Panic buying is a consumer behavior caused by negative emotions and social influences after a disaster. This study identifies (1) how panic buying occurs over time and (2) who panic buys. Based on the theoretical background of the behavioral and emotional nature of panic buyers, we conducted empirical segmentation to integrate behavioral and psychological data. This study focuses on Japanese consumer packaged goods during the COVID-19 outbreak and finds that there are two waves of increased purchases related to the timing of government interventions between February and April 2020. One of the unique features of this study is combining individual purchase data with psychological factors such as anxiety for COVID-19 and impulsiveness for unplanned purchase measured by a questionnaire survey. Another one is allowing for heterogeneity among consumers in terms of demographic or psychographic characteristics. The results show that panic buying occurred for a limited segment of consumers, that is, consumers with more purchasing experience, including female with larger families hardly panic buy and rather stockpile a little more than usual.

Despite the growing academic attention to consumer affinity, the study of its antecedents had been relatively ignored. The current study focuses on the effect of service recovery on consumer affinity in intercultural service encounters (ICSEs) involving customers and employees from different cultures. The current study has three purposes: (1) determine whether good service recovery improves consumer affinity and, in turn, revisit intention in ICSEs; (2) examine whether this effect is also confirmed in a relative high animosity country; and (3) examine the psychological process by which service recovery enhances consumer affinity. We conducted a series of scenario-based experiments to examine our hypotheses. The results revealed that good service recovery led to greater intention to revisit the country via consumer affinity as opposed to bad service recovery. However, the effect of service recovery disappeared or attenuated in a high animosity country. Further, two types of service recovery (i.e. process and outcome) influenced consumer affinity via both warmth and competence. We discussed theoretical implications, practical contributions, and future research directions based on the empirical results.