Factors Influencing the Purchase of Face Masks in the USA During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

, one of the most challenging unprecedented global pandemics of human history, has changed people's work life and social life tremendously. Wearing a face mask is one of the most visible habits that people had to adapt to reduce the transmission of the Coronavirus. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of respondents' sociodemographic factors and working place on their face mask purchasing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA. Secondary cross-sectional data were used in this study. An online survey administered on social media (between 20-30 March 2020) was used to collect data from adult research participants that reside in the United States through Qualtrics. From total of 6602 data, after deducting the missing values, 4949 data were used in this study for further analysis. The binary logistic regression model was used to conduct the study. The study found gender, age, education, and workplace as significant factors that influence people's face mask purchasing behavior. In addition, college education, gender, and workplace are positively associated with face mask purchase. Conversely, young age is negatively associated with respondents' face mask purchases. Though the study has limitations in the case of data representation and uses only a few variables, its findings provide some critical insights to the marketers to restructure their market segmentation. Besides, results could offer essential understandings to the relevant stakeholders, who are working to ensure face cover by people to reduce transmission of Coronavirus.