Resumo

Consumption is one of the activities inherent to the daily lives of human beings, where the historical, economic, social, political, and cultural context, as well as emotions, intervene in the way of acting and directly influence consumer behavior and decision-making (Oliveira, Antonialli, 2019; Ono et al., 2014). Therefore, knowing what consumers want and how they make their purchasing decisions is essential for organizations to be successful in their market (Oliveira, Antonialli, 2019).

to understand how embarrassment manifests itself in consumer behavior during the act of purchasing at physical points of sale in the pharmaceutical sector, emphasizing the causes and strategies used by consumers to deal with emotions arising from the consumption relationship, specifically: 1) observe which signs demonstrate embarrassed consumer behavior; 2) verify the behavior and strategies used by consumers to deal with embarrassment in the purchasing process, and 3) understand the meanings and influences of embarrassment on the purchasing decision.

Consumer decision-making is influenced by rational aspects that influence the evaluation of tangible benefits or the need to solve a problem and emotional aspects that influence the purchase of affective, hedonic, and experiential products, capable of triggering the perception of the consumer and influence their behavior (Isabella, Barros, and Mazzon, 2015). Thus, emotions, as components of consumer response, affect consumption experiences and the decision-making process.

This research was carried out using the technique of semi-structured interviews with pharmacy attendants (representing an observer’s view) and consumers (representing a consumer’s view), as they are people in immediate contact with products associated with embarrassing situations. In this sense, the research observed the point of view of customers and pharmacy attendants in the city of Oeiras in the state of Piauí, Brazil. The Snowball method was used to select the participating subjects.

The work was developed from a qualitative perspective, valuing the natural context of the emergence of phenomena and their understanding based on the meanings that people attribute to them (Flick, 2009), where the interviews ceased after empirical saturation. After transcribing all interviews, the material was processed in stages: reading and choosing the most significant units, coding the meaning cores of each context unit, and thematizing the meaning cores. To this end, the ATLAS.ti qualitative analysis software was used; all statements (attendants and consumers’)

the results indicate that the need is directly related to the behavior of the embarrassed consumer and is related at three different moments: 1) the need is a decisive factor in deciding to purchase a product considered embarrassing; 2) embarrassment is an emotion that emerges when the need to purchase an embarrassing product is perceived and accompanies the consumer throughout the purchase process, being decisive for their behavior when purchasing; and 3) it is not the need for the product that causes embarrassment, but rather the fear of other people’s judgment or the privacy exposure

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