Coffee shops visiting during the pandemic: Moderating effects of process and physical evidence

Abstract

This study investigated the factors influencing consumers’ decision to purchase coffee products during the COVID-19 pandemic. Coffee retailers are faced with the impact of the pandemic and need to provide a safe and hygienic in-store environment. A quantitative method was applied to a dataset of 428 dataset collected from an online survey in Thailand. The results suggest that the effects of the key indicators ‘promotion’, ‘people’ and ‘price’ are accelerated by the moderating effect of ‘process’. On the other hand, the moderating effect of ‘physical evidence’ was found to be influential only via the interaction between ‘people’ and ‘price’. For the moderators, it was shown that ‘process’ in particular, together with ‘price’, has a significant impact on consumer purchase intentions. The moderating effects of ‘process’ and ‘physical evidence’ on the sale of coffee products are important implications that should be reflected in the marketing strategy in order to maintain business sustainability. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.