The impact of the new crown epidemic on the fresh consumption behavior of Chinese residents

Abstract

Under the global COVID-19 epidemic, consumers' behaviors of purchasing fresh products have changed hugely in many aspects. The changing consumer behaviors also affect the market of fresh products including the booming e-commerce. This investigation aims to discover the trends of consumers' behaviors under the pandemic and analyse the corresponding causes behind the phenomena. At the same time we try to provide some suggestions in order to improve the changing market and display the consumers' needs. Through the questionnaire survey on some Chinese consumers, we collected some data about the fresh product consumption and analysed them by Likert's 5-level scale. Based on our investigation, we found that during the pandemic Chinese consumers decreased their expenditures on fresh products as well as the frequencies on buying them. They paid more attention to the safety of the products compared to before. It is also very obvious that more consumers tended to use online shopping to purchase fresh products in this period, which is one of the most significant changes. Related suggestions encompassing standardization of the fresh industry, regulations on the firms and retailers and subsidies for the shops are also listed in the end.