We take this research project as an opportunity to express our

sincere gratitude to our mentor Prof. J.K. Nayak for his essential
teaching support and guidance. He made sure that we always follow
the right path and get the experience and learning.
We express our sincere gratitude to our professor who gave us
invaluable guidance glowing with his words of encouragement and
inspiration, criticisms and discussions throughout the problem
designing and for his valuable support and cooperation in
conceptualizing the project/research work.
We must all thank our batchmates for their unending support and
gesture to help. A research is always incomplete without a proper
response and hence we cannot thank the respondents enough for
taking out their precious time to fill our questionnaire.
This project required contribution from many people and hence we
thank all of them for their roles in this project.
We are very much grateful to all those outstanding individuals with
whom we have worked, who helped us in understanding the
concept. We thank our family members for supporting us during the
project and providing us with high morale.
 Executive Summary
 

We found an interesting area of study in the retail sector where a

consumer’s buying behaviour keeps changing according to the times
in the society. The buying decisions can be in accordance with the
online and offline actions taken by each consumer, and these
actions can be affected by the situational scenario.  

We started off with an understanding of what factors have changed

due to the pandemic, among the likes of social, cultural, personal
and psychological. We have observed how brands have tried to shift
the perception in customers’ view into rather nutritional, healthcare
oriented, etc aspects from the pre-pandemic scenario. We have
seen new brands addressing pandemic induced issues, rise up and
gain huge market shares. We wanted to focus on the food industry
and how customers have responded to the changes in packaging,
nutritional offerings by the brands.
We as a group have met virtually several times to come up with a
suitable questionnaire for our project. We prepared the
questionnaire in such a way that we would get only that data that
would be meaningful for our analysis. We tried to get as much data
as we could from the survey while keeping the respondent’s
personal time in mind. We deliberately have never tried to get
anything that is deemed unnecessary for our research. We were
able to refine our research problem throughout the time we
prepared the questionnaire and direct our survey questionnaire
towards very appropriate yet useful data collection. 
Our professor was kind enough to suggest some changes to our
survey questionnaire, and it has helped us immensely in our
research methodology.
Our survey data was collected primarily to get insights about
consumer buying behaviour and its changes during and after the
onset of the pandemic in our country.
We reached out to as many people as we could, through digital and
social media such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and even the virtual
corporate hub LinkedIn, and formal e-mails to reach out to our
target audience. 
We were able to collect 234 responses, which we found to be
meeting our target sample size of 200 responses. After the data
collection was done, we went on to clean the data, and get the
appropriate data for analysis. 
We as a team have performed suitable analysis on the data and
found very interesting insights about the research area. 
Title

Analysis of consumer buying behaviour in Packaged Food Products

Category during Covid-19 pandemic time.
 
Problem definition

In the last one-year, the unprecedented crisis of covid-19 pandemic has

significantly impacted consumer buying behaviour. Lockdowns and other
restrictions have negatively affected the supply chains. Also, there has been a
shift in consumers’ focus towards health and immunity-boosting food items
and there is an increased awareness for hygiene and safety while purchasing
packaged food products. Further, there has been a change in the quantity a
consumer buys at one go, in their brand preferences for a particular product
either due to non-availability or changed preference for immunity boosting
substitutes.

Identifying this pattern of change can help us as a marketer to address the

weak links in the supply chain of a particular brand, the changed order of
preference for features in a specific product and the way we need to position a
particular product in customer minds. This research aims at gaining more
insight into consumer attitudes and purchasing behaviour while purchasing the
products in Consumer-Packaged Food Category during the pandemic period.

Background

Consumer-packaged foods are FMCG products including processed foods,

ready-to-eat meals, baked foods, beverages, and other such packaged food
items. They are used daily by average consumers and require replacement or
replenishment on a frequent basis. These are the small-scale consumer
purchases made at the produce stand, grocery store, supermarket, and
warehouse outlet.

While consumer demand for these products largely remains constant, it is a

highly competitive sector. This is due to high market saturation and low
consumer switching costs. These goods are purchased frequently, consumed
rapidly, priced low, and are sold in large quantities. Consumer-packaged food
products are typically sold in traditional brick and mortar stores, but
consumers, in recent years, are increasingly turning to online retailers.
 

Research questions

1. How consumers change their purchase dynamics in times of unexpected

events following the outburst of covid 19 pandemic?
2. What factors drive the shift in consumer preferences for Consumer-
packaged food products in crisis times such as covid pandemic?
3. Does demand of Consumer-packaged food products get influenced
during pandemic times?
4. Is there any change in perception of consumers towards the health and
hygiene aspects of the products/brands they buy in the Consumer-
packaged food products category?
5. Does the shift towards new lifestyles during covid pandemic have an
impact on the buying behaviour of consumers?

Research objectives

This study is guided by the primary research objective which is as per the
following:

“To study and analyse the consumer buying behaviour in Consumer-

Packaged Food products in times of covid-19 pandemic.”

From the above-mentioned primary research objective, the following sub

research objectives can be acquired. These comprise of the following:

1.  Identify potential factors influencing the purchase dynamics.

2.  Study the changed demand dynamics and the shift towards e-retailers.

3. Analyse perception towards packaged food products from popular

brands versus those from private labels.
 
Literature review/hypothesis formulation

N Ramya., Dr. SA Mohamed Ali, Factors affecting consumer buying

behaviour, International Journal of Applied Research (2016): The number of
factors affecting Consumer Buying Behaviour need studies in an extensive
manner. How an ultimate consumer buys the product and what factors affect
this buying decision, if affected, how this customer reacts to changes from
brands are very interrelated. Number of characteristics and specificities can
change or hinder the individual from buying a product. Decision to purchase is
the result of each and every one of the affecting factors. Culture, subculture,
and social class can be leading factors in this behaviour. Social and Societal
environment also will hugely affect the decision making in this aspect. Through
a thorough understanding of the factors that influence this decision making,
brands across the sectors try to change the face of their value proposition and
showcase it in a different manner than before in accordance with the change in
conditions. 

Bigne et al., The Impact of Internet User Shopping Patterns and

Demographics on Consumer Mobile Buying Behaviour, Journal of Electronic
Commerce Research (2005): An in-depth study of how purchasing decisions
using mobile phones are made by consumers across various segments is
presented in this research journal. 

Sheth J., Impact of Covid-19 on consumer behaviour: Will the old habits
return or die? Journal of Business Research (2020): Consumer habits of buying
have been heavily influenced and changed due to the onset of the pandemic,
and its required social distancing mandates. One big question is whether
consumers will go back to their old habits of purchasing and this change would
only be a temporary one. Latest technological advances have enabled the use
cases of digital commerce or e-retail platforms for buying products.

Mehta S et al., The New Consumer Behaviour Paradigm amid COVID-19:

Permanent or Transient? Journal of Health Management (2020): The
pandemic is a big enough situation to affect the whole human behaviour. It is
specifically important for marketers and companies which have their offerings
around these affecting times and situations. Disposable income spending gets
changed across many classes of the population. Discretionary spending takes a
hit. Besides the concept of spiritual consumption introduced in this paper, the
commentary on ‘The Market for transformation’, suggested that consumers
seek value from products in a different way than normal situations. They would
look for a concoction of services and values, from a limited offering. This
journal also shows the way for a consumer sentimental analysis of buying only
‘what is enough’ in different times.    

Research methodology 

The research method was limited to online survey through questionnaires

because of the pandemic situation. The initial steps of our research were to
frame a less complicated questionnaire so that our sample will have a clear
idea of what is being required from them. 

Data Collection

We have chosen questionnaires as a research instrument. A set of questions

presented to the respondents called a questionnaire. Questionnaires provide
flexibility and good reach; thus, the most common method used to collect the
primary data. The questionnaire was developed and tested before launching
for online survey. We have done the survey using google forms and sharing the
same with the masses through social networking sites and apps like WhatsApp.
It was separated into three segments: questions on the dependent variable,
independent variables, and demographic profile. The information gathered
through the questionnaire includes Basic household information, product
selection/satisfaction/buying frequency, Brand preferences/loyalty,
Consideration of quality/health/hygiene factors, and preferences during covid
times.

Sampling decision

We have considered a target- oriented method for sampling because our

target research was based on an online survey. Our sample size is 234. We had
surveyed 234 samples, which were bifurcated into urban, semi-urban and rural
areas. The sample space of the study consisted of 234 samples belonging to
different areas, gender, age and monthly household income.
Data analysis and interpretation

As a part of our research project, we tried to find out how the consumer
buying behaviour changed in terms of buying frequency, preferred mode of
buying, change in consideration for various product attributes etc. Firstly, a bit
of analysis of our respondents in terms of the locality they come from i.e.,
rural, urban etc. 

We have got almost half of our responses from the people who are living in
urban centres. While, around 60 of the responses we got were from people
living in semi-urban areas and the rest around 40 responses we got from the
rural residents.

As we can see people are mostly concerned with Accessibility and Availability
and they are least concerned with affordability.

As we can see in the graph, during the pandemic more people are buying
products with high nutritional value as compared to before the pandemic
scenario. Similarly, there is a slight decrease in the number of people who
value quality during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic times. 
We can infer from the above graph that People living in rural and semi-urban
areas mostly use nearby grocery store as a preferred mode for buying
packaged food products Whereas people in urban extensively use
departmental store and Ecommerce websites along with nearby grocery shop. 

As we can see in the graph above, the importance of packaging has increased
sharply during the pandemic. 
 

Importance of grocery stores remains the same as a preferred buying location

but more people are preferring ecommerce websites and there is decline in
the number of people visiting departmental stores partly because of
lockdown.  

As we can see in the above graph, compared to rural and semi-urban areas
(where most people say that their buying frequency has decreased) , more
respondents in urban areas say that their buying frequency has rather
increased or remained the same. 
The above graph shows that most decision makers are males in the age group
of 45-60 followed by females in the same age group. There are very few
decision makers above 60 years of age. 

As we can see in the above graph, word of mouth has the most influence
followed by online/social media and TV commercials, while Print Media has the
least influence on the consumer buying behaviour. 
As we can see people are switching from branded products to private label
products especially during the pandemic. 

As we can see there is not much difference in the influence of offers and
discounts on the consumer buying behaviour before and during the pandemic. 
As we can see people generally prefer to buy food once in a month and 2-3
times a month and they spend mostly 0-5000 rupees monthly on packaged
food products. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, this research aims to analyse the changing preferences pattern

in understanding the factors that influence consumers’ buying behaviour in the
packaged food products category during the crisis times like what we saw in
the past one year or so during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a part of our
research project, we tried to find out how the consumer buying behaviour
changed in terms of buying frequency, preferred mode for buying, change in
consideration for various product attributes, among others. Based on the
results obtained in our analysis, we can conclude the following key highlights
regarding the consumer buying behaviour during pandemic time.

Preferred mode for buying shifted more towards online modes, along with
preference of consumers to accessibility and availability of products during
crisis time being more of a concern than that of affordability. This might be
driven partly by lockdowns and stock-outs during such times. 

Preference of buyers for the product attributes has also seen some shift.
During the pandemic, consumers’ preference shifted more towards nutritional
values and brand attributes. This might be driven by increasing awareness
towards healthy lifestyle and more concern for immunity while choosing the
packaged foods. Also, consumers looked more to price and less to the quality
of products during the pandemics compared to normal times. This might be
due to the concerns of availability and affordability during the pandemic.

The packaging consciousness among consumers has seen a drastic increase

during the pandemic times. The factor responsible for this behaviour can be
the fact that people were more cautious for hygiene factor so as to prevent the
spread of coronavirus during the last one year.

Overall, we can conclude that there is a significant shift in the consumer buying
preferences when such an unprecedented crisis occurs like Covid-19 and the
lockdowns to prevent its spread. While having purchase in the packaged foods
category, buyers anticipate stockouts and lack of accessibility, and prefer
buying more than usual quantities in such times. Also, shift towards brands
indicates that trust plays an important role while buying these products during
crisis time. Health, immunity and hygiene become crucial factors while buying
the products in such times. Looking at these patterns, marketers can better
position their products considering the above-mentioned factors to sustain in
the pandemic and post pandemic times to cater to the changed consumer
preferences. 

Limitations

In this research project, there were few limitations during the process and
analysis of the project. Constraints or difficulties are fundamental for future
research to learn and a way forward to improve future research.

Time constraint: The research project was to be completed in a limited period

and because of this, we could only collect 234 responses in our survey.

Language barrier: We performed an online survey which could be a limitation

as we opted for English language only. Therefore, many respondents, who are
not good at English language, could not participate in our survey.

Access to the data: Limited time and the pandemic situation restricted our
data collection methods and we could not gather the primary data through
other methods like personal interview, field survey, among others.
References:

1. N Ramya., Dr.SA Mohamed Ali, Factors affecting consumer buying

behavior, International Journal of Applied Research (2016).
2. Bigne et al., The Impact of Internet User Shopping Patterns and
Demographics on Consumer Mobile Buying Behavior, Journal of
Electronic Commerce Research (2005).
3. Sheth J., Impact of Covid-19 on consumer behavior: Will the old habits
return or die? Journal of Business Research (2020).
4. Mehta S et al., The New Consumer Behaviour Paradigm amid COVID-19:
Permanent or Transient? Journal of Health Management (2020)