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Upon lifting lockdown measures, pent-up consumer demand resulted in a phenomenon known as “revenge-buying” that was influenced by cognitive and habitual factors. This study collected 629 samples from Beijing consumers using straightforward online random sampling methods, ensuring the sample’s representativeness. Structural equation modeling was employed to investigate the impact of cognitive factors on revenge-buying after lockdowns and explain this phenomenon from the consumers’ habitual behavior perspective. Specifically, we developed a novel model that incorporates insights from the concept of attitudes and habits literature within the framework of the protection motivation theory to address this research question. The results reveal that habit significantly affects all cognitive factors, except response cost. Cognitive factors such as perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, response efficacy, self-efficacy, and response cost all play a role in shaping consumers’ attitudes and driving revenge-buying behavior. Furthermore, consumers’ habits contribute significantly to their likelihood of revenge-buying. This study provides empirical evidence for revenge-buying, and the proposed theoretical model offers a more complete understanding of the cognitive factors and habits that drive this behavior. These findings can help businesses to attract consumers, improve satisfaction, and better compete in the context of revenge-buying, ultimately benefiting both consumers and businesses involved in this behavior.

This study aims to understand the influence of COVID-19 on consumers' fears and self-protection motivations. Furthermore, the study seeks to understand the effects of these fears and motivations on consumers' intentions to use omnichannel retailing. A modified theoretical model is proposed by integrating protection motivation theory (PMT) and extending the extended parallel process model (E-EPPM). A total of 398 valid questionnaires are collected and used for further structural equation modeling analysis. The results suggest that the perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, and health anxiety positively impact perceived fears surrounding COVID-19. Furthermore, it is found that perceived fear, self-efficacy, and response efficacy will affect the protection motivation of consumers and ultimately contribute to their behavioral intention to use omnichannel retailing. The findings theoretically enrich the research on COVID-19, PMT, and E-EPPM and empirically provide managerial implications for omnichannel retail service providers.