MARKETING RESEARCH PROJECT

A study on impact of COVID-19 on Consumer

shopping behavior in Fashion Industry w.r.t T-shirt
segment.

Submitted by:
Submitted to:
Dr. Shelendra Tyagi Deepanshu Varshney
Shireen Taragi
Aastha Arora
Lakshay Sharma
INTRODUCTION

The Covid-19 Pandemic has hit the world’s most developed and underdeveloped economies
hard with many industries coming to a halt. As there was a nationwide lockdown in our
country, consumers were forced to adapt the new normal of buying which has resulted in
disruption in the lifestyle and buying pattern of a consumer and adversely impacted the global
economy. It is seen that retail consumer behaviour is changing at a rapid speed. Consumers
are changing their daily lifestyle in response to the pandemic. Changes in income, spending
pattern, savings, and leisure time influence people's attitude and behaviour towards shopping.

Changes in the choice of purchase destination, type of goods purchased and adoption of
digital payment, especially in developing countries such as India, were observed during the
nationwide lockdown. Consequently, there is a need to understand the new consumer
behaviour in terms of new theories, marketing strategies in the post-COVID-19 situation and
factors influencing consumers while buying goods or services post lockdown. Since there is
the uncertainty about when the world would be free from this contagious virus, the current
study will include both COVID-19 and post COVID-19 periods. The study is an attempt to
answer research questions based on notable changes due to the lockdown when economic
activities came to a complete halt, indicating the adverse effect on the economy while also
considering whether consumers would continue their impulse buying or shift towards planned
behaviour.

Understanding how consumers have shifted in clothing consumption in the midst of the
global COVID-19 pandemic is critical for fashion clothing brands and businesses to identify
what value means to consumers to locate growth opportunities. This exploratory study
intends to provide a picture of consumers’ clothing consumption evolution while going
through the pandemic crisis. We take a viewpoint that integrates the perspectives of life status
changes and stress coping to examine consumers’ responses to clothing consumption during
the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Management Decision Problem

Understanding shift in Customer Purchase Behavior post COVID-19

Market research problem

1. Identify the customer’s attitude towards online and offline shopping w.r.t COVID-19
pandemic
2. What are all the factors affecting consumers to shop online vs offline

Hypothesis formulation

HYPOTHESIS 1
H0 - There is no significant relationship between shopping channel and
shopping age group.
H1 - There is significant relationship between shopping channel and shopping
age group.

HYPOTHESIS 2
H0 - There is no relation between the choice of shopping channel and gender
H1 - There is relation between the choice of shopping channel and gender
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Quantitative Research

Who: Respondents were above the age of 18, anyone who purchases from either of the
modes of shopping.
What: To evaluation of both types of medium in terms of salient choice criteria.
When: As per respondent’s convenience
Where: Through Mail
Way: Questionnaire

Data Collection

• Secondary Research
• Primary Research

Scaling & Measurement

Itemized scale was utilized for the purpose of scaling and measurement In itemized scale, we
utilized Five Point Likert Scale which is appropriate for the questionnaire.

Sampling Plan

Population Universe:

People who are above the age of 18 & using either of the mode of shopping and a
resident of India

 Sampling Frame:

People residing in Tier 1 & 2 cities.

 Sampling Unit:

PGDM Students, Working professionals

 Sampling Element:

Employed, Self-employed, Unemployed individuals and students

  Sampling Technique:

Non-probabilistic method of sampling

Standard Deviation (s) = 0.67,

Z value at 95% Confidence interval = 1.96
Tolerable error (e)= 7.8%
Sample Size (n) = 281

Techniques of Data Analysis used

 Chi Square Analysis:
Helped in finding out the relationship between customer purchase
intentions with respect to their demographics.
The chi-square analysis is appropriate when we need to do the following:

(1) Test whether two or more distributions are identical.

(2) Compare a distribution with a reference distribution such as the
normal distribution.
(3) Compare the proportions or frequencies of categorical data
(Goodness-of-Fit)

 Factor Analysis:
Done to reduce the number of variables into factors that are affecting
consumer shopping behaviour.
Factor analysis is the practice of condensing many variables into just a
few, so that your research data is easier to work with.
The theory is that there are deeper factors driving the underlying concepts
in your data, and that you can uncover and work with these instead of
dealing with the lower-level variables that cascade from them.
  Discriminant Analysis:
Done to know the distinction between the factors pertaining to those who
prefer online or offline mode of shopping.
Discriminant analysis is a vital statistical tool that is used by researchers
worldwide. Machine learning, pattern recognition, and statistics are some
of the spheres where this practice is widely employed. So, what is
discriminant analysis and what makes it so useful?

Discriminant analysis, just as the name suggests, is a way to discriminate

or classify the outcomes.

It takes continuous independent variables and develops a relationship or

predictive equations. These equations are used to categorise the
dependent variables.

Data Analysis

 Reliability Test
Cronbach’s Alpha test is used to evaluate the reliability of the questionnaire:

 Since the Alpha is coming to be .919 which is much

more than .65, we can conclude that the questionnaire is
reliable
DEMOGRAPHICS
AGE GROUP
1%
1%

15-25
41 25-35
% 35-45
ABOVE 45

58
%

Majority of the respondents were in the age group of 15-25 followed by 25-35.

GENDER

49%

MALE
FEMALE

51%

The Questionnaire was filled by 281 respondents out of which 49% were male,
51% were female.
CHI SQUARE TEST
• To analyse the significant difference between the online and offline
consumer groups in terms of choice of shopping medium, age group and
gender, we used Chi Square Test.
• Chi Square Test has been used in contrast to Correlation because the
variables are categorical in nature instead of continuous.

Hypothesis Formulation

Hypothesis 1
H0- There is no significant relationship between shopping channel and shopping
age group.
H1- There is significant relationship between shopping channel and shopping
age group.

Hypothesis 2
H0- There is no relation between the choice of shopping channel and gender.
H1- There is relation between the choice of shopping channel and gender.

Significance level – 5%
Hypothesis 1
Looking at the Pearson Chi-Square value of .000, we reject the null hypothesis
and conclude that there is significant relation between age group and choice of
shopping medium.

Hypothesis 2
Looking at the Pearson Chi-Square value of .510, and p value is 0.05, we fail to
reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is no relation between gender
and choice of shopping medium.
FACTOR ANALYSIS
It refers to a method that reduces a large variable into a smaller variable factor.
Furthermore, this technique takes out maximum ordinary variance from all
the variables and put them in common score.
16 variables have been chosen to conduct Factor Analysis

FACTOR ANALYSIS
KMO is greater than 0.5 which means that the data set is adequate.

Bartlette’s test
H0- All variables are uncorrelated.
H1- All variables have a substantial correlation.

Significance value is .000 which is less than 0.05 which shows there is
substantial correlation in the data, hence we reject the hypothesis.
After doing Factor analysis, we have reduced the number of variables into three major
factors. We have considered three factor based on their Eigen value more than 1. We have
examined the factor pattern to see which items load highly on which factors and then
determine what those items have in common.

The three factors that we have determined are –

• Ease of shopping
• Customer experience
• Safety

DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS
The objective of discriminant analysis is to develop discriminant functions that
are nothing but the linear combination of independent variables that will
discriminate between the categories of the dependent variable in a perfect
manner.
Dependent Variables:
Choice of Shopping channel(online/offline)
Independent Variables:
• Ease of shopping
• Customer experience
• Safety
RECOMMENDATIONS

• According to the research, there is a considerable association between age and buying
preferences. Pantaloons should aim to improve its social media presence to engage the
young generation because most young people spend their time on social media if they
want to grow their online client base. They might also create some appealing social
media campaigns to increase interaction. If they continue to focus on retail, they can
put up some eye-catching billboards and upgrade their offline marketing plan to
appeal to a younger demographic.
• As safety is the most important element, we may propose that if pantaloons is eager to
go online, client data security is a must, and that required steps be taken to ensure
that. Customers are increasingly concerned about their health in this new normal, thus
COVID protections should be available if they are unwilling to be online.
• The physical stores should ensure that the service staff follows COVID protocols
strictly. Overcrowding should be prohibited. Install Engineering Controls
• Installing physical barriers in areas where physical distance cannot be maintained
(e.g., utilizing clear plastic barriers at information desks).
Using rope and stanchion systems to keep crowds away from workers in areas outside
restaurants and stores.
CONCLUSIONS
• As from hypothesis 1 we can conclude that age group plays a significant
role while differentiating between online and offline shopping channels
whereas gender does not.
• As per the, in the age group of 15 to 25, participants preferred online
shopping more than offline.
• During the study we found 16 variables that influence the study and
factor analysis helped us boil them down into 3 major factors.
• From discriminant analysis we can conclude that safety is the most
important factor affecting customer’s choices.