Abstract
Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to a reduction in the overall consumption of dairy products in China. How to restore the consumption potential of dairy products and alleviate the serious impact on the dairy market in the post-epidemic period is an urgent problem that needs to be resolved. Based on the survey data of 1780 consumers in 31 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) of China, the Heckman two-stage model was used to empirically test the impact of consumer health awareness on dairy product purchase behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and to further analyze the differences in factors affecting dairy product purchase behavior with the restriction of consumer health awareness. The results showed that the overall level of consumer health awareness after the outbreak of COVID-19 was relatively high. A total of 79% of consumers preferred to buy dairy products after the COVID-19 outbreak, and the proportion of purchased dairy products increased by an average of 17.49%, compared with that before the COVID-19 outbreak. Health change perception, health concern degree, and health habit development in consumer health awareness all have important impacts on the purchase behavior of dairy products. Among them, health change perception and health habit development both positively and significantly affected the purchase intention. Moreover, all three aspects of consumer health awareness positively increased the proportion of dairy product purchases. Difference analysis showed that there were obvious differences among consumer groups with different health awareness in dairy product purchase decisions. Component factor analysis found that, overall, consumer health awareness directly affected the purchase intention and increased the purchase proportion of dairy products. Therefore, policy recommendations are proposed to increase the consumption momentum of dairy products by raising consumer health awareness in the post-epidemic period.
Highlights
With the continuous promotion of urbanization, the rising income level of residents and the gradual deepening of consumer awareness, dairy products have become an important part of the national economy’s “food basket”
In order to further test the impact of consumer health awareness on the dairy product purchase behavior under the impact of COVID-19, this paper weights and averages the specific indicators under the three dimensions, such as health change perception, health concern degree, and health habit development
Based on survey data of 1780 consumers in 31 provinces in China, this paper uses the Heckman two-stage model to empirically test the impact of consumer health awareness on dairy product purchase behavior under the impact of COVID-19
Summary
With the continuous promotion of urbanization, the rising income level of residents and the gradual deepening of consumer awareness, dairy products have become an important part of the national economy’s “food basket”. This paper first analyzed the impact mechanism of consumer health awareness on dairy product purchase behavior at the theoretical level and combined the survey data of 1780 consumers in 31 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) across the country during the post-epidemic period, and used the Heckman two-stage model to empirically examine the impact of consumer health awareness on dairy products purchase behavior; this paper proposed several policy recommendations based on the research conclusions, so as to provide a decision-making reference for restoring the potential of dairy products consumption and mitigating the impact of the epidemic on the dairy market. The focus of previous studies on dairy product purchase behavior is on the policy environment, market environment, consumer household environment, and other factors, ignoring the impact of changes in consumers’ own health awareness on consumption behavior. After collecting a valid sample, we adopted a research paradigm that combined theory and empirical evidence and proposed practical policy recommendations based on the findings, and the study itself was time-sensitive
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