The psychology of panic buying

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2020

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How the spread of coronavirus is changing consumer behaviour. Elizabeth Hotson goes on the hunt for toilet paper and hand sanitizer on the streets of London. Ed Butler speaks to Charlene Chan, marketing researcher and consumer psychology researcher at Nanyang School of Business in Singapore about how feeling a loss of control influences our buying behaviour. Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, tells us what panic buying says about the psychology of pandemics.

(Photo: Shoppers stock up on toilet paper and other supplies as Canadians purchase food and essential items in Markham, Ontario, Canada. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, yes, we've had a problem here.
0:01.9	13 minutes to the moon, season two.
0:04.7	There wasn't anything we could do about it.
0:07.2	Episode 1, available now.
0:12.5	Hi there, I'm Ed Butler.
0:14.7	Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.
0:17.8	Today, panic buying, feeling panic.
0:23.4	Where's it all coming from? Friends and family,
0:29.2	people on Facebook, recommending it's good to have a fair amount of food available. I don't know where it's coming from originally. There seem to be many, many sources. Panic buying and the
0:33.8	surprising logic that goes with it. They're racing to the store to stock up because they're worried that you're going to race to the store and stock up.
0:40.4	You're racing to the store to stock up because you're worried they're going to race to the store to stock up.
0:44.3	Each of us here is making rational decisions, but the end result is a panic.
0:49.0	Reasons to be fearful. Business Daily from the BBC.
0:57.0	Get off there!'s the sound of a fight this week, breaking out in an Australian supermarket aisle.
1:06.9	One shopper with a trolley absolutely packed full of toilet paper is denying another one any of it.
1:13.6	I just want one pack.
1:15.8	No, not one back.
1:17.6	Well, the rush to grab basic essentials like these seem to be happening worldwide at the moment.
1:23.7	Charlene Chen is a professor of marketing and a consumer psychologist specialising in panic buying at the Nanyang School of Business in Singapore.
1:32.3	When you experience a loss of control, what it does to you is put you in a problem-solving mindset, we call it.
1:39.6	You would want to restore control by trying to resolve these issues that you face. So in this coronavirus panic,
1:46.9	it is about protecting yourself. And that's why we saw a lot of masks, a lot of hand sanitizers
	...

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