PECULIARITIES OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN COVID-19 CONDITIONS: BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

The events caused by COVID-19 are among the most significant and unpredictable events of recent years. Every country, economy, and human sphere could not ignore the Pandemic that unfolded in early 2020. And, of course, it has strongly influenced consumer behavior. Under these conditions, the main psychological factors influencing consumer behavior were anxiety and fear and the panic they caused. External and internal restrictions on business and consumer activity associated with the coronavirus pandemic have led to a temporary decline in production and consumption in the economy. Measures for social distancing, self-isolation, quarantine, adopted in many countries, and other factors have created new consumer trends that need to be detailed. Accordingly, the article aimed to determine the essence of research in the pandemic impact on consumer behavior, published in publications indexed by the leading database Scopus. As a result of bibliometric analysis of 1007 publications indexed by the Scopus database for 2020-2021 on the impact of the Pandemic on consumer behavior, four most potent clusters were identified: the impact of the Pandemic on changing consumer habits in all spheres of life; characteristics of consumer attitudes; health of different categories of the population; study of the effects on the body caused by coronavirus infection. Determining the impact of changes in consumer demand in terms of achieving economic and social goals by enterprises and states remains little studied. A study of the geographical affiliation of authors of scientific papers in this area showed the most significant number of publications published by scientists from the United States, China, Britain, India, Italy, Spain, South Korea, and Australia. At the same time, the number of publications in the Scopus database published by domestic authors is relatively insignificant, which once again confirmed the lack of research and timeliness of the study in Ukraine. Interest in the topic is constantly growing. Because the problem remains open – Covid-19 continues to change the lives of people around the world, changing not only consumer, food, etc. behavior of the population and the principles of doing business, but forms new and new goals of sustainable development of society.