The impact of online grocery shopping on stockpile behavior in Covid-19

Abstract

PurposeThis research is to examine the impact of online channels on food stockpile behavior.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, we use bivariate probit models to empirically investigate the impact of online purchasing channels on Chinese urban consumer food hoarding behaviors with random survey samples.FindingsResults show that fresh food e-commerce channels are more likely to be associated with panic stockpile behaviors due to higher likelihood of supply shortages than offline channels with government assistance in logistic management. In contrast, community group buy, another format of e-commerce, appears superior in satisfying the consumer needs and easing the panic buying perception.Practical implicationsIt suggests that online channels may have diverse impacts on consumers' panic stockpiling behaviors during the extreme situations. Online channels need to develop efficient supply chains to be more resilient to extreme situations and the government shall recognize the increasing share of the online channels together with traditional offline channels when implementing supporting policies.Social implicationsWith ever increasing share of online channels, it is imperative in terms of policy implications to understand how would online channels affect hoarding behavior.Originality/valueWe are the first study in online shopping's impact on food stockpile during pandemics using a random sample. Although food stockpile behavior at times of emergency have been investigated in many literature, there are no empirical studies on the impact of online channels on stockpile behaviors under extreme situations. Unlike disasters that immediately impact every entity in supply chains covering producers, vendors, distribution centers and retailers, pandemics did not render supply chains affected immediately, but rather increase consumers' willingness to shop online to avoid virus. Thus, Covid-19 provides a natural experiment to investigate the online channels' impact on stockpile behavior.

The Determinants of Panic Buying during COVID-19

“…The research on the effects of panic buying is slightly more robust. They include the effects on supply chain disruptions and purchasing behavior of retailers, subsequent cascading effect of panic buying, effects on pharmacy purchases of drugs from wholesalers, effects on online grocery shopping [ 28 ], effects on consumer panic levels [ 29 ], effects on transport volume and freight capacity dynamics, and effects on the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries [ 7 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. These effects range from supply chain disruptions and concerningly low levels of animal pharmaceuticals needed by primary agricultural industries to volatile changes in freight volume for retail logistics dependent on the strength of the pandemic, as measured through the number of new daily infections.…”

COVID-19-Related Changes in Perceived Household Food Waste in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study

“…Household management of food to an extent underlies the ability of members of households to engage in healthful, efficient, or even more or less sustainable food-related behaviors, especially as it relates to food procurement and food use [8,9]. However, the ways in which households purchase and store food, as well as make use of it over time, are subject to COVID-related impacts, for instance in driving individuals to potentially "stockpile" food or alter home-cooking patterns [10][11][12]. As such, it is possible that pandemicrelated shifts could also have occurred in relation to household-level food waste.…”

Food consumption and stigmatization under COVID‐19: Evidence from Chinese consumers’ aversion to Wuhan hot instant noodles

“…The food supply chain has suffered during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic, from consumer stockpiling and panic buying (Hao et al, 2020; Wang & Hao, 2020), concentrated outbreaks in meat processing plants (Middleton et al, 2020), and stigma (Corbet et al, 2020). Stigma is “an unwarranted level of avoidance behavior” (Walkers, 2001) mostly reflected in products whose names are related to the virus, such as Corona beer.…”