Online hijab purchase intention: the influence of the Coronavirus outbreak

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to explore the effects of the Coronavirus outbreak and the subjective norm and attitude on shopper’s intentions to purchase Hijab online. It hypothesises the influences of the Coronavirus outbreak as situational determinants, which include the place accessibility (e.g. the shutting of physical Hijab stores) and stores environment (e.g. well-being risks in physical shops, online shopping movement and extra marketing attempts from online Hijab stores through the outbreak). Design/methodology/approach Structured questionnaires were retrieved from 366 female Muslim shoppers, both wearing and not wearing Hijab. ADANCO 2.0.1 programming and PLS-SEM were applied in empirical investigation. Findings The results on direct relationships reveal that the Coronavirus outbreak situational determinants including place accessibility (ACCESS) and store environment (ENVIRO) and shopper’s attitude towards online Hijab purchase (ATTITU) are strong predictors of online Hijab purchase intention (ONLINE). At the same time, the subjective norm (SUBJEC) predicts ATTITU. The indirect mediation between SUBJEC on ONLINE was also confirmed. Practical implications These discoveries would help the Hijab business players, i.e. online sellers, retailers and marketers to increase their web pages’ quality and marketing efforts. Originality/value The research is an initial concept and empirical evidence investigating the Coronavirus outbreak’s situational influences and the effects of attitude and subjective norm on shoppers’ intentions to purchase Hijab online.