ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic outbreak had multi-dimensional impacts on people's daily lives. This work attempts to understand whether urban Indian households' preference for grocery stores changed after the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak and identify the factors influencing grocery store choice pre and post-pandemic outbreak. The work also studied whether households assigned greater importance to supply chain sustainability factors post-pandemic outbreak. The grocery purchase behaviour of urban Indian households was studied through an online survey of 506 households conducted during the initial phase of the pandemic outbreak. The survey questionnaire included sociodemographic, store and sustainability factors and store choice. The store choice determining factors and sustainability-related factors were taken from relevant literature. Store choice models were developed using a discrete choice multinomial logit model to understand the significant determining factors for retail store choice pre and postpandemic outbreak. In the pre-pandemic situation, household size, income, discount, product quality, ambience and the relationship with the shopkeeper significantly affected store choice. However, income, discount, store distance, pack size, credit facilities and delivery issues became significant post-pandemic outbreak. The popularity of most preferred local grocers increased post-pandemic outbreak. However, for higher-income customers or those preferring discounts, local store preference decreased, and multiple sourcing increased post-pandemic outbreak. Local store patrons valued relationship, quality and convenient shopping hours. Also, households were observed to be more concerned about food safety and nutrition rather than production method and animal welfare. With multiple ripples of the pandemic and fear of resurgence, the findings of this work will be valuable for designing customer retention strategies for various store formats in India.
ABSTRACT
Use of public transportation by regular commuters can help to reduce congestion and pollution in cities. Improving public transportation facilties may not be sufficient to improve its use and understanding the factors that determine use intention may help to improve public transport use specially for young adults who travel for work regularly. The current work aims to systematically assess public transport use intention for regular commuters below the age of 45 years, who may continue using or switch to public transport when facilities improve in Indian context post Covid-19 outbreak using a modified Theory of Planned Behavior framework. The work considers public transport improvement from two aspects, first, improvement in availability, which ensures less crowding, so that peoples' perceived safety improves from social distancing perspective and second, reduced travel times. It could be observed from this study that out of the demographic variables annual family income and education significantly affected use intentions but not family size and gender. It was observed in Indian context that social norms significantly affected public transport use intentions, but not an individual's attitude indicating that individuals are more concerned about social mandates over their personal preferences. Also, a person who has traveled in public transport mode in recent past was observed to have greater intent to continue using public transport than those who did not. Interestingly, people with higher income and education levels showed greater intent of public transport use. The observations from this study may be used for designing focused interventions to improve public transport use intentions in developing countries like India.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak and worldwide spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in recent human memory and has affected normal lifestyle of people worldwide. The lockdown restrictions imposed by countries across the globe created concerns about food availability and this affected grocery purchase and stocking behaviour of households. Researchers worldwide started analysing the nature and trend of changes in the behaviour and effect of socio-demographic factors on the change. However, limited studies have been undertaken in the Indian context. Also, how family structure influences panic buying behaviour has not been studied in detail so far. This work studies in detail whether the pandemic outbreak affected grocery purchase trends of Indian households in terms of the duration for which grocery purchase was being made, amount spent on grocery shopping per purchase and type of grocery items preferred using an online household survey of 506 families from all over India. Also, the influence of household income, family structure and grocery availability and delivery issues on grocery stocking behaviour has been studied in detail using Apriori algorithm. It was observed that panic buying is a reality, and quantity stocked and amount spent per purchase changed significantly after outbreak of the pandemic. Also, family income, size and presence of elderly and children in the household were found to affect buying patterns. Though it is difficult to predict long-term effect on behaviour change, with fear of prolonged pandemic situation and many countries resuming lockdown for a second time, this study is expected to be effective for design of supply policies of essentials in the new normal situation.