Assessing consumer rationality during a pandemic: Panic buying behaviours and its association with online social media discourse

Abstract

As an unprecedented, shared global experience in crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic witnessed unusual behaviours amongst populations. Large-scale panic buying was observed in numerous countries. Such behaviours can be detrimental to the population's wellbeing and societal functioning. As global pandemics are a relatively rare phenomenon in history, research examining panic buying behaviours during pandemics and actual panic buying behaviours has been scarce. Within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the prevalence of social media has made it possible to monitor panic buying discourse real-time. The present research aims to study the relationship between online public discourse and its relationship with abnormal surges in buying behaviours. We first examined Singapore residents' supermarket purchase patterns based on daily supermarket sales data during Covid-19 and investigated its relationship with parallel social media information on the internet. Analysis involving these two large-scale social media and supermarket datasets revealed distinct purchasing patterns for various types of products such as staple food items and home electronic products. While significant positive correlation was found between purchasing patterns of staple and long-lasting canned foods and online discourse, this was absent for items such as home appliances and entertainment products. The findings point to the potential role of social media data in predicting future abnormal food demand episodes, with implications on food security and crisis management.

Keywords

• Panic buying
• Social media
• Food demand
• Pandemic