Emergency Purchasing Situations: Implications for Consumer Decision-Making

We introduce Emergency Purchasing Situations (EPS) as a distinct buying context. EPS arise as a result of an unexpected need or timing of a need, and lead consumers to take a decision within a relatively short time frame. we integrate largely disconnected strands of research and theories relevant to EPS and offers a series of independent propositions to understand how these situations might affect consumer decision making, specifically heuristic versus reflective information processing in product evaluation. we discuss changes induced by the buying context in terms of regulatory focus, perceived time pressure and stress and offer avenues for future research.