Consumers’ Channel Switching Behaviour from Off-line to On-line: The Role of the Fear of Covid-19

The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic is heavily altering how people shop. For instance, a push in on-line purchases is evident. The currentwork applies the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to understand consumers’ intention to switch from off-line to on-line channels in the aftermath of the lockdown. Specifically, within this framework,we explore howdifferent sources of consumers’ fears generated by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic – symptomatic and emotional - impact on consumers’ channel switching behaviour, leading shoppers to switch from buying grocery in physical stores to purchase them on-line. The empirical analysis is settled on 310 questionnaires collected on-line survey and processed using a linear regression analysis. Our findings show that consumers’ switching intentions to on-line channels are significantly and positively impacted by attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, showing a better predictive power when the dimensions of Covid-19 fear are added. While symptomatic fear acts positively on the intention to switch to on-line, emotional fear exerts a negative role. Managerial insights for retailers are provided.