The Impact of Covid-19 on Consumer Behavior in the Retailing Industry of Lebanon
Type of paper: Research Article
Authors
Bassam Tarhini
Corresponding AuthorAffiliation: Bucharest University of Economic Studies – ASE Bucuresti, Romania
Email: bassam.tarhini@liu.edu.lb
Layal Hafiz
Affiliation: Lebanese International University - LIU, Lebanon
How to Cite
Tarhini, B. & Hafiz, L. (2021). The Impact of Covid-19 on Consumer Behavior in the Retailing Industry of Lebanon. CACTUS Tourism Journal, 23 (1). doi.org/10.24818/CTS/3/2021/1.03
© 2021 The Author(s);
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
Abstract
COVID-19 has changed many aspects of human lives. Life was paused for a while and humanity has been exposed to many threats unprepared at most levels. Several studies were conducted to understand human behavior amid crises and their behavior during COVID-19. Panic and spiritual buying dominates the buying behavior. This research investigates the emerged trends to the retail industry amid COVID-19. Several hypotheses were tested to understand the cause and effect relationship between the brick-and-mortar and online shopping. In order to reach a realistic result a quantitative research was conducted and a non-probability convenience sampling method was used where 191 respondents answered the survey questions on a 5 point Likert and nominal scales. It was found that consumer behavior is common across different countries amid COVID-19 with slight variation related to online shopping due to lack of trust with online sources. It was noticed that Lebanese post the pandemic became less price sensitive towards health products as they seek quality and willing to pay more to get it.
Keywords
JEL Classification
No JEL classification codes were provided.
References
Aithal, R. K. (2012). Marketing channel length in rural India: Influence of the external environment and rural retailer buyer behavior. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
Aleksic, A., Ruzic, V., & Baracskai, Z. (Eds.). (2021). Economic and social development (Book of Proceedings): 65th International Scientific Conference on Economic and Social Development, 52(1), 174–183.
Babu, G. C., & Kumar, S. (2020). A study on consumer behavior pattern shift in the period of Corona (COVID-19) pandemic.
Chaudhary, H. (2020). Analyzing the paradigm shift of consumer behavior towards e-commerce during pandemic lockdown. SSRN.
Chauhan, V., & Shah, M. H. (2020). An empirical analysis into sentiments, media consumption habits, and consumer behaviour during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Purakala.
Čvirik, M. (2020). Health conscious consumer behaviour: The impact of a pandemic on the case of Slovakia. Central European Business Review, 9(4), 45–58.
D’Andrea, G., Lopez-Aleman, B., & Stengel, A. (2006). Why small retailers endure in Latin America. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
Denise, L. (2020). The pandemic is rewriting the rules of retail. Harvard Business Review.
Feeny, A., Vongpatanasin, T., & Soonsatham, A. (1996). Retailing in Thailand. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
Knoll, C. (2020). Panicked shoppers empty shelves as coronavirus anxiety rises. The New York Times.
Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Manceau, D., & Dubois, B. (2016). Marketing management (15th ed.). Pearson Education.
Lahiri, S., & Sinha, M. (2021). A study of the socio-economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal, 15(1), 51–69.
Leone, L. A., Fleischhacker, S., Anderson-Steeves, B., Harper, K., Winkler, M., Racine, E., Baquero, B., & Gittelsohn, J. (2020). Healthy food retail during the COVID-19 pandemic: Challenges and future directions. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(20), Article 7397.
Lusk, J. (2020). Impacts of coronavirus on food markets.
Mohd Dali, N. R. S., Abdul Hamid, H., Wan Nawang, W. R., & Wan Mohamed Nazarie, W. N. F. (2020). Post pandemic consumer behavior: Conceptual framework. The Journal of Muamalat and Islamic Finance Research.
Myers, H., & Alexander, N. (1997). Food retailing opportunities in Eastern Europe. European Business Review.
Peter, J. P., Olson, J. C., & Grunert, K. G. (1999). Consumer behavior and marketing strategy.
Rai, A. (2020). Analyses of consumer behavior on online food ordering: In reference to COVID-19. International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management, 3(6), 665–673.
Revathy, C., & Balaji, P. (2020). Determinants of behavioural intention on e-wallet usage: An empirical examination in amid of COVID-19 lockdown period. International Journal of Management (IJM), 11(6), 92–104.
Reynolds, J., Howard, E., Cuthbertson, C., & Hristov, L. (2007). Perspectives on retail format innovation: Relating theory and practice. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
Simović, V., & Marjanović, D. (2020, November). Emerging trends in business economics: Towards competitiveness, digitalization and financial innovation. In Proceedings (p. 198).
Solomon, M., Russell-Bennett, R., & Previte, J. (2012). Consumer behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.
Trappey, C. V., & Lai, M. K. (1996). Retailing in Taiwan: Modernization and the emergence of new formats. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
University of Warwick. (n.d.). Warwick education studies. Retrieved May 24, 2021, from https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/research/current/socialtheory/maps/criticalrealism/