Feeling of safety: A new important factor influencing consumers?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly alter business environment worldwide since its spread more than two years ago. Such a long period of living under the influence of related restrictions resulted in consumers changing their habits. This research study compares the results of survey conducted before the pandemic in 2018 and in 2021 exploring various changes in consumer behavior. Main method used in this research was empirical research. Both collected samples were representative files of Slovakian consumers. The main focus of the research was to examine the possible impact of a new factor on consumer behavior—a feeling of safety in the store. Consumers’ socioeconomic characteristics such as their age and household income were considered. The findings confirm the assumption of significance of this newly emerged factor. Other changes in consumer behavior such as frequency of visiting stores and accessibility of store were also explored. Alterations were identified in the former, however the later was evaluated as not statistically significant for general population. The pandemic has created a dependency between feeling of safety in store and tendency to visit the store.

Keywords

• COVID-19 pandemic
• consumer behavior
• feeling of safety
• frequency of visiting stores
• accessibility of store
• household income changes