Indian consumers’ behaviour during COVID 19: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Time and again it is said that Indian consumers behave differently from the western or global customers. Since a pandamic like COVID 19 has force lockdowns restraining the customer all over the world the consumers have exhibited different behaviour other than the normal one. Consumers behaviour is shaped by their wants and hence the importance of understanding it. Many business face the challenge of understanding the consumers and their wants and hence the flounder at the market place. This is more apt in India for the foreign companies that try to market in India. Many big multinationals companies (MNCs) have struggled in India before they got the hold of the market. Further, India being a young country compared to other countries, it has become a attractive market. The success is evasive to those who fail to understand the Indian consumers. Somehow, the ethnocentric behaviour of MNCs have not augured well for them. Even though the consumer behaviour has been studied by researcher and scholars for long now, they mainly focused on the western customers. Only recently the scholars have had occasion to study Indian consumers. Hence, this study was undertaken with the intention of understanding the behaviour of Indian consumers during the pandemic.