This study explores consumer behavior during the pandemic through the lens of social cognitive theory (SCT). Using the SCT framework and assessing the pandemic as an environmental set, this study strives to fill the gaps in the underexplored impacts of the personal processes of consumer vulnerability, resilience, and adaptability on the behavioral processes of purchase satisfaction and repurchase. The research results show that consumers are self‐efficacious to a degree when it comes to purchase decision making in the context of pandemics. Vulnerability and resilience directly influence the purchase satisfaction and indirectly influence the repurchase intention via satisfaction. Furthermore, purchase satisfaction positively affects the repurchase intention. In addition, research results show that consumer adaptability to online shopping moderates the relationship between consumer resilience and purchase satisfaction. These findings have practical implications in terms of marketers’ communication strategy development.

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Shopping enjoyment represents an important research concept within the consumer behaviour and marketing communication field. The purpose of this research is to explore direct influences of personal factors (attitudes toward the advertising, the need for individuality/ uniqueness, price sensitivity) on shopping enjoyment, its impact on the word of mouth communication (WOM) and the moderating effects of demographic variables (gender and education) on these relationships. The research was conducted on the representative sample of 1000 Croatian respondents. The variety of statistical techniques, including SEM, was employed for data analysis. The results show that personal factors positively influence shopping enjoyment, which is positively related to WOM communication. Furthermore, the results confirm the moderating effects of gender and education on the relationship between the shopping enjoyment and WOM. These research findings contribute to the scientific knowledge enrichment and offer some practical marketing implications. Namely, the marketing experts can better understand the consumer's factors impacting shopping enjoyment, which can enable them to adequately assess the necessary appeals and to create an effective and persuasive marketing communication. At the end, the paper addresses the research limitations and offers some future research directions.

PurposeBy drawing on protection motivation theory, this study explores consumers' motivation to engage in adaptive behaviour envisioned through a transition from offline to online clothing purchasing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this paper explores the conditioning effects of consumer resilience and satisfaction with retailers' assistive intent through the consumer well-being framework.Design/methodology/approachA total of 363 useable surveys were obtained from Croatian consumers. Data were analysed with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.FindingsCoping appraisal positively impacts adaptive behaviour by increasing online clothing purchase intention, while threat appraisal has no direct effect on adaptive behaviour. The relationship between threat appraisal and adaptive behaviour is negatively moderated by consumer resilience and satisfaction with the retailer's assistive intent.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations include the convenience sampling method and data collection at one point as well as the focus on consumers from one country.Practical implicationsThis study provides a blueprint for designing marketing actions that retail managers should consider to respond to a crisis effectively while maintaining satisfactory buying experiences during health crises and other challenging events.Originality/valueGiven the unique research context, i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic, this study is one of the few and the first in Croatia to unfold the importance of protection motivation theory in providing a greater understanding of consumer's adaptive behaviour (transition from offline to online) in online clothing retail channels during the period of the global health-related crisis. Benefits from understanding consumers' coping and threat appraisal mechanisms while addressing their buying needs in adverse circumstances are revealed. In addition, the theoretical implications regarding the conditional effects of consumer resilience and consumer satisfaction with retailers' assistive intent during a pandemic are also provided.

This article addresses the issue of predicting and stimulating consumers' word of mouth communication (WOM). It contributes to the WOM literature by examining and comparing the magnitude of effects of a set of antecedents and consequences of WOM information spread and WOM information seek in one model. The data collected from consumer survey in Croatia were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results reveal that consumer innovativeness, followed by price sensitivity and attitudes towards advertising are the most important drivers of both WOM variables, whereas the effects are stronger for WOM information seek than WOM information spread. The results also indicate that WOM information seek has a four times stronger effect on buying intention than WOM information spread, which can be utilised by retailers. Accordingly, retailers should focus on WOM information seek and try to stimulate it by introducing new products in the first place, but also with frequent sales, and appealing advertising messages.