Whether it’s for pasta, toilet paper, or cleaning products, shoppers have been dashing to stores to stock up on essentials as they try to prepare for the uncertain impact of COVID-19. In the UK, supermarkets saw year-on-year sales in the 12 weeks to March 2020 grow by the 

 since November 2019, while Grofers, an online grocery in India, reported that orders in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, and Ahmedabad had grown by 

 over a matter of weeks in February and March. According to research from Nielsen, the rush to build ‘

’ has caused demand for everything from fresh meat substitutes to children’s medicine to spike by up to 124%. In this extraordinary global environment, wherein supermarket shelves from 

 are emptying, stockpiling has become a new norm. But why do people panic-buy?

“Looking at evolutionary psychology, you cannot deny that there is a basic need for control,” says Dr. Leonard Lee, a professor of marketing at the National University of Singapore. ”The current coronavirus pandemic is a perfect example of this.” Indeed, many people feel their control over everyday life is slipping – as of March 2020, 

 of Britons think that the coronavirus pandemic poses a major or moderate threat to the country.

Control Deprivation Motivates Acquisition of Utilitarian Products

’, Dr. Lee and his co-authors, Charlene Chen (Nanyang Technological University) and Andy Yap (INSEAD), examine the relationship between a loss of control and purchasing behaviours, uncovering how consumption helps fill perceived psycho-social deficiencies. Canvas8 spoke to him to understand the ways in which a lack of control influences shopping decisions and how this might explain some of the behavioural shifts seen following the spread of COVID-19.

Why is this topic important to understand?

People have a general need for control and there are many ways to address this that go beyond shopping and consumption. Some people who seek greater control are more likely to overrule what their significant other wants for dinner, for example, because that makes them feel like they have gained some control. But we felt it was important to look at seeking control through the lens of retail. People don’t just buy products because they are functional. Symbolic meaning can be ascribed to shopping behaviours, and not just through the activity of shopping but in what people buy and which brands they buy.

There’s a concept called compensatory consumption, which is the idea that instead of people buying what they need or want, they are buying to address an underlying psychological function – or lack thereof. We know that people shop to fulfil a psycho-social need and so the topic of seeking control is important to understand because we could start looking at the extent to which people are buying in ways that address these psycho-social deficiencies.

Bulk buying can help people feel ready to bunker down

What do we already know from existing research?

Existing literature looks at both the social and personal goals of shoppers. Broadly speaking, personal goals could be to buy something functional, or as a distraction, or for self-gratification. Meanwhile, being around others to feel a sense of belonging and the pleasure of negotiating a purchase with a seller are examples of social goals.

On the other hand, the compensatory consumption literature tries to understand the ways people try to address psycho-social deficiencies, such as personal control. Research has shown that some people who seek greater control over their lives, for example, are more likely to buy branded goods because it gives them a psychological boost in power.

People don’t just buy products because they are functional. Symbolic meaning can be ascribed to shopping behaviours, and not just through the activity of shopping but in what people buy

How did you go about conducting your study?

For our first study, we wanted to see how perceived control impacted people when shopping. Working closely with a supermarket in New York City, we asked shoppers to write a 75- to 100-word essay recalling an experience where they either experienced a lack of control or a gain of control. This put people in either a state of perceived low-control or high-control. Once they had shopped, we collected receipts for analysis.

In the following three studies, we used a variety of contexts but the same control measures so we could probe the different ways a perceived lack of control impacts purchasing decisions. For the second study, after participants had completed the recall task, they had to evaluate a stylish sneaker and a functional one. In the third, they were asked to choose between a juice that was packaged in two ways: either as nutritious (functional) or great tasting (hedonistic).

Having established the effect that a lack of control has in the first three studies, study four looked at whether a motivation to problem solve had an impact. After following the same recall activity, participants were asked to imagine getting a massage either to treat themselves or for immediate pain relief. The next step was to get participants to state their desire to problem solve by ranking statements such as ‘I want to try to come up with a strategy about what to do regarding a problem’ and ‘I want to think about what steps to take to solve a problem’. This gave participants the opportunity to show whether when seeking control they were also more likely to want to solve problems.

Long queues are tolerable if the end result is a feeling of control

We found that the primed state of a lack of control was influencing people’s propensity to buy certain household products. When we started to code what people were buying, we found a corresponding increase in the purchase of utilitarian products. People in the low-control state were buying more batteries, cleaning products, and toilet paper. The reason why they are likely to buy utilitarian or functional products is because a perceived lack of control motivates them to problem solve. This explains the purchase of household goods because they are typically seen as solutions to everyday problems.

We also found that when people feel a lack of control, they are more likely to buy products with useful and functional-looking packaging. The impact of compensatory consumption – which we want to research further – was another surprising finding. When people are buying goods while in a state of low control, a sense of control is restored but perhaps only momentarily.

Amid uncertainty, a stockpile of essentials can boost a sense of preparedness

“On a practical level, when people are self-isolating, they want to feel like they have a grip on the things they might need in the home,” explains Dr. Lee. “But this is also reinforced by herd mentality and social learning. Naturally, if you see lots of people doing one thing, you’re going to feel like you’re missing out.” In these instances, people are reacting in proportion to the scale of the crisis – a worldwide disaster 

 like it warrants a dramatic response. As a result, people are willing to 

 both queuing to get into supermarkets as well as at the checkout. By contrast, research from 2019 found that Britons spent 

When people are experiencing adversity, addressing underlying emotions can help restore 

 and build emotional resilience in the long-run. With self-regulation often not enough to develop effective coping strategies, people are leaning on brands for an emotionally-supportive hand. Indeed, Kantar reports that amid the global pandemic, 

 feel that brands should help them in their daily lives. Tapping into this need for emotional support, UK-based care home CHD Living has launched its 

 campaign aiming to bring comfort to young people and the elderly by connecting them through phone or video calls, postcards, or poems. Meanwhile, Headspace is 

 of free mindfulness exercises that encourage people to practice self-care, and 

 is an app that helps young people experiencing grief better understand their emotions through the context of a story.

An increase in utilitarian purchasing isn’t the only way people are trying to regain a sense of control. In times of uncertainty, a thirst for reliable information leads many to 

 say that they’re checking the news multiple times a day and 51% are increasing their news consumption. But between the misinformation around the virus – which has prompted the WHO to declare an ‘

’ – and the sense of anxiety caused by an 

 laden with ambiguity, there’s a desire to instil more 

 around the frequency and type of media people consume.

Pre-pandemic, one of the go-to sources for day-to-day stress relief was 

 of the world’s population living in lockdown as of March 2020, these channels are seeing an unsurprising surge in usage, with gaming traffic on Verizon’s network 

 in one week. Aside from being driven by boredom, people are turning to content in these spaces for some light-hearted escapism. Released in the UK just as the government ordered people to avoid inessential travel, 

sees people set up a home in a virtual village. There is no set objective, with the aim instead being to lend a helping hand to fellow residents and zone out from reality. Its wholesomeness has proven popular amid the global outbreak – launch sales have been three times higher than those of any previous 

Dr. Leonard Lee is a professor of marketing at NUS Business School and the deputy director of Lloyd's Register Foundation Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on investigating why and how consumers shop in real-world environments, and how experiential and environmental factors affect their shopping behavior.

Global

Behavioural Sciences

The spread of COVID-19 has seen people frantically stock their cupboards and freezers, with empty supermarket shelves a common sight worldwide. Canvas8 spoke to Dr. Leonard Lee, a marketing professor at the National University of Singapore, to understand the human needs that fuel panic-buying.

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