After Effects and Financial Management of COVID-19 Lockdowns in Small Businesses: A Quantitative Study of Micro-Retailers in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

The global pandemic COVID-19 has influenced the entire world and different routines of life. This research is based on the problem indicating has COVID-19 lockdown effected the financial management of small businesses or not. This quantitative research analyzes the significance of COVID-19 lockdowns in affecting small businesses for micro-retailers in Lahore, Pakistan. Theory of financial crisis and Theory Y are used to test the hypotheses. Here dependent variables to check the results of this research are reserve and ready cash, sales and mobile/ecommerce because it has diversity of options to view the needs of the micro-retailers and strong facts for financial management. Data was collected from the micro-retailers belonging to three different fields of small businesses of Lahore Pakistan. The questionnaire responses are taken by the relevant micro-retailers. Descriptive analysis, independent sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance are used to test the data. The findings show that COVID-19 lockdowns have adversely effected cloth and mobile/electronics micro-retailers and less the food/grocery retailers up to the extent that reserve and ready cash is becoming short, sales average has declined and micro-retailers do not have much awareness of mobile/ecommerce ways to keep up with the financial management for a living.