Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the biggest disruptive events of recent decades and has had a global effect on society and the economy. The political regulations resulting from COVID-19 also led to significant changes in physical grocery shopping. However, the specific impact of COVID-19 on consumer satisfaction at the customer end of retail supply chains, i.e., the point-of-sale (PoS), has not yet been addressed. By gathering and analyzing consumer satisfaction data (ratings) and sentiments (evaluation comments) available on the open web, the current study evaluates the impact of COVID-19 on consumer satisfaction at the PoS. Focusing on the five biggest retail chains in Austria, the results show that there was a general and significant decline in consumer satisfaction due to the pandemic. The results also show a high impact of political regulations on consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, the text-mining based analysis of evaluation comments indicate that store layout and facilities, as well as product availability and waiting time had a great impact on consumer satisfaction. In total, over 533,000 consumer satisfaction ratings and over 153,000 textual comments have been analyzed, providing the basis for a comprehensive and sound discussion of the impact of COVID-19 on consumer satisfaction and perceptions. Future research could focus on applying the used data analysis technique and the adapted consumer sentiment dimensions in different settings, such as countries other than Austria or smaller retail chains.
Highlights
The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is a major disruptive event that has impacted global economies and unsettled several value networks [1]
The results show that drugstore products like soap and disinfectant are much more likely to be involved in negative consumer satisfaction reviews during the pandemic than before COVID-19
While our study focused only on physical grocery retailing, our results show that hoarding occurred in physical stores since product availability respectively unavailability is among the main factors that affect consumer satisfaction
Summary
The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is a major disruptive event that has impacted global economies and unsettled several value networks [1]. Analyzing the implications and effects of such disruptions on businesses is an important application aspect of data analytics, in the area of retail supply chain management (SCM) [2,3]. The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic transcends across businesses and organizational domains including education, healthcare, tourism, retail, manufacturing, logistics, etc. For the retail sector, several studies have been conducted to analyze the impact of COVID-19. The results of these studies vary across countries: the study [4] shows that most retailers transitioned to online grocery delivery services in Germany. The results of the study [5]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
