EFFECT OF COVID 19 PROTOCOLS ON CONSUMER GOODS IN ADO EKITI
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic
DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE PROJECT MATERIAL
EFFECT OF COVID 19 PROTOCOLS ON CONSUMER GOODS IN ADO EKITI
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 epidemic, which began in early 2020, triggered a global calamity. As a result, supermarkets have seen panic buying, empty shop shelves, out of stock items, and a significant surge in online purchases. Supermarkets, producers, marketers, and enterprises have all had to adapt to changing customer food purchasing habits.
Previous study has revealed that price and quality are two of the most powerful aspects in the consumer decision-making process, with customers in crisis situations being particularly concerned about increased price sensitivity and perceived quality of food products.
The goal of this study was to look beyond panic buying behaviours and see if consumer purchase behaviour towards tomatoes changed during the COVID-19 epidemic. A moderating influence of consumers in Ado Ekiti was investigated.
A quantitative method was applied, with consumers in Ado Ekiti surveyed. The analysis included 169 consumer answers. The results indicated that the Covid 19 guidelines had a detrimental impact on tomato consumption in the Ado Ekiti market.
The study’s findings establish a foundation in a previously unstudied crisis situation, and the exploratory character of the study provides various markers for further research.
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
Background of Study
The coronavirus outbreak, currently known as Covid-19 (shortened for “coronavirus disease of 2019”), began in the Wuhan region of China. The virus spreads extremely quickly amongst people, and in just a few months, tens of thousands of people worldwide have been affected.
Furthermore, as the Covid-19 outbreak expands, companies around the world are harmed. Some of the world’s largest corporations had severe consequences, such as disrupted manufacturing, empty stores, and declining demand for their products (Eavis, 2020).
Some businesses may also struggle because their investors are less willing to lend them money following the epidemic (Eavis, 2020). Airlines, leisure, and hospitality are among the hardest hit sectors. Bars and restaurants are also severely impacted (Fraser, 2020).
This pandemic has become the most serious threat to the global economy and financial markets, with China, North America, and Europe being the hardest hit markets, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has reduced its 2020 real GDP growth projections for almost all economies (see appendix A) (Nee Lee, 2020).
Furthermore, some countries are implementing various sorts of lockdown to slow the spread of the virus. These include nationwide quarantines, as well as school and workplace closures (Kaplan, Frias, & McFall-Johnsen, 2020).
According to a report released in September 2020 by the Food Security Information Network (FSIN) and the Global Network Against Food Crises, Nigeria is experiencing emergency food and nutrition insecurity.
In Nigeria, an estimated 32.1 million people are currently food insecure due to stress, crisis, or emergency, with millions more people unable to access and/or purchase safe, nutritional foods.
Prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, there was already a deficit in Nigeria’s food chain, necessitating the importation of food commodities to supplement local output and meet local demand.
The epidemic has impacted every part of the food supply chain, although the repercussions vary along the rural-urban continuum. If communication stays broken, more urbanised areas may be hurt worse than distant rural areas, as the majority of food is produced in rural and semirural areas.
Prior to COVID-19, there were a variety of supply chain network difficulties, including low installed capacity at seaports, high import costs, transportation bottlenecks, insufficient infrastructure, government restrictions, and low technology adoption.
A PwC research (August 2020) revealed that government COVID-19 policies had an impact on logistics and supply chains for food and agricultural inputs/outputs, as well as halting food production and agricultural activities.
In an interview with Reuters (Lagos), numerous farmers in Benue State stated that despite increasing demand across the country, crops were decaying in fields or at depots due to logistical issues. In addition, access to inputs, particularly seeds, was restricted.
Mobility limitations and lockdowns hampered processes related to the valuation and release of novel seed types, as well as the timely manufacture of early generation seed and supply planning.
This difficulty arose despite the government’s efforts to distribute seeds where they were most needed. Ultimately, mobility constraints hampered seed producers’ access to agro-inputs and mechanisation services, despite government efforts to disseminate seeds among farmers.
Many food SMEs showed indicators of problems at the start of the epidemic. For example, in April/May 2020, all 50 SMEs surveyed by GAIN reported fewer sales and expressed concern about current cashflow and their ability to pay staff and repay loans in the short term.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, 30% of food SMEs saw a need to diversify their supply chains (for example, work with more suppliers), and nearly 65% were exploring new business areas,
such as digitising operations, diversifying into other sectors, and considering new business strategies and product ranges. While some restrictions have been eased, food system SMEs continue to be limited by losses experienced during the first months of COVID-19.
Furthermore, supermarket customer behaviour changed. During the coronavirus outbreak, supermarkets coped with surging crowds, empty shelves, long lines at the cash registers, and consumer debates about getting the final supplies.
People panicked and bought water, rice, pasta, frozen foods, and toilet paper. Supermarket companies and food retail experts assured clients that there would be no shortages of food.
This is what Adach (2020) regard as the COVID-19 business world that marketers must strategically plan to effectively respond to by deliberately rising to the occasion and intense pressure of rapidly providing and delivering the products, brands, goods, and services (like household staples and health-related goods, such as groceries,
bottled water, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, face masks, etc.) that consumers desire or crave in these times of the COVID-19 outbreak, using In other words, the adoption of agile marketing, which Kalsi (2020) says has risen from 32% globally, would help businesses meet up with changing their short,
medium, and long-term marketing plans and marketing campaigns in line with current realities such as flexible payments, remote work, and shifting priorities expected to change consumer buying patterns and behaviour, response to unprecedented obliged them to protect frontline workers task marketers ingenuity, as well as dip
Furthermore, the COVID-19 issue has tested departmental stores’ ability to pivot quickly or provide personal protective equipment (PPE) as safeguards for at-risk customers who access, acquire, and receive goods and services from these merchants both online and offline.
According to Kahle and Close (2011), marketers face a significant challenge in understanding purchasing and consumption behaviour. As a result, consumers are more aware of the products and services available at any given time (Minton and Khale, 2014).
Furthermore, Team (2020) emphasises that consumer purchasing behaviour refers to a series of online and offline actions (via technology and physical presence, respectively) taken prior to consumers changing their preferences or leanings for the demand and purchase of certain staple products (such as groceries, diapers, cosmetics, detergents, and so on) or services.
The “Click and Collect” approach was also implemented in small businesses, allowing customers to select their desired products online and then pick them up in-store, saving shipping time and allowing them to order fresh products (Spar, 2020).
In Nigeria, supermarkets were advised to mark the grounds to assist consumers in maintaining a distance of 2 metres, and plexiglasses were also used in many cases; however, there were no other notable restrictions for supermarkets or their customers, such as the mandatory use of face masks and gloves (Folake, 2020).
Multiple grocery chains in Sweden chose on their own initiative to have special opening hours for those over the age of 65 and those in risk groups (Folake, 2020).
Statement of Problem
Businesses are consistently or continuously exploring strategies such as market research, product brand, and friendly pricing regimes in order to advantageously position or situate themselves by designing effective systems
and practices that they can leverage to edge-out or outshine their fellow competitors and enhance consumer loyalty, patronage, and buying behaviour in favour of their brand, store, or outlet’s increased profit or business even during a crisis period.
In particular, a crisis such as the novel COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated remote, restricted, and closed work rules or guidelines, as well as businesses (such as department stores) shifting priorities towards adopting ecommerce and total retail industry M&A deals, which increased in February 2020 to a net worth of more than $2.05 billion globally (Kalsi, 2020).
Furthermore, conceiving ecommerce is said to enable departmental stores to stay afloat without experiencing the business acquisitions and mergers that have already begun with Apple’s recent acquisition of AR technology startup Next VR for $100 million, which is a contemplated post-COVID-19 economic fallout that may be worse than the Great Depression (Motti, 2020).
Despite the novel or unique nature of the COVID-19 pandemic or epidemic, which has dropped retail sales by 8.7% in March 2020 due to stringent actions such as market shutdown and border closure (Helm, 2020).
Businesses maintain client loyalty and revenues by identifying the fundamental necessities (such as food, groceries, medicines, sanitizers, face masks, and so on) that benefit their customers.
Thus, innovations designed to promote product and brand loyalty are considered a modern business development strategy that could enhance business profits amidst emergency policies or programmes like market shutdown and border closure,
which appear plausible to truncate or slow down businesses, reduce production and economic activities, yet businesses or firms like departmental stores have devised means and integrated activities that could maximise investment profits in
Furthermore, there are many questions about whether these specific emergency policies will still give them an advantage over competitors, increase brand loyalty, customer patronage, sales, and profits after the pandemic when such measures to stimulate consumer purchasing behaviour were implemented.
At the same time, ensuring that strategic planning directs the emerging consumption pattern so as not to encourage waste and jeopardise the future and viable use of resources for the state’s and country’s sustainable post-COVID-19 economic development (Ibbih & Siyan, 2018).
Previous research focused on student purchase patterns and financial management (Vijayalakshmi & Milcah, 2017), while Kalsi (2020) investigated the effect of COVID-19 on customer behaviour towards Apple products.
Few studies were conducted on department shops or retailers. This study seeks to investigate the impacts of covid-19 on customer purchasing behaviour of tomatoes in department shops in Ekiti State, Nigeria.
Objectives of study
Specifically, the objectives of this research were to determine:
The impact of a market shutdown on consumer tomato purchasing behaviour in retailers.
The impact of border closure on consumer purchasing behaviour of tomatoes in retailers.
The impact of consumer consumption patterns on COVID-19 factors and consumer purchasing behaviour for tomatoes in retailers.
Research Questions
The research questions that guided this study were as follows:
What effect does a market shutdown have on customer purchasing behaviour for tomatoes in stores?
What effect does border closure have on customer purchasing behaviour for tomatoes in stores?
What is the impact of customer consumption patterns on COVID-19 variables and tomato purchasing behaviour in stores?
1.5 Significance of the Study
The findings of this study and its completion shed light on the impact of COVID-19 rules on consumer purchasing behaviour for tomatoes in Ado Ekiti. Beyond that, the findings will shed light on the financial implications of the lockdown,
as well as the vulnerability of food reserves to external environmental constraints. Furthermore, the study’s findings shed light on Ado Ekiti citizens’ consumption patterns in relation to the Covid 19 pandemic.
The findings also shed light on firms’ expectations for COVID-19’s long-term impact, as well as their assessments of government assistance programmes.
1.6 Scope of the Study
The current study examines the many conceptual aspects of COVID-19 and its impact on consumer goods in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The study will focus on the markets in Ado Ekiti. The geographical scope was chosen by the researcher since it is close to her base of study, Edo State University, and thus provides simple accessibility and convenience.
1.7 Organisation of the Study
The study is divided into five chapters. The contents of each chapter are outlined below:
The first chapter discusses the study’s background, problem statement, study objective, research questions, research hypotheses, significance of the study, study limitation, study organisation, and definitions of key words.
Chapter two contains a literature review organised into the following themes: Economic Crisis and COVID-19, COVID-19 Spillover to the Nigerian Economy, Using Monetary and Fiscal Policy Measures, Structural Factors that Worsen the Economic Crisis, Consumer Goods, and Consumer Behaviour.
The third chapter discusses the research methodology, including the research design, area of study, data collection sources, data collection instruments, study population, sample size, sampling procedure, data gathering, and analytic procedures.
Chapter four covers data analysis, presentation, interpretation, and discussion of findings.
Chapter 5 gives a summary of the study’s findings, conclusions, and suggestions.
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic