Shopping in the time of Covid: How the change in consumer behavior affected the supply chain

Abstract

In March 2020, when the world shut down with the spread of the novel coronavirus, people started panic-buying everything. Panic caused by the pandemic combined with the fear of going out in the real world led to people relying heavily on online shopping. Although e-commerce was already a fast growing sector, familiar to disruptions created by hurricanes or fires, the disruption created by Covid-19 was still significantly detrimental to organizations' supply chain operations. This paper looks at how consumer attitude impacts e-commerce adoption and how the changing consumer behavior impacted the supply chain.

In order to do this, I built a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to test and identify drivers of e-commerce. To test the hypotheses in my TAM, I implemented multiple regression, Partial Least Squares Regression and Principal Component Regression. Using data from a survey from Sari et al. about the psychological impact of the pandemic in Turkey, I identified the main drivers of online shopping to be a consumer's perception of trust and risk.

After identifying the factors impacting consumer attitude, I looked at how the post-pandemic behavior impacted the supply chain. I found that the demand surges coming from unexpected sectors and consumers as well as situational factors limiting travel were the biggest cause of supply chain disruptions.

Although there is a lot of research on consumer behavior and supply chain disruptions, there are not many that try to combine these aspects. Through the insight my regression models provide on consumer behavior during unprecedented times, my research fills a gap in the e-commerce supply chain literature.