The Coronavirus Shopping Anxiety Scale: initial validation and development

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a scale to measure coronavirus shopping anxiety. Numerous studies have developed a scale for measuring coronavirus anxiety and fear, notably absent is a concerted effort to review and assess the impact of coronavirus on the shopping anxiety of consumers. This scale fulfills this gap. Design/methodology/approach: The steps taken for checking the various psychometrics of the scale include item generation, followed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) through SPSS and confirmatory factor analysis through AMOS. The data were collected from over 208 respondents. Findings: This study resulted in the development of a nine-item scale with robust psychometric properties. The scale resulted in highlighting two factors related to anxiety: in-store shopping anxiety and online shopping anxiety. Research limitations/implications: The scale developed has the desirable reliable and valid properties that could be used by aspiring researchers. Practical implications: The scale developed highlighted that the restrictions in shopping impact the mental health and psychology of consumers. The scale resulted in analyzing the factors related to shopping anxiety, which could give top management a perspective and vision to look into the minds of the consumer's shopping anxiety behaviors. Social implications: Companies, firms, health professionals and marketers could use this scale to investigate the various shopping anxiety perceptions among consumers in society. Originality/value: This research fills the gap by developing a first nine-item scale based on the qualitative research and quantitative assessment for measuring shopping anxiety caused due to the pandemic. © 2022, Ruchika Sachdeva.