Introduction
The COVID-19 epidemic has irrevocably altered the global economy and human life. There was undeniable evidence that limiting people’s freedom of movement affected business and home operations and, by extension, altered consumer behavior and spending patterns. According to Pollak et al., consumer behavior studies how people decide which items to buy, how to choose among them, and how to use those products to fulfill their requirements and gratify their wants (99). Understanding this process is challenging because of the high number of non-uniform factors. Various factors can cause customers to reconsider their purchase decision at the last minute. As a result, keeping a close eye on the requirements and procedures and purchasing behavior is essential. This paper aims to show these shifts in light of the epidemic and draw attention to the associated difficulties in purchasing habits and customer behavior.
In consuming a product, the buyer responds to a need or desire, acquires it, and ultimately gets rid of it. The consumption of industrial and agricultural products, housing, services, and wealth are all critical to the standard consumer’s standard of living (Mehta et al. 292). All consumers are unique because personal experiences and cultural norms shape their habits. Consumers are constantly making decisions about what they want to buy, how they will use it, how they will rate it, and whether or not to keep it (Mehta et al. 293). Social issues influence consumers’ behavior at the macro level, but the elements influencing their actions at the micro level require more in-depth study. According to Mehta et al., consumers constantly strive to purchase items that bring them the most benefit, pleasure, or satisfaction (293).
Early in 2020, an outbreak of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was first reported in China, and it quickly spread over the world, devastatingly impacting businesses and industries everywhere. In the tradition of previous crises and shock events, COVID-19 has had a significant effect on the state of the world economy, bringing about widespread recession, the demise of entire industries, and a surge in the jobless rate.
Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior
The significant factors influencing consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic are the pandemic and the technological, political-legal, economic, psychological, and social-cultural contexts (Cruz-Cárdenas et al. 7). The psychological focus is on the individual’s psyche and how it affects their purchasing decisions; the sociological examines how consumers respond to different situations and how their actions are shaped by larger social forces like culture and authority figures; and the economic, which is rooted in an understanding of the microeconomy in which individuals’ wants and needs are determined (Mehta et al. 293). Therefore, market forces pit the competing interests of consumers against one another.
Technological Effect on Consumer Behavior
COVID-19, the technological landscape, and the political and legal framework are all given significant weight. Different studies show how the convergence of COVID-19 and existing technologies has prompted consumers to rapidly embrace new methods and raise their consumption of highly digital business formats (Cruz-Cárdenas et al. 7). To be more specific, the issues of potential shortages and the inability of consumers to stockpile products were addressed and overcome by the e-commerce and business platform formats. Additionally, social lives flourished thanks to technology, which can be seen in the widespread use of social media platforms despite the pandemic.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers actively or passively seek information as a valuable aspect of decision-making. Information is widely disseminated through social media. Food storage, health problems, isolation from others, and the economy are all popular discussion points. However, social media can also lead to frantic purchasing, especially amid a lockdown. This action was motivated by recommendations from coworkers, fears of a product shortage, the COVID-19 pandemic, official statements, and international news (Cruz-Cárdenas et al. 7). In addition, the media, social media, and friends and family all have a role in shaping how and why people make purchases on business websites, platforms, and applications.
Consumers have embraced numerous new technologies and their associated applications out of pure necessity. Applications like Zoom, which facilitates online meetings, are a good illustration. Most internet-connected homes have learned to use Zoom to keep in touch with relatives and friends who live far away. Naturally, it has spread to telehealth, where patients can have virtual doctor’s appointments and other services without ever leaving their homes, and to remote lessons for Primary and higher education (Cruz-Cárdenas et al. 8). Customers are unable to access supermarkets and malls. In its place, shopping is brought right into people’s living rooms.
Similarly, professions and academic pursuits also play a significant role. This shifts the regular order of things in terms of income, learning, health, and consumption. The rise of on-demand services like Disney, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, as well as in-home delivery of other goods, is helping to dismantle the peculiar custom of actually going to actual stores (Cruz-Cárdenas et al. 9). The trend also encourages consumers to tailor their shopping experiences to their preferences.
Consequently, using technology to digitize processes or products has increased sales during the COVID-19 epidemic by reducing the need for customers to interact with personnel or other customers in person. Hotel bookings are more likely to occur, for instance, when people may use their smartphones or kiosks to make reservations (Cruz-Cárdenas et al. 13). Furthermore, cutting-edge cleaning equipment mitigates the unfavorable impact of staff interaction on service uptake intentions. The technology ensures tidiness and little customer interaction. The potential for identity theft and monetary fraud are additional concerns consumers have while purchasing online. Trust and reputation are at the heart of marketing techniques that aim to mitigate this risk. Less well-known e-commerce businesses and platforms can benefit from longer-term marketing initiatives like price cuts or increased revenues.
Economic and Political-Legal Effects on Consumer Behavior
Economic growth is inextricably interwoven with the political-legal setting. During quarantine, lockdown, social isolation, and school cancellations, governments worldwide implemented strict legal regulations. However, not all countries implemented lockdown policies. Nevertheless, consumers’ actions led to a worldwide decline in economies (Cruz-Cárdenas et al. 8). Despite this, they spent more money on groceries and personal care products. Consumers in countries who did not implement a lockdown strategy erred on the side of caution.
Consumers’ habits shifted in ways that went beyond the customary geographical display of purchases as they were constrained in their movements, abilities, and purchases due to a rising global dread of infection. Every act of consumption is linked in space and time. Regulars tend to have set routines regarding the time, place, and type of purchases they make. Naturally, this is not restricted to edible items. The same holds for the consumer experience, including window browsing, informational queries, and the aftermath of a purchase. Further, consumer behavior is very predictable, and numerous solid predictive models and consumer insights are available on the back of individuals’ historical patterns of repeat purchases (Cruz-Cárdenas et al. 9). Because of time constraints, more and more people are making their purchases online and having them delivered to their homes. Vacations are also shorter than they used to be, with most people taking one or two-week trips around the year’s most significant holidays.
Consumers cannot go wherever they like because of lockdown and social alienation. Since then, location options have become limited. Mobility is changing, and there is a lack of it. Nowadays, everything from work to education to shopping is being brought closer to home (Guthrie et al. 12). Concurrently, people have more time on their hands because they do not have to stick to rigid timetables for things like going to work or school or even doing things like shopping or eating. Smartphones, the internet, and electronic commerce are among the most significant technological developments of recent years. The ease and convenience of conducting a web search and placing an order online greatly affected how people shop for and use goods and services.
This shift in consumer preference can be traced back to the advent of e-commerce as a reliable substitute for conventional forms of trade, which marked the beginning of the end for brick-and-mortar stores as the primary location for consumer interactions. According to Pollak et al. (110), the market as a whole was able to adjust to the abnormal circumstances quickly, with both the supply and demand sides making adjustments. Based on consumer trends, business-to-consumer (B2C) exchanges have increased in the markets. As the bulk of communication moves to weekdays, the weekend sees a sharp drop-in activity much lower than usual for buyers and sellers.
During the covid, 19 consumers have been involved in panic buying. Consumers’ panic buying occurs before, during, or after a disaster or imagined disaster or when they anticipate a significant price increase or supply shortage and is characterized by purchasing vast quantities of various products (Singh et al. 5). When people panic and buy massive amounts, stores quickly run out of staples like food and medicine, making it difficult, if not impossible, for those who need them the most, such as the aged and the destitute, to get their hands on them. The COVID-19 pandemic raises the question of whether or not consumers can be better trained to prevent such behaviors in the face of future shocks and crises (Singh et al. 5). Panic buying can be attributed to four main factors: misperception, uncertainty anxiety, ineffective coping strategies, and social psychological factors.
Consumers develop a spirit of innovation in the face of shortages. As a result, people are giving up long-held practices and creating novel approaches to consumption. Consumers’ ingenuity and fortitude at the beginning of the coronavirus inspired fresh approaches to age-old rituals like weddings and funerals (Guthrie et al. 12). To improvise finding workable solutions by thinking outside the box and figuring out how to overcome barriers set up by societal standards or government regulation. In addition, it entails making do with less, making the most of challenges, remaining open-minded and adaptable, and acting on instinct.
The availability of free time at home has inspired innovative cooking, musical, educational, and commercial practices. As some of these creations gain viral traction, consumers may find themselves in the role of creators (Mehta et al. 8). Videos posted to YouTube and similar sites are ripe with ideas and opportunities for growth and profit. It is also a common practice to put off major purchases and reduce the use of luxury items during times of crisis and unpredictability resulting in delayed demand in the future.
The Psychological Effect on Consumer Behavior
The negative mental states and emotions brought on by the epidemic have also been the focus of several studies on consumer behavior. Cognitive dissonance, anxiety, and sadness resulted from the COVID-19 risk perception and information overload (Di Crosta et al. 7). People isolate themselves because they believe the pandemic is dangerous. The consumer’s unfavorable emotional states are linked to hoarding behavior. An overabundance of health paranoia drives people to hoard food and toiletries. When people feel down, they are more likely to spend money they do not have on things they do not need. However, they are less likely to use services that require social interaction (Di Crosta et al. 7). Fear of catching the pandemic virus COVID-19 has been a significant factor in people staying home and away from airplanes.
Self-justification tactics are another important psychological aspect of consumer behavior. Self-justification is the process of reevaluating one’s thoughts and actions to alleviate the internal conflict caused by inconsistencies in one’s worldview (Di Crosta et al. 8). People are constantly trying to rationalize their poor choices to protect their self-worth. It is well-accepted in the field of consumer behavior that people tend to emphasize the facts that back up their decisions and minimize the ones that call them into doubt (Di Crosta et al. 8). Evidence from the literature suggests that, in the setting of the COVID-19 epidemic, individuals use the pursuit of freedom and the rejection of boredom as excuses for purchasing non-essential items.
In addition, the hedonistic “I could die tomorrow” or “You only live once” mindset could come back in the face of the COVID-19 emergency and become a significant factor in explaining disparities in consumer behavior (Di Crosta et al. 8). Since products for enjoyment, or amusement may be more adapted to the pursuit of liberty and to defying boredom, self-justifications tactics may be applicable for non-necessities in the perspective of the COVID-19 pandemic (Di Crosta et al. 8). Conversely, the nature of needs makes it more challenging to employ self-justification tactics associated with these purchases. It may not be required to provide further explanations for purchasing those needed products, given that the unusual nature of the epidemic may already justify their acquisition.
Finally, a person’s personality qualities and situational considerations relating to a particular emergency play a role in shaping consumer behavior. Prior studies have shown that each personality trait has the unique ability to foretell consumer behavior. In particular, openness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability, also known as neuroticism, were linked to all three types of shopping behavior which are impulsive, compulsive, and utilitarian (Di Crosta et al. 8). There was a positive correlation between extraversion and a negative correlation between neuroticism and impulse buys. The renunciation of consuming may have resulted from another characteristic, such as agreeableness. However, it is still unclear how different personality qualities connect to shoppers’ actions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the paper contributes to the expanding body of literature by providing insight into how consumer behavior changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby improving economic and psychological preparedness for future health emergencies. The paper has discussed the key factors influencing consumer behavior during the pandemic. These factors include technological, economic, political-legal, sociological, psychological, and individual personality traits. Consumers have increased purchases of products through the new technological platforms due to lockdowns. Consumer behavior has also been influenced by psychological factors such as self-justification and emotions. The pandemic has also influenced the level of creativity and innovativeness of consumers. Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically influenced consumer behavior.
Works Cited
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