considerably rarer, and after the lockdown, it became more common. They were questioning their purchasing decisions before and after the lockdown, while during lockdown they were not questioning their decisions but were making them impulsively. Moreover, 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 Planned purchase Rational thinking about buying Postponing shopping Hoarding supplies P e rc e n ta g e Period < 2020 2020 2020 > Figure 2. Changes in consumer behavior and in the impulsiveness of purchases in the period before, during and after lockdown (source: prepared by authors) Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 2022, 20(1): 41–58 51 another important determinant of impulsive buying is postponing shopping until the prices are discounted. It is without a doubt that the respondents of this survey were not postponing their shopping during the lockdown, as they were known to do before and after. In the end, they were hoarding certain products in large quantities, while they had not been exhibiting this behavioural pattern before and after the lockdown. All of the above confirms once more that consumers had undoubtedly changed their behavioural patterns during the lockdown and that they were buying impulsively (which also analysed Iyer et  al., 2020), therefore hy- pothesis H1: Consumers were buying impulsively at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis can be accepted fully. Something key for further analysis is to determine which factors had contributed to these type of purchases, or in other words, which factors had affected purchases will be analysed using the multi-variant regression further below. For this analysis, a sample of consumers who behaved impulsively during lockdown (n = 89) was selected (using the descriptive analy- sis method) from the total sample. The goal was to analyse which factors had affected their behaviour and to determine the strength of the correlation between consumer behaviour and the factors which had affected their behaviour. The multi-variant regression demonstrates the intensity of influences of each of these factors on impulsive buying. From the Table  3 it can be seen how users react substantially to the fear of missing products on shelves, to the present (empty shelves), as well as to the future (closed borders, Table 3. Results of multi-variant regression (source: prepared by authors) SUMMARY OUTPUT Regression statistics Multiple R 0.84261 R Square 0.709992 Adjusted R Square 0.696182 Standard Error 0.396563 Observations 89 ANOVA df SS MS F Significance F Regression 4 32.34053 8.085133 51.41179 8.13E-22 Residual 84 13.21003 0.157262 Total 88 45.55056 Coefficients Standard error t Stat P-value Lower 95% Upper 95% Lower 95.0% Upper 95.0% Intercept –0.5812 0.3759 –1.5462 0.1258 –1.3286 0.1663 –1.3286 0.1663 Lockdown 0.3633 0.0978 3.7149 0.0004 0.1688 0.5578 0.1688 0.5578 People’s recommendations 0.1052 0.0969 1.0849 0.2810 –0.0876 0.2980 –0.0876 0.2980 Empty shelves 0.2077 0.1037 2.0032 0.0484 0.0015 0.4139 0.0015 0.4139 Economic breakdown 0.4163 0.0984 4.2304 0.0001 0.2206 0.6119 0.2206 0.6119 52 Z. Blažević Bognar, N. Pleša Puljić. The influence of media on impulsive buying in the era... hindered market trading, and economic breakdown), and to a new potential lockdown. To be more concrete, the intensity of impulsive buying will increase by 0.4163, with a significance level of 5%, if the fear of a potential long-term shortage of products due to closed borders, hindered market trading, and economic breakdown increases by one point, with the rest of the variables remaining unchanged. With this, it can be determined that potential short- ages of products in the future have the most intensive influence on impulsive buying in the COVID-19 pandemic era. It is also important to mention the influence of the lockdown on impulsive buying. Namely, if the fear of lockdown grows by one point, with the rest of the variables remaining unchanged, then the intensity of impulsive buying will increase by 0.3633, with a significance level of 5%. And in the end, if the fear of empty shelves grows by one point, with the rest of the variables remaining unchanged, then the intensity of impulsive buying will increase by 0.2077, with a significance level of 5% Furthermore, the results of the group F test (F  = 8.13E-22) indicate that the regression model is meaningful with a significance level of 5%. The value of the multiple correlation coefficient (R = 0.84261) indicates that there is a strong connection between impulsive buying as the dependent variable and independent variables. The 71% variance of impulsive buying on the observed 89 respondents was interpreted using the above values. Accordingly, it can be stated that the regression analysis has confirmed the strong connection between the com- ponents which cause fear in users during the COVID-19 pandemic and impulsive buying. Consequently, it is necessary to determine whether media influenced consumer behav- iour during the pandemic and to determine the strength of the correlation between consumer behaviour and factors that had influenced it. The intensity of the influence of each factor on impulsive buying is presented using the multi-variant regression method. The direction and strength of the connection between the information sources the user used during the lock- down and the impulsiveness of their purchases was determined using correlation analysis, intending to determine the influence of media on impulsive buying, i.e. to test the hypothesis Hypothesis 2. The media had an intensive influence on impulsive buying during the COVID-19 crisis. The regression analysis of the influence of information sources on impulsive buying is given below. From the Table 4, it can be seen that users react significantly to information received from media (this is also confirmed by previous research by Kaur and Sharma (2020), Kim and Su (2020), Addo et al. (2020)), but they also gather information from their families. To put it more concretely, if the amount of information received from Headquarters of Civil Protection is increased by one point with the rest of the variables remaining unchanged, the intensity of impulsive buying will increase by 0.4476, with a significance level of 5%, with which it can be determined that Headquarters of Civil Protection had the most inten- sive influence on impulsive buying during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also important to mention the influence of TV news on impulsive buying. Namely, if we increase the amount of information about COVID-19 from TV news by one point, with the rest of the variables remaining unchanged, the intensity of impulsive buying will increase by 0.2517, with a sig- nificance level of 5%. It is interesting to note that the influence of information gathered from Facebook is significant, so if the intensity is increased by one point, the intensity of impulsive buying will increase by 0.1921, with a significance level of 5%. Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 2022, 20(1): 41–58 53 Furthermore, the results of the group F test indicate that the regression model is mean- ingful with a significance level of 5%. The value of the multiple correlation coefficient (R  = 0.8056911) means there is a strong connection between impulsive buying as the dependant variable and the information sources. The test is valid since the 65% variance of impulsive buying of the observed 89 respondents was interpreted using these aforementioned factors, hence it can be stated the regression analysis has confirmed the strong connection between the above-mentioned information sources of users during the COVID-19 pandemic and impulsive buying, with especially strong connections between media and impulsive buying, which confirms hypothesis H2. In order to even further confirm the thesis that media influences impulsive buying, a correlation matrix was made which consisted of information sources during the pandemic and indicators of impulsive buying in users. The results are shown below. The correlation matrix shows the strength and direction of the connection between in- dividual variables. According to the Table  5, it is interesting to note that a negative cor- relation was not observed in any analysis. This is why it can be stated that the information Table 4. Results of multi-variant regression (source: prepared by authors) SUMMARY OUTPUT Regression statistics Multiple R 0.8056911 R Square 0.6491381 Adjusted R Square 0.6188167 Standard Error 0.4441938 Observations 89 ANOVA df SS MS F Significance F Regression 7 29.5686 4.2240864 21.40858 4.633E-16 Residual 81 15.98196 0.1973081 Total 88 45.55056 Coefficients Standard error t Stat P-value Lower 95% Upper 95% Lower 95.0% Upper 95.0% Intercept –2.4506 0.5941 –4.1249 0.0001 –3.6326 –1.2685 –3.6326 –1.2685 Facebook 0.1921 0.1223 1.5705 0.1202 –0.0513 0.4356 –0.0513 0.4356 TV news 0.2517 0.0796 3.1602 0.0022 0.0932 0.4101 0.0932 0.4101 Friends 0.0740 0.0871 0.8496 0.3981 –0.0993 0.2472 –0.0993 0.2472 Family 0.2743 0.1062 2.5831 0.0116 0.0630 0.4857 0.0630 0.4857 Headquarters 0.4476 0.1325 3.3793 0.0011 0.1841 0.7112 0.1841 0.7112 Newspaper 0.1640 0.0901 1.8199 0.0725 –0.0153 0.3433 –0.0153 0.3433 Radio 0.0989 0.0708 1.3977 0.1660 –0.0419 0.2397 –0.0419 0.2397 54 Z. Blažević Bognar, N. Pleša Puljić. The influence of media on impulsive buying in the era... sources and the information gathered had a positive influence on impulsive buying. The strongest connection was discovered in the information from Headquarters of Civil Protec- tion (0.6590), which confirms that, during the lockdown, Headquarters of Civil Protection had the largest influence on the attitudes and behaviour of consumers. A medium-strong connection was found between impulsive shopping and the information that was gathered from peers (0.5212) and family (0.4760) so it can be stated that, besides media, information also came from those sources that had also influenced consumer behaviour. It is important to mention that a strong positive connection was found between impulsive buying and in- formation gathered from newspapers (0.5440), Facebook (0.5275), TV news (0.4684) and radio (0.4504), which indicates that media influenced impulsive buying, which once again confirms hypothesis H2: The media had an intensive influence on impulsive buying during the COVID-19 crisis. Conclusions Epidemiological measures were implemented to supress physical contact between people which disturbed the market. The obtained information (either from media or surrounding individuals) instilled even more fear in individuals. All of the above had influenced significant changes in behaviour during the lockdown, which this research proved with hypothesis H1. Impulsive buying emerged because of fear of missing out on certain products and of scarcity. Surrounding individuals and society, in general, had a strong influence on this be- haviour, yet this survey shows that media had the strongest influence of them all. The survey has indicated that the most influential information on impulsive buying had come from Headquarters of Civil Protection, which were transmitted by the media, and there was also a strong connection between impulsive buying and news from TV, newspapers, radio, and Facebook, which confirmed hypothesis H2. The empirical research proved there had existed a significant intensity of impulsive buy- ing during the first lockdown, as well as further along the pandemic, and that media had had a significant influence on this behaviour. Therefore, indicators from this survey can help in Table 5. Results of correlation matrix (source: prepared by authors) Impulsive buying Facebook TV news Peers Family Headquarters Newspaper Radio Impulsive buying 1 Facebook 0.5275 1 TV news 0.4684 0.2861 1 Peers 0.5212 0.5703 0.4123 1 Family 0.4760 0.4279 0.0538 0.3780 1 Headquarters 0.6590 0.3492 0.3019 0.3636 0.3989 1 Newspaper 0.5440 0.4371 0.2564 0.3771 0.2511 0.4860 1 Radio 0.4504 0.2039 0.1902 0.2522 0.1344 0.5161 0.4294 1 Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 2022, 20(1): 41–58 55 identifying the key factors of impulsive buying, with the goal of predicting future consumer behavioural patterns in similar crises. This research had a couple of limitations. Firstly, due to the limited financial resources, the gathered data only encompassed the Republic of Croatia. In subsequent surveys on this topic, it would be worthwhile to involve more respondents, and to compare data to data from other countries, as well as data from previous crises, to gain a clearer picture of consumer behaviour in times of crises/ pandemics and the influence of media on it.  Secondly, the data was collected online with a survey due to still existing epidemiological measures. This leaves more space for other studies, which can be conducted with other methods. Finally, this research was conducted on a random population sample, so to prove hypothesis 2, the database had to filtered out according to the buying intensity, so that only impulsive buyers could be analysed (n = 89). It would also be important to analyse the population that has gone through some previous crisis periods, in which there was a shortage or fear of a lack of tested products (such as war, smallpox, Spanish flu...) and analyse the impact of previous experience on the impulsiveness of buying today, but also potentially in future periods. From the above analysis, the behaviour of users in the following crisis periods could be assumed. The practical implication of this paper is mainly related to governments, consumers and media providers. Firstly, in similar crises it will be necessary for governments to find a system which will disprove false information spread by media, so that information anxiety is miti- gated on time. Secondly, a higher media and information literacy is necessary for consumers to overcome potential information anxiety and thus mitigate unnecessary impulsive buying. 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