Applying the Push-Pull Mooring to Explore Consumers’ Shift from Physical to Online Purchases of Face Masks

Sung-Wen Yu, Jun-Yan Liu, Chien-Liang Lin () and Yu-Sheng Su ()
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Sung-Wen Yu: Department of Marketing and Distribution Management, National Pingtung University, Pingtung 900, Taiwan
Jun-Yan Liu: Department of Marketing and Distribution Management, National Pingtung University, Pingtung 900, Taiwan
Chien-Liang Lin: College of Science and Technology, Ningbo University, Cixi 315211, China
Yu-Sheng Su: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung 202, Taiwan

Mathematics, 2022, vol. 10, issue 24, 1-16

Abstract: In response to the emergency management caused by COVID-19, Taiwan began to impose a name-based rationing system for the purchase of face masks by having consumers visit physical stores and preorder them online. By doing so, the risk of face mask shortages caused by panic buying was reduced. To understand consumers’ willingness to switch from buying face masks at physical stores to preordering them online, we used a push-pull-mooring (PPM) model to measure related dimensions. We administered an online questionnaire survey and collected 233 valid responses. In the present study, perceived risk (including time risk, psychological risk and social risk) was treated as a second-order formative indicator, while pull effect was measured by the variables of critical mass and alternative attraction. Mooring effect was measured by switching cost. Through structural equation modeling (SEM), perceived risk, as well as critical mass and alternative attraction, had a significant effect on switching intention, while switching cost had no significant relationship with switching intention. This study investigated whether perceived risk (time risk, psychological risk and social risk), critical mass, alternative attraction and switching cost can serve as references for purchase behaviors amid future emergency management, through the prism of population migration theory, and proposed recommendations for their promotion and implementation.

Keywords: push-pull-mooring; face masks; COVID-19; perceived risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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