Impact of Brand Crisis on Brand Avoidance in Electronic Retailing Portal with the Mediating Effect of Brand Love and E-Brand Trust: with Special Reference to Fast Moving Consumer Good Consumption in Western Province

Abstract

The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market is one of the most competitive and aggressive markets globally. Even though many branding concepts were investigated by the previous researchers, brand crisis and brand avoidance behavior were not sufficiently investigated in the local context. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the impact of the brand crisis on brand avoidance with the mediating effect of brand love and e-brand trust within the FMCG purchases via e-retailing portal in Western Province, Sri Lanka. As this study is quantitative in nature, it has used structured survey questionnaires, identifying a sample of 325, which consist of online users especially referring to generation Y and Z, using a multistage mix sampling method. In terms of testing hypothesis, the researchers have followed Partial Least Square (PLS), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The structural model's bootstrapping results demonstrated that brand crisis positively impacts brand avoidance, negative relationships in between brand crisis and e-brand trust, brand love and brand avoidance, e-brand trust, and brand avoidance. Since the study focuses only on the FMCG category within an online context, the generalization of findings is framed only for the given context. However, along with the mediation of e-brand trust, it has proved that e-brand trust prevents brand avoidance in FMCG online retailing in times of crisis.