A Mind Genomics Cartography of Shopping Behavior for Food Products during the Covid -19 Pandemic

Abstract The study presents a new approach to understand the mind of the persons in order to drive desired action in crisis situation, specifically the COVID-19 pandemic. Understand the mind of the shopper in a pandemic situation, with massive uncertainty, should provide direction for governments and the retail trade to adopt practices and communications which will reassure their customers. This study investigates the nature of what people will do to reassure themselves in the pandemic, and has been executed during the period of the pandemic, making the study relevant to the actual events taking place. The focus of the study is on the likelihood of buying ordinary food, given certain descriptions. The study revealed three mind-sets, clusters of individuals who respond to the pandemic in one of three ways. These are: Mind-Set 1: Focus on sanitation & supply; Mind-Set 2: Focus on budget for lifestyle; Mind-Set 3: Focus on shopping, personal needs, consumption. These mind-sets are distributed through the population, and are not limited to specific age or gender. The paper closes with the PVI, personal viewpoint identifier, to assign a new person to one of the three mind-sets.