Research Paper, Journal Article
Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
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Heliyon
journal homepage: www.cell.com/heliyon
Research article
Crisis perception and consumption pattern during COVID-19: do
demographic factors make differences?
Shahedul Hasan a, b, *, Md. Amanul Islam c, d, Md. Bodrud-Doza e
a
Department of Marketing, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
School of Entrepreneurship Development, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
d
60 Decibles, Inc., USA
e
Climate Change Programme (CCP), BRAC, Dhaka, 1212, Bangladesh
b
c
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
COVID-19
Crisis perception
Consumer behaviour
Consumption pattern
Demographic factors
Background: Consumption patterns of people around the world have been tremendously affected due to the
COVID-19 outbreak since December 2019. Previous studies validated the influence of both internal and external
factors on consumer behaviour. However, due to the lack of empirical research, this study explored the influence
of external factor such as COVID-19 on consumer purchase behaviour, economic and financial situation. In
addition, the study investigated how crisis perception and consumption pattern vary due to demographic
variables.
Methods: A convenience sampling technique was used and a total of 340 responses were collected from three
countries, e.g., Bangladesh (n ¼ 129), India (n ¼ 122), and Pakistan (n ¼ 89) using a structured questionnaire.
The respondents rated the items, collected from relevant past studies, on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from highly
disagree to highly agree.
Results: Exploratory factor analysis summarized all the measurement items into seven main factors from which
two factors were removed due to low reliability. Except for the individual's financial situation, the overall mean
values of the remaining factors were above 3.50 indicating a higher level of crisis perception and greater change
in consumption patterns. Multivariate analysis of variance indicated that the factor scores were significantly
different across countries, gender, education and income groups. In addition, Indian consumers were highly
concerned and affected by COVID-19 followed by Pakistani and Bangladeshi consumers. In only one factor (e.g.,
an individual's financial situation), country and age had a significant interaction effect. Finally, the factors had
significant difference among three categories of consumers (e.g., low, medium and high crisis perception). It
indicates that consumers with higher crisis perception reported more behavioural changes due to COVID-19.
Conclusions: Therefore, more COVID-19 crisis perception leads to significant changes in consumption pattern and
the financial situation of the consumers. This study will enable academicians, marketers and decision-makers to
understand different facets of consumer behaviour in three contagious countries namely Bangladesh, India and
Pakistan in South Asia.
1. Introduction
The perceived risk due to the crisis has the potential to affect individuals' behaviour during a pandemic is also apparent (Wise et al.,
2020). The majority of citizens make intuitive risk judgments, typically
called "risk perceptions", to assess the impact of any given risk (Slovic,
1987). Previously, the study of risk perception has been one of the
methods by which people's opinions regarding hazardous activities,
substances and technologies was examined (Slovic, 1987). According to
Slovic (2000), people's feelings and cognitions about risk can be
The world has come to a halt due to the crisis of coronavirus diseases-2019 (COVID-19). Started in December 2019 from Wuhan city of
China, the pandemic has taken the world by storm (Fernandes, 2020).
By April 2020, more than 0.5 million people were affected by
COVID-19 and the rate is still ongoing (World Health Organization,
2020).
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address:-(S. Hasan).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07141
Received 18 August 2020; Received in revised form 27 November 2020; Accepted 20 May-/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).
S. Hasan et al.
Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
that affect consumers' purchasing behaviour towards food produced
domestically in Greece during the economic crisis in 2008. Mansoor and
Jalal (2011) studied the impact of the global business crisis on Bahraini
consumers, investigating their perception of this problem and whether
their consumption behaviour has been changed as a result of the crisis.
Studies on consumer behaviour in the context of COVID 19 mostly
pertain to reports and newspapers. Besides, studies focusing on COVID19 contexts are few. A recent study focused on how household spending
is changed in an epidemic with the direct effect of COVID-19 in the
context of the United States (Baker et al., 2020). Recently, Wise et al.
(2020) studied changes in risk perception and protective behaviour due
to the COVID-19 pandemic in the US context examining if individuals’
perception of risk can predict the extent of protective behaviours. Similarly, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping in the
setting of COVID 19 have been studied from a social and behavioural
science perspective (Van Bavel et al., 2020). Most importantly, though
there are several studies (Berry and Hasty, 1982; Kumar, 2014; Pratap,
2017; Sheth, 1977) regarding the influence of demographic factors on
consumer behaviour, none of the studies are recent enough to relate to
the pandemic setting.
In a world of economies connected by cross-border flows of goods,
services, people, and financial capital, panic has distorted usual consumption patterns as well as the market system (Fernandes, 2020). Recent
research has predicted some shifts in consumer behaviour since the
pandemic is likely to be long-lasting (Arnold, 2020). The impacts of
COVID-19 on consumer behaviour, in particular, have been little attended
to and elaborated by scholars and practitioners (Fernandes, 2020; Baldwin
and di Mauro, 2020). No empirical research has been found on changes in
cross country consumption pattern due to COVID-19 crises perception.
Based on an empirical study and data analysis, this research aims at
finding out if there are many faces of consumer behaviour given the
impacts of COVID-19 on household consumption pattern and financial
situation. Particularly, this study focused on a comparative analysis
among three countries (e.g., Bangladesh, India and Pakistan) related to
consumer's attitudes and behaviour in the purchasing of products and
services during a pandemic.
The central research questions this study asks are as follows:
meticulously measured and can often be cogently predicted. In the
context of COVID-19 induced health emergency, a very recent study
investigated the public perception of health risk in Italy (Motta Zanin
et al., 2020). According to Motta Zanin et al. (2020), initiatives of governments like lockdown and quarantine in response to the public health
emergency may heavily intrude on the individual choices, daily habits
and behaviours of citizens. COVID-19 has brought changes in consumers'
behavioural patterns regarding consumption across the world (Fernandes, 2020). It has already caused changes to consumer behaviour and
introduced long-lasting effects as well (Yendamuri et al., 2020). According to a survey by Global Web Index in the US and UK, 8 in 10
consumers have changed their behaviours because of the virus (Mander,
2020). Changes in people's lifestyles, buying behaviour and supply chain
system of businesses result in new events, e.g., retailers are closing their
doors, consumers are looking at products and brands through a new lens
(Mander, 2020). Given the social distancing in new normal condition,
consumer habits are getting used to the new environment and circumstances (Tam, 2020). Previously, Booth and Shepherd (1988) mentioned
that factors such as culture and economy, consumer's personality, attitudes, values and emotions affected consumer's decision-making process.
Vertinsky and Wehrung (1990; as cited in Krewski et al., 1995) argue that
public perception of risk can influence public policy, market processes
and individual behaviour. Steenkamp (1997) further added that biological, psychological, socio-demographical factors also affected consumer's
buying decision (Steenkamp, 1997).
Consumer's choice behaviour can be described as deriving from utility
maximization subject to a budget constraint (Varian, 1983). Consumer
behaviour depends on both economic constraint and opportunity. Increases in the cost often influence the purchasing decision regarding the
quality and quantity of food (Theodoridou et al., 2017). The consumer is
the most elemental basis for any business organization, hence, their core
behaviour is also of great importance and significance for a successful
marketing experience and financial affluence (Mansoor and Jalal, 2011).
According to Ahorsu et al. (2020), one unique feature of pandemic viral
infections is the growing fear among the population. However, Motta
Zanin et al. (2020) highlighted that the main feelings due to COVID-19
induced health emergency among the Italians were uncertainty and not
fear (Motta Zanin et al., 2020). Chen et al. (2020; as cited in Ahorsu et al.,
2020) argue that the huge uncertainty directly hurts consumers' willingness to consume when they feel unsafe and anxious, even with no
imminent threat of economic security.
Studies on consumer behaviour in the context of economic crisis have
concentrated in developed and developing countries. One-third of the
worlds poor living in South Asia along with the highest population
density has a mere 16% of the world's income per capita (Nayyar, 2020).
According to a recent poll, 72% of the people said that their lives had
been disrupted in some way by the coronavirus (Karson, 2020). It is
affecting daily routines such as cancelling dinner, postponing vacation,
or cancelling religious service. However, these findings are not the reports of holistic research in this study context. Instead, they present
anecdotal evidence, such as the impact of the previous crisis on consumer
behaviour in a particular country. Wen et al. (2005), analyzed the impacts of SARS on the consumer behaviour of Chinese tourists focusing on
the sensitivity of consumers towards crises in making decisions concerning leisure travel. The survey indicates that SARS has greatly affected
people's lives, work and travelling during the SARS period while the
impacts on people's inclination to travel, the preference of leisure trips
and concern of public hygiene vary. Generally speaking, the impacts of
SARS are of a nature of paroxysm and time, and the decrease of travel and
tourism was caused by a combination of internal motivation as well as
external compulsory measures and travel bans (Wen et al., 2005). Voinea
and Filip (2011) studied consumer behaviour in the context of global
economic crisis, which turned out to be a financial crisis by showing that
the recession has led the consumers to look for new landmarks and they
became more economical, responsible and demanding (Voinea and Filip,
2011). Similarly, Tsourgiannis et al. (2014) sought to identify the factors
What are consumers' subjective perceptions regarding crisis?
Do consumption patterns during COVID-19 differ based on the extent
of the perception among people in different countries?
If consumption pattern differs, do demographic factors make any
sense at all?
The result of this research can help decision-makers, marketer and
managers to understand different facets of consumer behaviour in three
contagious countries namely Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in South Asia.
2. Methods
2.1. Study measures
Relevant previous studies (Jasiulewicz, 2012; Wen et al., 2005) had
been used to identify the measurement items of COVID-19 crisis
perception, economic crisis perception, consumption and financial situation of consumers. To meet the aim of this study (i.e., relating crisis
perception and consumption pattern with demographic factors during
COVID-19), the online survey questionnaire was developed so that
web-based self-completion can be performed by participants. The questionnaire consisted of two main parts. The first parts involved different
demographic information of the respondents including country, gender,
age, education, occupation, and income. The remaining part included the
measurement items related to the study variables. The respondents rated
the measurements items on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from highly
disagree to highly agree.
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Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
Figure 1. COVID-19 confirmed cases by the end of April 2020 (WHO, 2020).
2.2. Study area
2.4. Ethics
To focus on consumer concern and explore behavioural changes as a
consequence of COVID-19 pandemic, this study selectively limits the
study sample to three neighbouring countries namely; Bangladesh, India
and Pakistan. The mentioned countries not only share some extent of
socio-cultural and religious interconnections, but also each of the three
country competes with each other in the international market, geopolitics, production and trade. The three countries were one for more
than a century and share a heritage of similar institutions, economies,
peoples and even statistical systems (Papanek et al., 1991). Given the
historical and political precolonial interconnection among these three
neighbouring countries, it is evident that consumers' consumption decision among these countries is based on income ratio. It is found that
consumers of these developing countries, like most of the SAARC countries, are unable to anticipate their future income in short term and seek
to anticipate their future income in long term and make consumption
decisions based on permanent income (Khan et al., 2015). During the
pre-COVID-19 decades, India's economy has performed better than both
Bangladesh and Pakistan. Pakistan was surpassed by Bangladesh in
economic growth in 2006. Surprisingly, according to the latest update,
India's per capita income has fallen below the per capita income of
Bangladesh in COVID-19 year. This study also prioritized these three
neighbouring countries because their cases have been growing steadily.
The following chart shows the COVID-19 confirmed cases by the end of
April 2020 as of April 27 (Bangladesh), April 26 (India), April 30
(Pakistan) (see Figure 1).
The study was accomplished by maintaining the ethical concerns of
the research. This study was approved by the School of Entrepreneurship
Development, Dhaka. While participants were being recruited, all the
participants were apprised of the objective of the study. Prior to the
collection of data, informed consent was taken from the participants with
ensuring anonymity and confidentiality of data. The participants did not
have any financial outcome by participating in the study.
2.5. Data analysis
Data collected through questionnaire were analyzed using the SPSS
software tool version 21. Frequency distribution and percentile measures
were used primarily for sample distribution. The measure of central
tendency and dispersion statistics are two commonly used statistics for
raw data explanation (Sheats and Pankratz, 2002). Moreover, the reliability of the scale items was established through the score of Cronbach's
alpha coefficients. Data analyses specifically included demographic
profiling of the respondents, coding the measurement variables used in
this study, descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis. In
2.3. Participant and procedure
A convenience sampling technique under non-probability sampling
has been utilized in this study due to cost and time consideration. It is
argued that good estimates of population characteristics may also be
produced by non-probability sampling (Malhotra, 2010). Again, this study
also prioritized these three neighbouring countries because their cases has
been growing steadily in the region. The sample size was determined
based on the guidelines of Hair et al. (2019) which is 200 and larger when
the number of variables and the expected number of factors increases. Due
to this COVID-19 pandemic, it was not possible to reach the respondents in
person. So, an online survey had been run during the month of April, May
and June 2020. The data were collected through a structured questionnaire constructed in google form. To limit the entry of non-sample
participant, an introductory paragraph briefing the objective of the
study and ethical issues of participating was attached to the beginning of
the survey form. Finally, the survey questionnaire was shared with
different Facebook groups as well as sent to potential participants through
Facebook messenger, which was also applied in the past study (Hossain
et al., 2020). A total of 340 responses were collected from three countries,
e.g., Bangladesh (n ¼ 129), India (n ¼ 122), and Pakistan (n ¼ 89). A
flowchart describing the research methodology is presented in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Research methodology flowchart.
3
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Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
addition, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed for
measuring the variation of COVID-19 effects across different demographic factors.
involve 0.80 or above, meritorious; 0.70 or above, middling; 0.60 or
above, mediocre; 0.50 or above, miserable; and below 0.50, unacceptable
(Hair et al., 2019). The study found a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of
sampling adequacy value of 0.846 which is meritorious in this case. The
communalities value ranging from 0.40 to 0.70 is acceptable for a sample
size of at least 200 (Hair et al., 2019). In this study, all the items had
commonalities above 0.40 and thus, acceptable. An eigenvalue greater
than 1 has been suggested to determine the number of factors (Hair et al.,
2019), hence, seven main factors were detected and the total variance
explained was 59.206%. The factors identified by EFA were labelled as
individual's financial situation, entertainment and outdoor expense,
business and additional expense, economy, expensive consumption,
crisis perception and service expense. Except for crisis perception, all the
measurement items related to the factors were adopted from Jasiulewicz
(2012). The COVID-19 crisis perception items and labelling were adopted
and adjusted from Wen et al. (2005).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Respondents’ profile
As illustrated in Table 1, the highest number of participants were
from Bangladesh (37.9%) followed by India (35.9%) and Pakistan
(26.2%). 36.5% of the participants were female and 63.5% of the participants were male. The frequency of age groups indicated that
maximum respondents (60.6%) belonged to the age group between 21
and 30. The rest of the participants belonged to the age group of 31–40
(28.2%) followed by 41–50 (5.9%), below 20 (4.1%) and above 50 years
(1.2%). The largest number of participants (57.6%) had an education
background of post-graduate and above. The remaining participants were
graduate (23.2%) followed by undergraduate (18.5%) and school goers
(0.6%). Most of the participants were students (46.8%) followed by
professionals (31.2%). Other participants were unemployed (10.3%),
govt. official (9.7%) and entrepreneur (2.1%). Besides, the majority of
the respondents had income below $400 (42.4%) followed by $401-$600
(23.2%). The rest of them had an income range of above $1000 (13.5%),
$601-$800 (12.6%) and $801-$1000 (8.2%). These results are in line
with Kushwaha and Agrawal (2015) where maximum Indian consumers
had an income range between Rs 21000 and 30000 (282$ to 403$).
Ashraf (2019) also found that 40% of respondents in Bangladesh had an
income between 40,001 and 60,000 (472$ to 708$).
3.2.3. Reliability analysis
Cronbach's alpha value is widely used for the reliability assessment of
each factor or construct (George, 2011). The greater value of Cronbach's
alpha ensures the internal continuity of the constructs (Nunnally, 1978).
The Cronbach's alpha value should be 0.60 or above for higher reliability
Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the respondents.
Category
Frequency
Percent
(n)
(%)
Country
3.2. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)
Exploratory factor analysis or EFA primarily aims to describe the
underlying structure, pattern or relationship among a set of variables and
summarize these large number of variables into a smaller set of factors or
components (Hair et al., 2019).
EFA had been used in this study to identify the key factors associated
with the items measuring COVID-19 crisis perception, economic crisis
perception, household consumption and financial situation. Table 2
showed the outcome of factor analysis which had been conducted with
the principal component method and promax rotation.
Bangladesh
129
37.9
India
122
35.9
Pakistan
89
26.2
Total
340
100.0
Gender
Female
124
36.5
Male
216
63.5
Total
340
100.0
Age
3.2.1. Common method bias (CMB) test
According to Bagozzi and Yi (1988), the bias in the dataset induced by
something outside of the measurements but which may affect the
response is termed as common method bias. To illustrate, a single data
collection method (e.g., online survey) in survey research may generate
systematic response bias inflating or deflating the responses (Akter,
2015; Dupuis et al., 2017). To determine any presence of CMB, this study
used Harman's single factor test due to its simplicity and straightforward
nature (Malhotra, 2010). Harman's single factor test assesses whether
one single factor explains the majority of the variance. CMB will be an
issue if the variance explained by a single factor exceeds 50% (Ouellette
and Wood, 1998; Dupuis et al., 2017). The results showed that total
variance was explained by a single factor was that 24.997% which was
well below the recommended threshold and thus, CMB was not a major
issue in this research.
Below 20
14
4.1
21–30
206
60.6
31–40
96
28.2
41–50
20
5.9
Above 50
4
1.2
Total
340
100.0
School level
2
.6
Undergraduate
63
18.5
Graduate
79
23.2
Education
Post-graduate and above
196
57.6
Total
340
100.0
Student
159
46.8
Entrepreneur
7
2.1
Govt. official
33
9.7
Occupation
3.2.2. Testing appropriateness of EFA
There should be sufficient correlations among the measurement items
in order to proceed with EFA. Bartlett test of sphericity is a measure used
to test the presence of inter items' correlations. In the current study, the
significance of Bartlett's test of sphericity was less than 0.000 (p < 0.001)
indicating rejection of the null hypothesis that the items are not correlated. In addition, the measure of sampling adequacy (MSA), ranging
from 0 to 1, is used to enumerate correlations among the variables and
appositeness of EFA (Hair et al., 2019). The general guidelines for MSA
Professional
106
31.2
Unemployed
35
10.3
Total
340
100.0
Below $400
144
42.4
$401-$600
79
23.2
$601-$800
43
12.6
$801-$1000
28
8.2
Above $1000
46
13.5
Total
340
100.0
Income
4
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Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
non-experimental designs such as survey research with the definition of
proper categorical groups (e.g., gender) and assessment of statistical
difference on any number of metric variables (Hair et al., 2019). Analysis
of variance (ANOVA) and t-test can be used to assess differences among
groups in only one variable. However, as this study contains multiple
variables (5 valid factors), analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test
cannot be applied. Thus, MANOVA suits this study properly.
In this study, the metric dependent variables were the five factors
identified in EFA and the categorical independent variables were the
demographic factors, e.g., country, gender, age, education, occupation
and income.
(Hair et al., 2019). However, factor 5 (i.e., impact on expensive consumption) and 7 (i.e., impact on service expense) showed very low
Cronbach's alpha values of 0.39 and 0.34, respectively. Therefore, these
two factors were discarded and the remaining five factors deemed reliable for further analyses.
3.3. Descriptive statistics
Table 3 illustrated minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation of the factors that were extracted from EFA. Before determining the
descriptive statistics of the factors, a composite mean score was calculated using all the items in a particular factor. Central tendency statistics
and dispersion statistics are two commonly used statistics for raw data
explanation. Methods of central tendency include as mean, median, and
mode of the data and range, variance, and standard deviation are used to
measure dispersion. Mean or average value, a measure of central tendency, is popularly used to indicate the centre of distribution and the
standard deviation is used to see how the data have deviated from the
mean (Malhotra, 2010).
The results indicated that COVID-19 crisis perception had the highest
mean value (M ¼ 4.45) followed by entertainment and outdoor expense
(M ¼ 4.21), business and the additional expense (M ¼ 3.91), economy (M
¼ 3.89) and individual's financial situation (M ¼ 2.74).
3.4.1. MANOVA across country
First of all, MANOVA was used to assess the mean difference of five
factors among the three countries, e.g., Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
The test of homoscedasticity assumption using Levene's test and Box's M
test for equality of the covariance matrices showed a non-significant
result which indicated that the homoscedasticity assumption was met.
The four most commonly used multivariate tests (Pillai's Trace, Wilks'
Lambda, Hotelling's Trace and Roy's Largest Root) indicated that the
factors had a highly significant difference (0.000) among the three
countries. As shown in Table 4, tests of between-subjects effects showed
that the three countries had significant differences in two factors, e.g.,
entertainment and outdoor expense, individual's financial situation.
However, the three countries did not have significant differences in the
remaining three factors.
Boxplot is used to graphically display a metric variable's distribution
for different categories or groups of a categorical variable (Hair et al.,
2019). In this study, factor scores were metric variables and country with
three categories (e.g., Bangladesh, Pakistan and India) was a categorical
3.4. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA)
Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) is defined as a dependence technique used to assess group differences for two or more
continuous dependent variables simultaneously based on a set of categorical independent variables (Hair et al., 2019). MANOVA plays role in
Table 2. Results of exploratory factor analysis.
Factors
Measurement Items
Factors
Impact on individual's financial situation
I used all of my savings
.809
I sell my valuable material resources
0.77
I need to take the loan/credit from friends/banks
0.76
1
I ask my family, relatives, friends for help
0.66
I ask for help to social institutions
0.63
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense Limiting meals outside the home
Impact on business and additional expense
Impact on economy
Impact on expensive consumption
COVID-19 crisis perception
Impact on service expense
2
3
4
5
6
7
0.79
Reducing expenditure on entertainment (cinema, theatre, etc.)
0.79
Cancelling holiday trips
0.78
Reducing expenditure on the barber, beautician, gym
0.59
I drastically reduce my expenditures
0.59
Resigning additional medical insurance/paid medical care
0.77
Reducing paid extracurricular activities for small children
0.77
The loan and credit application refusals by banks
0.64
Limiting paid services in house and surroundings (repair services, flat cleaning, garden care, etc.).
0.61
Less profit for entrepreneurs/businesses
0.55
Dismissal and unemployment increase
0.42
A decline in the value of money (inflation)
0.83
Higher prices on the market
0.79
Property value decline (stock exchange shares, savings, real estate, etc.)
0.66
Choosing public transport instead of private transport (car, bike etc.)
0.65
Purchasing cheaper foods/Choosing cheaper offer
0.60
Reducing expensive durable goods purchases
0.44
I am aware of global COVID-19 crisis
0.83
COVID-19 has greatly affected my work and life.
0.67
Reducing consumption of electricity, gas and water
Resigning loan/credit taking
0.84
0.36
Eigen value
-
Cronbach alpha's
-
5
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Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
Table 3. Descriptive statistics.
N
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
1. COVID-19 crisis perception
340
1.00
5.00
4.4500
Std. Deviation
.79387
2. Impact on economy
340
1.00
5.00
3.8931
.86105
3. Impact on business and additional expense
340
1.00
5.00
3.9132
.73410
4. Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
340
1.00
5.00
4.2088
.78784
5. Impact on individual's financial situation
340
1.00
5.00
2.7353
1.11151
‘school level’ was discarded before analysis. The multivariate tests (Pillai's Trace, Wilks' Lambda, Hotelling's Trace and Roy's Largest Root)
indicated that the factors had a highly significant difference among the
three countries. In addition, there was no significant difference across
education and no interaction between country and education. It indicates
that differences between the three countries did not differ or interact
based on education groups. In other words, the difference in factor scores
among countries was not significantly moderated by education. As shown
in Table 7, tests of between-subjects effects showed that the three
countries had significant differences in one factor, e.g., the individual's
financial situation. In addition, the impact on entertainment and outdoor
expense significantly varied across different education groups.
variable. As illustrated in Figure 3, the mean values showed that
COVID-19 highly affected the entertainment and outdoor expense of
Indian consumers (M ¼ 4.3180) followed by Pakistan (M ¼ 4.2966) and
Bangladesh (M ¼ 4.0450).
In addition, Figure 4 showed that COVID-19 highly affected the individual's financial situation of Indian consumers (M ¼ 3.0213) followed
by Bangladesh (M ¼ 2.7581) and Pakistan (M ¼ 2.3101).
3.4.2. MANOVA across country and gender
MANOVA was used to assess the mean difference of five factors between male and female. The multivariate tests (Pillai's Trace, Wilks'
Lambda, Hotelling's Trace and Roy's Largest Root) indicated that the factors had a highly significant difference among three countries and gender
(male and female). There was no significant interaction between country
and gender. It indicates that differences among the three countries did not
differ or interact based on gender (e.g., male or female). In other words,
the difference in factor scores among countries was not significantly
moderated by gender. This result is supported by the study of Mobley and
Kilbourne (2013) who found that there was no significant interaction
between gender and country regarding environmental intentions.
As shown in Table 5, tests of between-subjects effects showed that the
three countries had significant differences in two factors as before, e.g.,
entertainment and outdoor expense, individual's financial situation. In
addition, an individual's financial situation significantly varied between
male and female.
3.4.5. MANOVA across country and occupation
MANOVA was used to assess the mean difference of five factors
among occupation groups. Due to low participants, the occupation group
‘entrepreneur’ was discarded before analysis. The multivariate tests
(Pillai's Trace, Wilks' Lambda, Hotelling's Trace and Roy's Largest Root)
indicated that the factors had a highly significant difference among the
three countries. In addition, there was no significant difference across
occupation and no significant interaction between country and occupation. It indicates that differences among the three countries did not differ
or interact based on occupation. In other words, the difference in factor
scores among countries was not significantly moderated by occupation.
However, only Roy's Largest Root showed that the interaction was significant. As shown in Table 8, tests of between-subjects effects showed
that the three countries had significant differences in one factor, e.g.,
impact on individual's financial situation.
3.4.3. MANOVA across country and age
MANOVA was used to assess the mean difference of five factors
among age groups. Due to low participants, the age groups ‘below 20’
and ‘above 50’ were discarded before analysis. The multivariate tests
(Pillai's Trace, Wilks' Lambda, Hotelling's Trace and Roy's Largest Root)
indicated that the factors had a highly significant difference among the
three countries. In addition, there was no significant difference across
age. As shown in Table 6, tests of between-subjects effects showed that
the three countries had significant differences in two factors, e.g., impact
on entertainment and outdoor expense and individual's financial situation. The interaction was significant for one factor, e.g., the individual's
financial situation. It indicates that differences among the three countries
differ or interact based on age groups. In other words, the variation of the
individual's financial situation among the three countries is different
across different age groups. The result is consistent with Sierminska and
Takhtamanova (2012).
3.4.4. MANOVA across country and education
MANOVA was used to assess the mean difference of five factors
among education groups. Due to low participants, the education group
Figure 3. Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense across countries.
Table 4. Tests of between-subjects effects.
Source
Dependent Variable
Type III Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Country
COVID-19 crisis perception
.969
2
.484
.767
.465
Impact on economy
1.434
2
.717
.967
.381
Impact on business and additional expense
.446
2
.223
.413
.662
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
5.605
2
2.802
4.611
.011
Impact on individual's financial situation
26.137
2
13.069
11.215
.000
6
S. Hasan et al.
Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
among the three countries did not differ or interact based on income
groups. In other words, the difference in factor scores among countries
was not significantly moderated by income. However, only Roy's Largest
Root showed that the interaction was significant. As shown in Table 9,
tests of between-subjects effects showed that the three countries had
significant differences in one factor, e.g., impact on individual's financial
situation. In addition, the impact on an individual's financial situation
was significantly different across income groups.
3.4.7. MANOVA across COVID-19 perception
The responses of COVID-19 perception were categorized into three
groups, e.g., low, medium and high. MANOVA was performed to
compare across these three groups regarding the four factors, e.g., impact
on the economy, impact on business and additional expense, impact on
entertainment and outdoor expense and impact on individual's financial
situation. The multivariate tests (Pillai's Trace, Wilks' Lambda, Hotelling's
Trace and Roy's Largest Root) indicated that the factors had a highly
significant difference among the three categories. As shown in Table 10,
tests of between-subjects effects showed that three categories had significant differences in three factors, e.g., impact on the economy, impact
on business and additional expense, impact on entertainment and outdoor expense at p < 0.05 level. In addition, the impact on an individual's
financial situation also significantly varied across three categories at p <
0.10 level.
Figure 4. Impact on individual's financial situation across countries.
3.4.6. MANOVA across country and income
MANOVA was used to assess the mean difference of five factors
among income groups. The multivariate tests (Pillai's Trace, Wilks'
Lambda, Hotelling's Trace and Roy's Largest Root) indicated that the
factors had a highly significant difference among the three countries.
There was no significant difference across income and no significant
interaction between country and income. It indicates that differences
Table 5. Tests of between-subjects effects.
Source
Dependent Variable
Type III Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Country
COVID-19 crisis perception
.753
2
.377
.594
.553
Impact on economy
1.167
2
.584
.782
.458
Impact on business and additional expense
.540
2
.270
.497
.609
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
3.787
2
1.894
3.098
.046
Impact on individual's financial situation
27.427
2
13.713
12.085
.000
Gender
Country * Gender
COVID-19 crisis perception
.000
1
.000
.001
.980
Impact on economy
.002
1
.002
.003
.958
Impact on business and additional expense
.490
1
.490
.902
.343
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
.171
1
.171
.280
.597
Impact on individual's financial situation
11.861
1
11.861
10.453
.001
COVID-19 crisis perception
.768
2
.384
.605
.547
Impact on economy
.527
2
.263
.353
.703
Impact on business and additional expense
.511
2
.256
.471
.625
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
.442
2
.221
.362
.697
Impact on individual's financial situation
1.119
2
.560
.493
.611
Table 6. Tests of between-subjects effects.
Source
Dependent Variable
Type III Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Country
COVID-19 crisis perception
.070
2
.035
.061
.941
Impact on economy
1.590
2
.795
1.106
.332
Impact on business and additional expense
.953
2
.476
.915
.402
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
5.217
2
2.609
4.303
.014
Impact on individual's financial situation
21.019
2
10.509
9.193
.000
Age
Country * Age
COVID-19 crisis perception
.155
2
.077
.135
.874
Impact on economy
.942
2
.471
.655
.520
Impact on business and additional expense
.239
2
.119
.229
.795
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
1.067
2
.534
.880
.416
Impact on individual's financial situation
1.135
2
.567
.496
.609
COVID-19 crisis perception
.455
4
.114
.199
.939
Impact on economy
1.498
4
.375
.521
.720
Impact on business and additional expense
2.414
4
.604
1.159
.329
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
2.467
4
.617
1.017
.398
Impact on individual's financial situation
13.050
4
3.262
2.854
.024
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S. Hasan et al.
Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
Table 7. Tests of between-subjects effects.
Source
Dependent Variable
Type III Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Country
COVID-19 crisis perception
1.946
2
.973
1.565
.211
Impact on economy
1.316
2
.658
.890
.412
Impact on business and additional expense
.137
2
.068
.130
.878
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
2.021
2
1.010
1.748
.176
Impact on individual's financial situation
14.692
2
7.346
6.230
.002
Education
Country * Education
Sig.
COVID-19 crisis perception
.784
2
.392
.631
.533
Impact on economy
1.352
2
.676
.915
.402
Impact on business and additional expense
1.068
2
.534
1.012
.365
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
4.175
2
2.087
3.611
.028
Impact on individual's financial situation
1.826
2
.913
.774
.462
COVID-19 crisis perception
.775
4
.194
.312
.870
Impact on economy
1.867
4
.467
.631
.640
Impact on business and additional expense
1.100
4
.275
.521
.720
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
2.642
4
.661
1.143
.336
Impact on individual's financial situation
3.560
4
.890
.755
.555
mean values of the remaining five factors, e.g., COVID-19 crisis perception, impact on the economy, impact on business and additional expense,
impact on entertainment and outdoor expense and impact on individual's
financial situation showed that, except individual's financial situation, all
mean values were above 3.50. It indicated that people of these three
countries had a high level of COVID-19 crisis perception and their consumption patterns had been changed due to the pandemic situation.
During the economic crisis in Poland, Jasiulewicz (2012) investigated
that majority of the consumer were aware of the crisis. In addition, due to
the crisis, the consumers reduced their consumption level (e.g., consumption of expensive items, pleasures etc.) and their household consumption, financial situations were affected by that economic crisis.
Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was utilized to compare
factor means across different demographic factors (e.g., country, gender,
age, education, occupation and income). The results indicated that three
countries (e.g., Bangladesh, India and Pakistan) had significant differences in two factors, e.g., entertainment and outdoor expense, individual's financial situation. The COVID-19 pandemic is influencing the
way people consume media and entertainment (www.ETBrandEquity.com, 2020a, b). Therefore, the countries that invest more in
the entertainment industry have proportionate effects of the pandemic.
According to a recent source, the events and entertainment industry in
India that employs 60 million people has come to a standstill following
the national lockdown (www.ETBrandEquity.com, 2020a, b). In Asia and
Europe, COVID-19 has caused significant disruptions on overall expenses
As illustrated in Figure 5, the mean values showed that those who had
low perception on COVID-19 thought that economy, business and additional expense, entertainment and outdoor expense, individual's financial
situation are affected less than those who had medium and high
perception on COVID-19.
Although coronavirus cases have not been increased rapidly, the
economy is suffering mostly among the countries of South Asia (Fliegauf
and Ayres, 2020). Consumer behaviour is also rapidly changing and
adapting as the world system adjusts to a new normal with social
distancing, working from home and meeting virtually (www.ETBrandEquity.com, 2020a, b). The primary objective of the study was to
identify consumers' perception of crisis and changes in consumption
patterns and financial situation. When the feeling of insecurity and
anxiety grows, uncertainty hurts consumers' attitudes of consuming
(Chen et al., 2020). Therefore, this study assumed to have different levels
of crisis effects across consumers based on the extent of perceptions. It's
important to consider the different demographic factors like country,
gender, age, education, occupation and income. This research also
investigated the differences in crisis effects across consumers with
different crisis perceptions, e.g., low, medium and high.
To accomplish the study, first of all, exploratory factor analysis (EFA)
was performed in order to summarize the measurement items related to
this research. A total of seven main factors were identified from which
two factors (e.g., impact on expensive consumption and impact on service expense) were discarded due to low reliability values. The overall
Table 8. Tests of between-subjects effects.
Source
Dependent Variable
Type III Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Country
COVID-19 crisis perception
1.550
2
.775
1.269
.282
Impact on economy
1.894
2
.947
1.309
.272
Impact on business and additional expense
1.036
2
.518
.995
.371
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
2.810
2
1.405
2.476
.086
Impact on individual's financial situation
16.050
2
8.025
6.920
.001
Occupation
Country * Occupation
COVID-19 crisis perception
2.881
3
.960
1.573
.196
Impact on economy
1.987
3
.662
.916
.434
Impact on business and additional expense
.872
3
.291
.558
.643
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
4.077
3
1.359
2.394
.068
Impact on individual's financial situation
1.921
3
.640
.552
.647
COVID-19 crisis perception
6.255
6
1.042
1.708
.119
Impact on economy
6.456
6
1.076
1.487
.182
Impact on business and additional expense
3.515
6
.586
1.125
.347
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
3.216
6
.536
.944
.463
Impact on individual's financial situation
7.270
6
1.212
1.045
.396
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S. Hasan et al.
Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
Table 9. Tests of between-subjects effects.
Source
Dependent Variable
Type III Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Country
COVID-19 crisis perception
.765
2
.383
.596
.552
Impact on economy
.652
2
.326
.438
.646
Impact on business and additional expense
.132
2
.066
.120
.887
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
2.216
2
1.108
1.837
.161
Impact on individual's financial situation
11.856
2
5.928
5.342
.005
Income
Country * Income
COVID-19 crisis perception
2.849
4
.712
1.110
.352
Impact on economy
3.976
4
.994
1.336
.256
Impact on business and additional expense
1.726
4
.432
.782
.538
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
3.264
4
.816
1.353
.250
Impact on individual's financial situation
15.301
4
3.825
3.447
.009
COVID-19 crisis perception
1.157
8
.145
.225
.986
Impact on economy
4.560
8
.570
.766
.633
Impact on business and additional expense
1.178
8
.147
.267
.976
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
5.846
8
.731
1.211
.291
Impact on individual's financial situation
10.423
8
1.303
1.174
.314
Table 10. Tests of between-subjects effects.
Source
Dependent Variable
Type III Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
COVID-19 perception
Impact on economy
31.863
2
15.932
24.463
.000
Impact on business and additional expense
18.822
2
9.411
19.354
.000
Impact on entertainment and outdoor expense
12.649
2
6.325
10.778
.000
Impact on individual's financial situation
6.357
2
3.179
2.597
.076
factors (e.g., impact on the economy, impact on business and additional
expense, impact on entertainment and outdoor expense and impact on
individual's financial situation) across three groups (e.g., low, medium
and high crisis perception). The results indicated that the factors had a
highly significant difference between the three categories. In addition,
the mean values are higher for those who perceived the COVID-19 crisis
highly compared to those who perceived the COVID-19 crisis by a medium or low level. Therefore, more COVID-19 crisis perception leads to
significant changes in consumption pattern and the financial situation of
the consumers. The findings from this study are comparable with the past
studies related to various past crises and consumer behaviour. Voinea
and Filip (2011) found that recession leads to a strong economic and
social impact on consumers by changing new consumer buying behaviour. Mansoor and Jalal (2011) identified changing trends in consumer
behaviour due to the global business crisis. These changes include reallocation of luxury and necessary consumptions, the decline in savings, a
tendency to pay less for higher-priced products or to substitute products
with other products.
percentage declining to about 7% by March 2020 (Kogan, 2020). It is
plausible to argue from this study that the three countries did not have
significant differences in the remaining three factors (e.g., COVID-19
crisis perception, impact on the economy, impact on business and additional expense), perhaps because of their socio-cultural, political and
economic homogeneity. Pennings et al. (2002) also found a significant
difference among consumer from three countries (e.g., United States,
Germany and the Netherlands) regarding consumers' risk attitudes, perceptions and reactions. Decision-makers need to be conscious of these
cross-cultural differences in order to explore how consumers' reactions to
crisis vary across countries.
However, the findings reveal that, overall, Indian consumers were
more highly concerned and affected by COVID-19 compared to people
from two other counties such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. According to
the CFR update of 30 April 2020, “Indian citizens largely took the stay-athome orders seriously” (Fliegauf and Ayres, 2020). Only the individual's
financial situation significantly differed across gender and income
groups. Interestingly, the gender disparity in COVID-19 cases (79 percent
in Pakistan, and 68 percent in Bangladesh) across the region is also
evident (Fliegauf and Ayres, 2020). In addition, only entertainment and
outdoor expense significantly varied across different education groups.
Nevertheless, consumers' consumption and the financial situation did not
differ across age, education, occupation and income in all other factors.
This was evident from the findings that, in only one factor (e.g., an individual's financial situation), country and age had an interaction effect.
There was no interaction effect between country and gender, country and
age, country and education, country and occupation, country and income
in all factors.
According to Amalia and Ionut (2011), correlations can be found
among the perception of the risks, the risk-generating situation aversion
and the change of consumers' behaviour in nowadays economic crisis. As
consumer behaviour depends on risk perception of any given environment, this study assumed that, on the basis of the extent of crisis or risk
perception, consumer behaviour can be categorized and predicted. With
this hypothesis, MANOVA was performed to compare means of four
Figure 5. Factor means across perception categories.
9
S. Hasan et al.
Heliyon 7 (2021) e07141
3.5. Study limitations
Declarations
This study has the limitation of convenience sampling and subjective
selection of the samples due to the pandemic. Due to the pandemic situation, the data were collected only through the online platform (i.e.,
Facebook) and thereby, the respondents who were not available at
Facebook remained excluded from the study. Moreover, the study only
focused on subjective answers of participants with their subjective perceptions and awareness. Another major limitation of the study was the
sample size of 340 from three countries, e.g., Bangladesh (n ¼ 129), India
(n ¼ 122), and Pakistan (n ¼ 89). The sample size was comparatively low
and non-homogeneous as the online survey was the sole option during
the spread of COVID-19. Despite the limitations, this study provided
important insights into consumer behaviours which are important for
international business and economy.
Author contribution statement
Shahedul Hasan: Conceived and designed the experiments; performed the experiments; analyzed and interpreted the data; contributed
reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.
Md. Amanul Islam: Conceived and designed the experiments;
Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.
M. Bodrud-Doza: Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or
data.
Funding statement
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies
in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
4. Conclusions
Data availability statement
Consumers in South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, India and
Pakistan have many cross-matching prospects as these three neighbouring countries are not only historically interconnected but also more
integrated into the context of cross border business and culturally
influenced in the era of media and globalization. Consumer's attitudes,
behaviours, perceptions depend on a myriad of factors like sociocultural, economic and political, regional and geo-specific issues.
Amid crisis, most importantly, consumer behaviour depends on the
extent of perceptions of crisis by the consumer rather than any other
issues. According to the findings of the study, on the basis of demographic factors, crisis perceptions may be varied and consumer
behaviour also changes accordingly. Older people estimate the risk of
COVID-19 less significantly than younger people and men are less
concerned about COVID-19 than women (Gerhold, 2020). According to
the findings of this study, amid COVID-19, people of these three countries have had a variance in the level of COVID-19 crisis perception and
accordingly their consumption patterns had been changed due to the
perception of the pandemic situation. This study supports the study of
Slovic (2000) as he argues that “riskiness” is determined by several
subjective factors, including dread, controllability, and unknown or
delayed effects. This study also corresponds with Slovac's study on risk
perception when he argues that People's risk perception differ from the
professional judgments of experts (Slovic, 2000). Thus, this study suggests that policymakers, stakeholders and marketers should consider
risk perceptions not only from the expert level but also from the root
level when deciding for consumers amid COVID-19. This study has come
up with the conclusion that the consumers in these three countries (e.g.,
Bangladesh, India and Pakistan) have significant differences in two
factors, e.g., entertainment and outdoor expense, individual's financial
situation. The previous study assumingly studied that the intentions to
change the financial situation are typically influenced by the existing
resource flexibilities, constraints and the human perceptual factors like
income adequacy, locus of control, intention to change the family
financial situation and so on (Danes and Rettig, 1993). Such findings put
forwards valuable insights for businesses, traders, local and international goods producers and policymakers to make consumer-oriented
decisions among these three countries. Most importantly, the findings
reveal that Indian consumers were more highly concerned and affected
by COVID-19 compared to people from two other counties (e.g.,
Pakistan and Bangladesh). This suggests that, though India has an
economic and political hegemony in South Asia, it requires more strong
initiatives to combat COVID-19 not only from a health emergency
perspective but also from business and economic perspectives. This
study adds to the COVID-19 literature with a particular focus on consumer behaviour. Contributing to the study of consumer traits amid
COVID-19, this study makes potential hints in making effective marketing decisions and business strategies with a better understanding of
consumption and production prospects.
The data that has been used is confidential.
Declaration of interests statement
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Additional information
No additional information is available for this paper.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the research assistants and the participants
from the three countries for their invaluable contribution.
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