A Study on the Effect of Social Distancing on Offline Consumption Patterns: A Case Study about Convenience Store

Abstract

Amid the continuous spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing how social distancing policies affect customers' consumption patterns is a critical issue in offline retailers' operation management. This study investigates the changes in customers' consumption behavior since COVID-19 imposed restrictions, using sales data of convenience stores in 2019 and 2020. Mainly, we conduct an empirical study on how the social distancing policy affects consumers'purchasing behavior. The regression result reveals that the reinforcement of the social distancing policy positively affects the weekly sales of convenience stores. In addition, the social distancing policy negatively interacts with the region's population density to harm the weekly sales of convenience stores. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing consumption behavior using actual offline consumption data of people within the framework of the Institution Theory. The result of this study can help offline retailers establish inventory management and operation strategies.