![]() The implications of the findings are discussed later against the backdrop of similar issues emerging in leading western economies currently facing the fallout of this growing pandemic. As part of this study, insights were sought on prior shopping patterns – familiar sources of food shopping – as well as evidence of how switching took place. As such, this study presents a customer-centred enquiry of supply versus demand to grocery retailing at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this difficult time, the supply and demand of food was unbalanced due to the shortage of supply and potentially by panic buying behaviours (Cachero 2020), which have since been replicated in much of the rest of the world. Due to the geographical origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, the data was collected in China with a focus on eliciting early insights from food and grocery shopping behaviours during the embryonic stages of the pandemic when it was still classified as a mere outbreak. For this purpose, the theory of planned behaviour first posited by Ajzen ( 1991) is adopted to explore planned changes to consumer food shopping behaviours at the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Forster & Tang 2005) and largely ignored other retail formats, including small independent retailers and traditional markets. This study seeks to contribute to current knowledge of customer behaviour in retail within the context of a major public health crisis, which has been somewhat dominated by research related to supermarkets and online purchases (e.g. 2008) due to the prevailing geography of earlier pandemics. 2009 Jamal & Budke 2020) with the majority of studies focusing on Asia (McKercher & Chon 2004 Kuo et al. 2006 Chien and Law 2006 Jayawardena et al. Indeed, earlier research has shown that major pandemics, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 or the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2015, can have major impacts on supply chains (Cavinato 2004 Oke & Gopalakrishnan 2009) and consumer behaviour in retail with a specific focus on online food shopping even if most of this research has been carried out primarily from a hospitality (Alan et al. #At the outset full2020).Īlthough the full impact of this crisis on the retail sector will only emerge once it has been brought under control, early indications show that retail outlet closures ordered by governments around the world as well as changes in consumer behaviours associated with this pandemic are having a detrimental impact on the sector already, to the point that up to 20,000 high street retail outlets have been forecast to close in the UK alone as a result of this pandemic (Munbodth 2020). Since then, many other countries in Europe and further afield have followed suit by issuing restrictions to their citizens’ movements in order to stem the spread of the virus (Chinazzi et al. As a response to the initial outbreak, China was the first country in the world to impose a mandatory nation-wide self-quarantine between 23 January and 9 February 2020 (Bloomberg News 2020). This has had a major impact on consumers and the retail sector across Europe and further afield (Feng and Fay 2020 Evans 2020). Since its outbreak in Wuhan (China) in early January 2020, the COVID-19 strain of the novel coronavirus spread rapidly across China and beyond to affect 200 countries with tragic consequences – over 3 million cases (over 1.4 million in Europe alone) of reported infections with in excess of 190,000 people dead by the end of April of 2020 (WHO 2020). This study suggests avenues for further scholarly research and policy making related to the impact this behaviour may be having around the world on society’s more vulnerable groups, particularly the elderly. Data from the online survey carried out suggest that the outbreak triggered considerable levels of switching behaviours among customers, with farmers’ markets losing most of their customers, while local small independent retailers experienced the highest levels of resilience in terms of customer retention. The research adopts the theory of planned behaviour to provide early empirical insights into changes in consumer behaviour related to food purchases during the initial stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. This resulted in major disruptions to one of the most common market processes in retail: food retailing. This study focuses on the embryonic stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, where most people affected opted to abide by the Chinese government’s national self-quarantine campaign. ![]()
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