Consumer Behaviour during the Covid-19 Pandenic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a unique and rare situation the world has never seen before. The COVID-19 virus has spread to the whole world and effected consumers in various ways. One of the ways the consumers have been affected is by their purchasing behavior and habits. The authorities have set in with a number of regulation and recommendations to prevent the spreading of the virus. This has changed the everyday life of the consumers. They cannot go to the all the stores they wish to go to, and the ones that are open have specific guidelines for their customers. This has led to a change of behavior within the consumers, and they have to find other ways to do their normal shopping. Digitalization has been accelerated on various aspects, both for shopping, social life and work life. The focus area of this paper is the city of Vallensbæk, Denmark which is placed in western part of the Copenhagen region. The focus has been places here, as this area is known for having a large concentration of contamination with COVID-19.
This paper will look at the immediate reactions to the lockdown of the society in March 2020 regarding panic buying and hoarding. It was analyzed why the consumers reacted as they did and what consequences it led to. The result showed that the consumers were scared, and they got affected by other consumer to panic buy as they thought there would be a shortage of supply due to the crisis. The concept of digitalization has been analyzed, and the result showed that the consumers have digitalized their everyday life on many areas. This research has also showed that the consumers have been given the responsibility to determine which direction this crisis will go and how it will affect us. Finally, the economic aspect of the crisis has also been analyzed but showed that the Danish consumers were not affected negatively in their economy due to the aid packages from the government.