A research on hedonic and utility consumption behaviors of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic process

The covid-19 virus, which emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019, has been the history of the past ebola, sars, etc. in the world history. Contrary to such epidemics, it has affected the whole world. The Covid-19 virus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020 and caused the death of millions of people within two years. For the Covid-19 pandemic, two different vaccines were developed and applied in 2021, and the normalization process was started. This process has led to serious changes in the field of health in the world. With the serious changes experienced, the consumption habits of consumers have also changed. In addition to meeting their basic needs, consumers have started to tend to buy products that make them happy and enjoy themselves during the mandatory and/or optional quarantine process. While meeting the basic needs in the fastest and most comfortable way is expressed as utilitarian consumption in the marketing literature, pleasurable shopping for the purposes of making oneself happy and socializing is also called hedonic consumption. The aim of the study is to contribute to the literature by addressing the changing consumption habits of consumers during the Covid-19 pandemic process. In the study, the hedonic and utilitarian consumption behaviors of consumers during the covid-19 pandemic process were examined. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine the construct validity of the Covid-19 pandemic process, hedonic and utilitarian consumption scales. For these analyses, total (n=137) and (n=400) units of data were collected at different times and respectively. The three-dimensional factor structure of the Covid-19 pandemic process (fear, precaution, attitude), the four-dimensional factor structure of hedonic consumption behavior (hedonic effect, hedonic adaptation, identity reflection, social purpose shopping) and the two-dimensional factor structure of utilitarian consumption behavior (target focus, locus of control). The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient was found to be 0.93 and it was determined that the questionnaire was reliable. Apart from the data collected within the scope of scale development, a total of (n= 400) units of data were collected to be used in the main research. Pearson coefficients were examined to determine the relationships between the Covid-19 pandemic process, hedonic consumption behavior and utilitarian consumption behaviors. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA); t-test analysis was used to test the differences by gender. Tukey multiple comparison tests were used to reveal which variables differed according to the results of analysis of variance. According to the results of the research, positive between covid-19 pandemic process and hedonic consumption behavior, positive between covid-19 pandemic process and utilitarian consumption behavior, negative between hedonic consumption behavior and utilitarian consumption behavior, and p= 0.01 and p=0.05 at significance level relationships have been found.