Consumer fear of financial crises during pandemic time and its effect on their buying intentions

The article aims to analyse the moderating roles of the fear factor on the Palestinian consumer's reluctance to purchase apparel in the context of the financial crisis that emerged due to the pandemic. The current study focuses on Palestine, a developing country in the Arab World suffering from several ongoing political and economic crises, making it an exceptional research context. The results showed that the pandemic crisis impacted the Palestinian reluctance to purchase apparel positively since the fear of the future financial situation of an individual is magnified due to the crisis. The fear of catching such a deadly disease also impacted the consumers' perception and expectations about the future. In turn, Palestinian consumers were obligated to adopt a more rational and frugal lifestyle, which led to new behaviour trends, especially towards nonessentials. The study concludes that the fear factor has deepened the positive impact on the consumers' reluctance to purchase apparel, which explains a large part of the apparel consumption drop.