International Journal of Management (IJM)

Volume 12, Issue 1, January 2021, pp. 303-314. Article ID: IJM_12_01_025
Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijm/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=12&IType=1
Journal Impact Factor (2020): 10.1471 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com
ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
DOI: 10.34218/IJM.12.1.2021.025

© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON CONSUMERS’

ESSENTIAL BUYING BEHAVIOR – AN INDIAN
PERSPECTIVE
Shishpal
Research Scholar Haryana School Business Guru Jambheswar University Science and
Technology, Hisar, Haryana, India

Anuradha Yadav
Research Scholar Haryana School Business Guru Jambheswar University Science and
Technology, Hisar, Haryana, India

Pawan Kumar
Assistant Professor, SRM University, Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, Haryana, India

Parmod
Assistant Professor, Haryana School Business Guru Jambheswar University Science and
Technology, Hisar, Haryana, India

ABSTRACT
Purpose/objective: This study attempted to examine the consumer buying behavior
of essential items like grocery, pharma, and hygiene during the nationwide lockdown
imposed by government of India. The national lockdown is to maintain social
distancing, therefore, reducing the chances of virus spread. Such circumstances are
creating a lot of paranoia and fear among the Indian households about managing the
supply of essential items to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology: in order to achieve the objectives of this study, an online
survey was conducted on the households residing in national capital region of India.
For this purpose, a self-structured questionnaire was designed which was further
distributed among target respondents by using convenient sampling technique. Out of
total 250 responses received, 226 were found fit for the analysis. Exploratory factor
analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, t-test, and one-way ANOVA have been used to
analyze the data.
Results/findings: The nationwide lockdown changes the purchasing behavior of
the customer regarding essential items and their related aspects like price, packaging,
labeling, smoothness of product or services and timely delivery etc.

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 Impact of COVID-19 on Consumers‘ Essential Buying Behavior – An Indian Perspective

Practical implications: This study is very important for the marketers as well as
researchers to know the changes in purchasing behavior of the customers specifically
related to the factors of Essential Supplies, Price, Packaging & Labeling; Stock and
Supply Shortage; Smooth Delivery; Digital Support and Product Freshness and
Authenticity of the product and services at the time of nationwide lockdown situation.
It is very important for the marketers to know the returning of the customers towards
their previous pattern that can be the future research direction for the researchers as
well as marketers also.
Originality: This paper is attempted to examine household buying behavior of
essential items to survive in situation of nationwide lockdown.

Key words: India, Consumer Buying Behavior, Essential items, Coronavirus disease
(COVID-19), Lockdown
Cite this Article: Shishpal, Anuradha Yadav, Pawan Kumar and Parmod, Impact of
COVID-19 on Consumers‘ Essential Buying Behavior – An Indian Perspective,
International Journal of Management, 12(1), 2021, pp 303-314.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=12&IType=1

1. INTRODUCTION
In December 2019, the outbreak of the new virus, popularly known as Coronavirus, was first
detected in Wuhan city of China. Coronavirus aka COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is believed to
be a zoonotic disease yet to find out the exact source of it. A month later, on 30 January 2020,
WHO declared COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and on
March 11, 2020, WHO declared it as global pandemic (WHO, 2020a; WHO, 2020b). As the
novel coronavirus is transmitted person-to-person, various countries have been opting for
various kinds of methods to break the chain. In such a scenario, social distancing, social
isolation, lockdown, curfew, quarantine, self-quarantine became the buzzwords. To contain
the spread of this contagious virus, the Indian Government declared a nationwide lockdown
for 21 days on 24 March 2020 which in turn limited the movement of the entire population of
India (Government of India, 2020). Further, by examining the current situation as well as on
the demands of various state governments, the government of India extended the ongoing
nationwide lockdown many times with strict social distancing norms. Under the first two
lockdowns (from 24th March 2020 to 3rd May 2020), various restrictions were made by GOI
(Government of India) to limit the pace of coronavirus and its person-to-person transmission
by ―delaying the epidemic peak, reducing the size of the epidemic peak, and spreading cases
over a longer time to relieve pressure on the healthcare system‖ (Fong et al., 2020). These
restrictions including travel restriction, order related to work from home and stay at home,
restriction on any kind of public gathering, followed by the closure of all social organization,
public transportation, education institutes, entertainment and amusements spots, sealed
borders not only with other countries but also between the states, identify and sealed
coronavirus hotspot areas even inside the states.
To ensure the fulfillment of the basic needs of the citizens, only ‗essential items‘ were
kept out of the scope of the nationwide lockdown. In such a situation, little is known about
how household consumers are managing the supply of essential items. The objective of the
current study is to close this gap using primary data collected directly from the Indian
household consumers to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on their buying of
essential items.

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 Shishpal, Anuradha Yadav, Pawan Kumar and Parmod

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
During the lockdown, the majority of offline as well as online retail stores are either
temporarily closed or adversely suffering from the shortage of manpower (McKinsey &
Company, 2020). In India, the retail industry has received two-fold brunt, i.e., a sharp drop in
demand and a rundown supply of essential commodities (Abrar, & Ahmad, 2020; Deloitte,
2020; FICCI, 2020). The removal of the restriction from the supply of essential items (food,
pharmaceuticals, medical equipment) offered some relief to the retail industry but with tough
time ahead (Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI, 2020). Although retailers dealing in ‗essential
items‘ like food and groceries, pharma products, and hygiene products benefited as consumers
demanding bulk orders at their doors, whereas others dealing in logistics, inventory,
distribution and delivery are facing the odds (Roggeveen & Sethuraman, 2020). Upgradation
in the scope of ‗essential items‘ was also witnessed with inclusion of hygiene-cum-cleaning
items and healthcare or pharma items (Liu et al., 2020; Fong et al., 2020). Further, a post-
COVID long term shift (if not permanent) in the consumers‘ shopping behavior towards the
routine purchase of personal hygiene items via offline and/or online mode is also observed
(Chauhan & Shah, 2020).
Amid prevailing circumstances, having sufficient supply of essential items become
everyone‘s top priority. The most vulnerable section of the society is daily wagers and older
adults, therefore, addressing food insecurity during lockdown due to COVID-19 should be the
prime focus area of the government (Meixner & Katt, 2020; Rummo et al., 2020). Some of
the past unpredictable situation (for example, demonetization, COVID-19 pandemic)
disclosed the highly skeptical behavior of household consumers (Bhat & Singh, 2018;
Sanatani, 2017; Park et al., 1989) in terms of a sudden hike in demand of essential items. This
sudden demand under the fearful situation resulting in various adverse consequences such as
black-marketing, adulteration, unethical price hike, fabrication in quantity measurements
while selling, etc. Therefore, the government‘s interventions in terms of strict corrective
measures are much needed (Patil & Patil, 2020). Consecutively, product and price aspects are
having significant effect on consumers‘ online buying behavior regarding essential items too
(Alam, 2020). The ongoing pandemic situation may also bring significant changes in the
household‘s buying behavior. Research on Americans observed that as the number of cases
grew, households began to radically alter their typical spending across some major categories.
Initially spending increased sharply, particularly in retail, credit card spending, and food items
(Baker et al., 2020). Whereas, frequent use of sanitizers, hand wash, and masks as a
precautionary measure taken by most of the respondents indicated the increasing concern
towards personal hygienic measures to avoid COVID-19 infection (Roy et al., 2020).
‗Panic buying‘ is another trend recorded during this time, which hits the supply of
essential items. It is a kind of herd behavior where consumers purchase an unexpected excess
quantity of a product based on their fear of a disastrous situation or perceived disastrous
situation resulting in a tension of a price hike or scarcity (Singh & Rakshit, 2020; Hall et al.,
2020). Panicked consumers may become more prone towards stocking essential items to keep
themselves safe. Another reason could be that during an emergency such as the COVID-19
pandemic, people come to expect others to increase their purchases (Paloyo, 2020). People
generally buy and store the extra quantity for future use, which led to the shortage of those
products in the market for other people (Corkery & Maheshwari, 2020; Prentice et al., 2020).
There were widespread reports that people were not only buying up soap and hand sanitizer,
but also food and other daily necessities. In a recent study on stockpiling among American
consumers, participants reported having bought more food or supplies during the preceding
two weeks than usual (Columbus, 2020) consistent with the results of other studies of similar
kind (Baker et al., 2020; Clements, 2020). Under prevailing situation, it is expected that the

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 Impact of COVID-19 on Consumers‘ Essential Buying Behavior – An Indian Perspective

―run on the bank‖ (stock-piling) mentality of the consumers will stay longer and future usage
of the virtual ordering system based on the significant benefits would be long lasting (Sheth,
2020). The role of this change is limited but important in this coronavirus situation where
most of the shops are either shut down or denying to taking cash as a preventive measure of
virus spread, supporting an unprecedented shift from dominantly offline to dominantly online
(Gaikwad & Dhokare, 2020). This would become a ‗new normal‘ (McKinsey & Company,
2020), which envisage online shopping as mainstream shopping behavior for people to buy
foods, groceries, medicines, and many other products from online stores such as Amazon.com
or Walmart (Yan, 2020).

3. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

In the backdrop of above discussion, this study empirically examines the impact of Corona
virus disease (COVID-19) on Indian consumers‘ essential buying behavior. In the light of
available literature and objective, researchers have also inspected the consumer buying
behavior across their demographic attributes like age, gender, marital status etc.

4. DATA COLLECTION
In order to achieve the objectives of this study, an online survey was conducted on the
households residing in national capital region of India. For this purpose, a self-structured
questionnaire was designed and was further distributed among target respondents. The data
was collected by using convenient sampling technique. In first section of survey instrument,
questions related to demographic attributes like age, gender, income etc. were asked from the
respondents. Second section of questionnaire consisted of 25 items related to essential items
buying behavior. Out of total 250 responses received, 226 were found fit for the analysis.

Table 1 Demographic profile of households (N=226)

Demographic Variable Group N=226 Percentage (%)
Gender Female 86 38.1
Male 140 61.9
Age 21-30 76 33.6
31-40 106 46.9
41-50 30 13.3
50 & Above 14 6.2
Marital Status Married 166 73.5
Unmarried 26 26.5
Education Under Graduate 16 7.1
Graduate 56 24.8
Post Graduate &Above 154 68.1
Employment Status Self Employed 14 6.2
Government Employee 69 30.5
Private Employee 100 44.2
Unemployed 43 19
Monthly Income Up to 20,000 43 19
20,001-30,000 24 10.6
30,001-40,000 29 12.8
40,001 & Above 130 57.5
Source: Primary Data

Table 1 shows that the primary data comprises 226 households selected from India. The
demographic profile depicts that from 226 respondents, 140 (61.9%) male and 86 (38.1%)
female households participated in the study. Of the respondents, 76 (33.6%) belongs to 21-30
years age group, 106 (46.9%) belongs to 31 to 40 years age group, 30 (13.3%) belongs to 41-
50 age group and only 14 (6.2%) belongs to the age group of 50 and above. Further, 166
(73.5%) respondents were married and 26 (26.5%) were unmarried. Out of 226 respondents,

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 Shishpal, Anuradha Yadav, Pawan Kumar and Parmod

16 (7.1%) are under graduate, 56 (24.8%) graduate and 154 (68.1%) are educated more than
post-graduation level. Of the respondents, 14 (6.2%) are self-employed, 69 (30.5%) are
government employee, 100 (44.2%) are private employee and 43 (19%) are unemployed. As
far as monthly income is concerned, 43 (19%) respondents reported their income up to 20000
rupees, 24 (10.6%) reported between 20001 to 30000 rupees, 29 (12.8%) reported between
30001 to 40000 rupees and 130 (57.5%) reported their income more than 40001 rupees.

5. EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS

Table 2 Description of Exploratory Factor Analysis
Items Factor Eigen Variance Cronabach
Factors Name (Item Description)
Code Loading value explained alpha
Essential Supplies (ES)
While purchasing essential items from local stores
Q3 (kirana), during lockdown, the waiting time is higher 0.897
than usual.
Q19 I get essential items immediately after placing order. 0.885
I am able to purchase ‗essential items‘ from local
Q2 0.823
physical (kirana) stores.
I am able to purchase only ‗essential items‘ during
Q1 0.794 4.878 16.221 0.894
lockdown.
I easily get the medicines and other pharma products by
Q29 0.758
showing prescription.
Q7 I am able to purchase items other than ‗essential items‘. 0.680
Price, Packaging & Labeling (PPL)
I have to pay higher price (more than its MRP or usual
Q8 0.917
price) for the essential items during lockdown.
I am still getting discounts while purchasing essential
Q12 0.894
items. 4.145 15.630
Q11 I am still able to get essential items on credit. 0.858
Q26 I get the ‗essential items‘ with proper sealed packaging. 0.855 0.922
I get the ‗essential items‘ with proper labelling (date of
Q27 0.816
manufacturing and expiry).
Stock and Supply Shortage (SSS)
During lockdown, I am facing the unavailability of
Q17 0.891
essential items more often.
Q21 During lockdown, I do not get what I need easily. 0.881
3.134 12.478
I have to place order in 2-3 days advance to get the
Q22 0.867 0.899
essential items.
I am not able to buy more than a particular quantity so as
Q20 0.837
to avoid unnecessary hoarding.
Smooth Delivery (SD)
Q16 I am getting ‗contactless‘ delivery during lockdown. 0.916
Q13 I get home delivery of essential items during lockdown. 0.903
Q14 I am facing delayed delivery of essential items. 0.895 2.681 11.912
Delivery executive always comes with proper safety
Q15 precautions (mask, gloves, sanitizer) while delivering the 0.658 0.879
essential items.
Digital Support (DS)
I am able to purchase ‗essential items‘ from online
Q4 0.948
retailer.
E-payment options are available while purchasing 2.180 10.216 0.909
Q9 0.893
essential items.
I only prefer ‗e- payment‘ while purchasing essential
Q10 0.875
items.
Product Freshness and Authenticity (PFA)
During lockdown, I am facing the problem of ‗duplicate
Q28 0.898
items‘. 2.031 9.740
Q23 During lockdown, I get fresh vegetables and fruits. 0.891
Q24 During lockdown, I get fresh milk and dairy products. 0.866 0.880
Source: Primary Data Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

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 Impact of COVID-19 on Consumers‘ Essential Buying Behavior – An Indian Perspective

Table 2 comprises the results of exploratory factor analysis. It is a data reduction

technique applied on 25 items to determine the major factors regarding experience of
households towards purchasing of essential items at the time of nationwide lockdown. The
value of KMO measure of sampling adequacy is 0.771, more than the threshold limit of 0.60
(Zikmund et al., 2016; Malhotra and Dash, 2016) that confirmed the sample adequacy. The
Bartlett test value (0.000) is also found significant with approximate chi-square statistic value
of 4213.286 and 300 degrees of freedom which indicated that correlation matrix is not an
identity matrix. For the analysis, principal component factor analysis was applied to reduce
the data with varimax rotation. Hair et al. (2014) classified the significance of factor loadings
on the basis of sample size and suggested that factor loading more than or equal to 0.40 is
sufficient for sample of 200 or more. So, factor loading >0.40 has been taken into
consideration while identifying major factors for this study having sample size of 226
respondents. The extracted communalities ranged from 0.65 to 0.94. In this process, six major
factors, namely, ‗Essential Supplies‘ (ES), ‗Price, Packaging & Labeling‘ (PPL), ‗Stock and
Supply Shortage‘ (SSS), ‗Smooth Delivery‘ (SD), ‗Digital Support‘ (DS), and ‗Product
Freshness and Authenticity‘ (PFA) were extracted with Eigen values more than one
explaining 76.196 percent of the total variance.

5.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Figure 1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Source: Amos output
Note: ES (Essential Supplies); PPL (Price, Packaging & Labelling); SSS (Stock and Supply Shortage); SD
(Smooth Delivery); DS (Digital Support); PFA (Product Freshness and Authenticity).
To verify the structure of observed variables, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was
applied on 25 items using maximum likelihood estimation method. On the basis of
exploratory factor analysis, a model having six latent variables was framed in AMOS. Figure

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 Shishpal, Anuradha Yadav, Pawan Kumar and Parmod

1 depicted that each observed variable loaded only on one factor and errors of measurement
associated with each observed variable are uncorrelated. For estimating model fit, regression
weights, correlation, variances and covariance are considered by the researchers. Higher
regression weights indicate that variance is better explained by the model and a better fit
model is estimated. Along with chi-square statistics some other absolute fit indices were also
checked to test the model fit. Table 3 depicts the values of absolute fit indices of proposed
model as value of CMIN/DF is 2.336, RMSEA is 0.077 and GFI is 0.827. The values of
Incremental fit indices of TLI (0.905), CFI (0.919), and IFI (0.920) are found significant and
higher than the acceptance level. The loadings for the six latent variables, shown in table 4,
are positively loaded on their respective latent variables and their value is greater than 0.40.

Table 3 Confirmatory Factor Analysis Model Fit Indices

Model fit indices
CMIN DF P CMIN/DF GFI NFI IFI TLI CFI RMSEA
553.548 237 .000 2.336 0.827 0.867 0.920 0.905 0.919 0.077
Acceptable range for better model fit
Less is better >5 <0.8 <0.8 <0.8 <0.8 <0.8 >0.10
Source: Byrne (2016); Hair et al. (2014); Moolla & Bisschoff (2013).

The values of Standardized regression loadings are also found greater than acceptance
limit of 0.40 in case of sample limit of 200 or more (Hair et al., 2014), which confirm the
structure of the factors.

Table 4 Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Constructs Items Factor CR AVE MSV ASV
Loading
Digital Support (DS) Q10 .823 0.912 0.775 0.044 0.016
Q4 .943
Q9 .871
Essential Supplies (ES) Q3 .944 0.906 0.664 0.044 0.017
Q19 .914
Q2 .679
Q1 .811
Q29 .688
Price, Packaging & Labeling (PPL) Q8 .930 0.923 0.706 0.017 0.010
Q12 .859
Q26 .804
Q11 .843
Q27 .756
Stock and Supply Shortage (SSS) Q16 .928 0.886 0.668 0.040 0.018
Q13 .892
Q14 .858
Q15 .529
Smooth Delivery (SD) Q17 .824 0.899 0.690 0.038 0.013
Q20 .749
Q21 .878
Q22 .866
Product Freshness and Authenticity Q23 .893 0.881 0.712 0.040 0.023
(PFA) Q28 .848
Q24 .788
Source: Primary Data
According to Hair et al. (2014), Construct reliability (α) value should be equal or more
than 0.7. Cronabach‘s alpha (α) value should be equal or more than 0.7 and also greater than
the value of Average Variance Extracted (AVE). To confirm convergent validity, Average

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 Impact of COVID-19 on Consumers‘ Essential Buying Behavior – An Indian Perspective

Variance Extracted (AVE) should be equal or more than 0.5 and less than construct reliability.
Further to confirm discriminant validity, maximum shared variance (MSV) and average
shared variance (ASV) should be less than average variance extracted (AVE). The table 4
shows that the CR, AVE, MSV, ASV of all six factors are according to the respective
acceptance limits thereby confirming the reliability and validity of measurement scale.

5.3. Essential Buying behavior of Consumers across their Demographic

Attributes across Gender
Table 5 Results of T test on the basis of Gender
Gender N Mean Std. Deviation Mean t-value Sig.
Factors
difference
Female 86 3.833 .895 .077 .587 .558
Essential Supplies (ES)
Male 140 3.757 .979
Price, Packaging & Labelling Female 86 2.498 .930 .221 1.654 .099
(PPL) Male 140 2.277 .998
Stock and Supply Shortage Female 86 2.951 .967 -.089 -.633 .528
(SSS) Male 140 3.038 1.024
Female 86 3.294 .683 .279 2.709 .007*
Smooth Delivery (SD)
Male 140 3.014 .854
Female 86 3.182 .980 -.263 1.889 .057
Digital Support (DS)
Male 140 3.445 1.038
Product Freshness and Female 86 3.628 .865 .059 .452 .640
Authenticity (PFA) Male 140 3.569 .998
*
Source: Primary Data the significant difference at the 0.05 level.
Table 5 shows the result of independent sample t-test and asterisks (*) is used to highlight
the significant difference in buying behavior among male and female respondents. Male and
female households showed no significant difference regarding their purchasing experience
towards Essential Supplies (t=.587, p=.558); Price, Packaging & Labeling (t=1.654, p=.099);
Stock and Supply Shortage (t= -.633, p=.528); Digital Support (t=1.889, p=.057); Product
Freshness and Authenticity (t=.452, p=.640) at the time of nationwide lockdown that led to
the acceptance of hypotheses H01. But in case of Smooth Delivery (t=2.709, p=.007), a
significant difference was reported among male and female respondents regarding their
purchasing experience essential items during nationwide lockdown.

5.4. Across Marital Status

Table 6 Result of T test on the basis of Marital Status
Marital Status N Mean Std. Mean t-value Sig.
Factors
Deviation difference
Married 166 3.856 .890 .265 1.868 .063
Essential Supplies (ES)
Unmarried 60 3.592 1.071
Price, Packaging & Labelling Married 166 2.307 .978 -.203 -1.389 .169
(PPL) Unmarried 60 2.510 .966
Married 166 2.943 .989 -.232 1.544 .124
Stock and Supply Shortage (SSS)
Unmarried 60 3.175 1.023
Married 166 3.116 .813 -.017 -.143 .886
Smooth Delivery (SD)
Unmarried 60 3.133 .783
Married 166 3.424 1.025 .296 1.934 .054
Digital Support (DS)
Unmarried 60 3.128 .992
Product Freshness and Married 166 3.627 .936 .132 .903 .369
Authenticity (PFA) Unmarried 60 3.494 .983
*
Source: Primary Data the significant difference at the 0.05 level.

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 Shishpal, Anuradha Yadav, Pawan Kumar and Parmod

Table 6 shows the results of independent sample t-test across the marital status of
respondents. Married and unmarried households showed insignificant difference regarding
their purchasing behavior towards Essential Supplies (t=1.868, p=.063); Price, Packaging &
Labeling (t= -1.389, p=.169); Stock and Supply Shortage (t= 1.544, p=.124); Smooth
Delivery (t= -.143, p=.886); Digital Support (t=1.934, p=.054); Product Freshness and
Authenticity (t=.903, p=.369) at the time of nationwide lockdown that led to acceptance of
H02 hypothesis.

5.5. Status of Living

Table 7 Result of T test on the basis of Status of living
Status of living N Mean Std. Mean t-value Sig.
Factors
Deviation difference
Nuclear Family 136 3.865 .835 .199 1.549 .123
Essential Supplies (ES)
Joint Family 90 3.667 1.088
Price, Packaging & Labelling Nuclear Family 136 2.374 1.049 .031 .235 .814
(PPL) Joint Family 90 2.342 .861
Stock and Supply Shortage Nuclear Family 136 3.020 1.011 .040 .291 .771
(SSS) Joint Family 90 2.981 .992
Nuclear Family 136 3.189 .782 .173 1.587 .114
Smooth Delivery (SD)
Joint Family 90 3.017 .828
Nuclear Family 136 3.478 .918 .334 2.324 .021*
Digital Support (DS)
Joint Family 90 3.144 1.138
Product Freshness and Nuclear Family 136 3.650 .857 .146 1.083 .280
Authenticity (PFA) Joint Family 90 3.504 1.070
*
Source: Primary Data the significant difference at the 0.05 level.
Table 7 shows the results of independent sample t-test regarding experience of purchasing
of essential items across respondents belonging to nuclear and joint families. No significant
differences were observed regarding their purchasing experience towards Essential Supplies
(t=1.549, p=.123); Price, Packaging & Labeling (t=.235, p=.814); Stock and Supply Shortage
(t= .291, p=.771); Smooth Delivery (t=1.587, p=.114); Product Freshness and Authenticity
(t=1.083, p=.280) at the time of nationwide lockdown that led to the acceptance of H03
hypothesis. But in case of Digital Support (t=2.324, p=.021), respondents belonging to
nuclear and joint families varied significantly regarding their purchasing experience at the
time of nationwide lockdown. So, hypothesis H03 is rejected in case of digital support.

6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Current study has focused on the consumers‘ buying behavior of essential items during the
lockdown period. This study is very important for the marketers as well as researchers to
know the changes in purchasing behavior of the customers specifically related to the factors
of Essential Supplies; Price, Packaging & Labeling; Stock and Supply Shortage; Smooth
Delivery; Digital Support, and Product Freshness and Authenticity of the product and services
at the time of nationwide lockdown situation. The exploratory factor analysis was applied on
twenty-five statements measuring experience of consumers towards the purchasing of
essential items during the time of nationwide lockdown. It resulted into six major factors i.e.,
Essential Supplies; Price, Packaging & Labeling; Stock and Supply Shortage; Smooth
Delivery; Digital Support, and Product Freshness and Authenticity. Further, to verify the
structure of observed variables confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was also applied. The
reliability and validity of measurement model of consumer behavior with the help of various
fit indices. During analysis, no significant difference was observed between male and female
consumers regarding their purchasing experience towards Essential Supplies; Price,

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 Impact of COVID-19 on Consumers‘ Essential Buying Behavior – An Indian Perspective

Packaging & Labeling; Stock and Supply Shortage; Digital Support, and Product Freshness
and Authenticity except Smooth Delivery at the time of nationwide lockdown. The
purchasing experience of Married and unmarried consumers also not varied significantly
regarding shopping of essential items. Furthermore, consumers belonging to nuclear and joint
families were found indifferent in their purchasing behavior of essential items during
lockdown.
Finally, we can conclude that in case of nationwide lockdown the Essential Supplies;
Price, Packaging & Labeling; Stock and Supply Shortage; Smooth Delivery; Digital Support,
and Product Freshness and Authenticity of the product and services significantly contribute in
the creation of overall positive purchase behavior of consumers regarding essential items
during lockdown. Koos et al. (2017) highlighted that consumers can affect the economic
situation of a country via their changing pattern in the demand. The nationwide lockdown
changes the purchasing behavior of the customer regarding essential items and their related
aspects like price, packaging, labeling, smoothness of product or services and timely delivery
etc. It is very important for the marketers to know the returning of the customers towards their
previous pattern that can be the future research direction for the researchers as well as
marketers also. So, it becomes very important and pertinent for the marketers to know the
changing pattern and behavior of the customer in COVID-19 pandemic situation.

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