Impact of COVID-19 on fish consumers: Market price, expenditure, and satisfaction perspective

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the effects of COVID-19 on the market prices, spending on fish purchases, and consumer satisfaction level based on a random survey of 247 fish consumers in Bangladesh. The Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was employed to make comparisons between two consumer groups (who consumed Pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19). Besides, consumer satisfaction with income, purchase frequency, quantity consumed, market price, fish quality, and availability during the pandemic was analyzed using the relative index, while the Tobit regression model was used to estimate the determinants of satisfaction level. Prices of cultured and captured fish species such as pangas, catla, mrigel, common carp, mola, tengra, bayeem, boal, shoil, have experienced sharp price fluctuation during COVID-19 due to supply chain disruptions and changing fish supplies in the market. The reduction in expenses on culture fish species varied from $4.190 to $4.212 while the reduction in expenses on capture fish species ranged from $7.985 to $8.178. In addition, low-income individuals are relatively less satisfied with their income, amount, frequency, and price of fish purchases than the lower middle, upper middle- and high-income groups. Consumer satisfaction declined during COVID-19 while income, frequency, and quantity of purchases plummeted and fish market prices increased. Therefore, the government might place a greater emphasis on eradicating supply chain disruption during pandemic like COVID-19 by avoiding nationwide lockdown to maintain stability in the market prices of fish, spending on fish purchases, consumer income, and make all income groups satisfied.