change in customer behavior at supermarkets in viet nam

Not only in countries with developed economies but alsoVietnamese change in shopping habits, especially at supermarkets.This research will focus on analyzing emerging customer trends dur

It is fact that customer behavior plays an essential role to help marketers decide onsuitable and ideal strategies and plans, which boost their business However, the Covid-19pandemic's impact on customers in many parts of the world statically changed bothbehavior and demand Not only in countries with developed economies but alsoVietnamese change in shopping habits, especially at supermarkets

This research will focus on analyzing emerging customer trends during Covid-19pandemic Based on articles and analytical documents related to consumer behavior, theauthor will collect analytical data, study the situation of the problem and present specificfactors for this research paper In order to supplement and test the accuracy of thetheories, the study will investigate changes in behavior during Covid-19 through a survey

of Vietnamese consumers

Through the analysis, it can be seen that consumers tend to panic in buying At the sametime, health-related products and essential foods are also consumed a lot insupermarkets Moreover, the study illustrates that online shopping is a change incustomer behavior as an alternative to going to the supermarket to buy goods because ofthe fear of the spread of the pandemic

After analyzing and evaluating the theories and survey results, the article will provideappropriate suggestions and solutions so that supermarkets in Vietnam can improve andmeet the customer's demands from new consumption habits Hence, the revenue andpopularity of the business will also be increased

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 5

1.1 I NTRODUCTION 5

1.2 T HEORETICAL P ROBLEMS – I SSUE S TATEMENT 5

1.3 R ESEARCH G AP 6

1.4 R ESEARCH O BJECTIVES 7

1.5 R ESEARCH Q UESTION 7

1.6 R ESEARCH M ETHODOLOGY 8

1.7 S TRUCTURE OF R EPORT 8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1 I NTRODUCTION 10

2.2 C USTOMER B EHAVIOR 10

2.3 H YPOTHESIS 11

2.4 C ONCEPTUAL F RAMEWORK 17

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 I NTRODUCTION 18

3.2 R ESEARCH A PPROACH 18

3.3 R ESEARCH P HILOSOPHY 19

3.4 R ESEARCH S TRATEGY 20

3.5 D ATA C OLLECTION M ETHODS 20

3.6 D ATA A NNALYSIS M ETHODS 22

3.7 C ONCLUSION 26

CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIC AND FINDINGS 27

4.1 I NTRODUCTION 27

4.2 D ESCRIPTIVE S TATISTICS 27

4.3 C RONBACH’ S A LPHA 30

4.4 T HE E XPLORATION F ACTOR A NALYSIS (EFA): 33

4.5 P EARSON C ORRELATION 37

4.6 M ULTIVARIATE R EGRESSION A NALYSIS 39

4.7 C ONCLUSION 42

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 43

5.2 D ISCUSSION 43

5.3 C ONCLUSION 44

CHAPTER 6: LIMITAION AND RECOMENDATION 45

6.1 I NTRODUCTION 45

6.2 L IMITATION 45

6.3 R ECOMMENDATION 45

CONCLUSION 47

REFERENCE 47

Table of Figures Fig 1: Conceptual model; Source: authors' own projection 17

Fig 2: Drescriptive Statistics by Job 27

Fig 3: Descriptive statistics by Place to shopping 28

Fig 4: Descriptive statistics by Income and Frequency of shopping during the pandemic 29

Fig 5: Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient By HG 30

Fig 6: Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient By EG 31

Fig 7: Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient By OS 32

Fig 8: Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient By QP 32

Fig 9: KMO and Bartlett's Test (1st run) 34

Fig 10: Total Variance Explained (1st run) 34

Fig 11: Rotated Component Matrix (1st run) 34

Fig 12: Rotated Component Matrix 35

Fig 13: KMO and Bartlett's Test 36

Fig 14: Total Variance Explained 36

Fig 15: Correlations 37

Fig 16: Model Summary 39

Fig 17: ANOVA Table 39

Fig 18: Coefficients Table 40

Fig 19: Finding Model Table 41

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction:

The research will display an overview of the background information about thearguments and structure of the thesis mentioned in the paper Furthermore,the impact of the pandemic on shopping behavior will also be brieflypresented Meanwhile, this chapter will also outline the objectives, limitationsand research questions for this project

1.2 Theoretical Problems – Issue Statement

Theoretical problems:

Based on the theories, consumer behavior is defined as the actions peoplereveal when investigating, purchasing, using, and evaluating goods andservices to satisfy their demands (Kotler, 2007) In 2012, Kotler and Armstrongonce again emphasized the study of consumer behavior to identify needs,preferences, and habits as well as how they react to the brand/product; thus,building an appropriate marketing strategy to motivate customers to shop(Kotler and Armstrong, 2012)

In fact, many studies have shown that customer behavior is affected byvarious factors, both internal and external (Zamazalová, 2009) In 2020, Shethmade a statement that was very relevant to the context of the study, whichsuggested that four social scenes are important reasons impacting shoppingbehavior, including living environment, developments in technology,government regulation, and the potential for pandemics (Sheth, 2020) Thus,

it is potential that the turmoil driven by the Covid-19 pandemic could impactpeople's purchasing decisions (Donthu and Gustafsson, 2020; Pantano et al.,

2020) And in this article, the author will identify the change in consumerbehavior, specifically at supermarkets.

Issue Statement:

After two years of spread and outbreak, there are 221countries/territories/regions with more than 448 million cases and 6,029,808deaths globally by the Covid-19 pandemic (Vietnam News Agency, 2022).Therefore, to minimize the bad outcomes caused by the pandemic as well asensure that people are safe, governments have performed some solutions toprevent the spread of coronavirus by directives about lockdown, socialdistance, and avoidance of contact (Sheridan et al., 2020) There are manyopinions that the Covid-19 pandemic has strongly affected all aspects ofpeople's lives, especially the economy (Loxton et al., 2020) This has beentrue for the shopping landscape in Vietnam; the average consumer price index(CIP) in the first six months of 2021 raised by 1.47% compared to theaverage of the same period in 2020, according to data published by theGeneral Statistics Office (CKH, 2021) Through CIP data, it can be seen thatCovid- 19 had an impact on people's shopping habits in Vietnam

It is observed that people's consumption habits are gradually changing Withthe strong development of the internet and information technology,customers can flexibly combine the traditional buying culture at the store oronline Moreover, paying more attention to one's health is also recognized as

a popular trend among people, which makes the demand for healthy productssuch as organic food, vitamins, etc

That's why it's so important to capture and understand how consumers react

to the pandemic because this is the core reason why businesses continue tosurvive during this crisis To be able to deliver a strategy tailored to the needs

of the buyer, it is necessary to research and evaluate customer reactions in areal-world context

1.3 Research Gap

The study will focus on Vietnamese people to investigate their shoppingbehavior at supermarkets during the ongoing Covid-19 period However,surveying the entire

population of Vietnam is difficult, so the author focuses mainly on peopleliving in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) Moreover, HCMC is also one of the citieswith a high population density and relatively supermarket coverage with 106

operating supermarkets (Ngoc, 2021) Therefore, this is also a suitable place

to bring objective results for this research

1.4 Research Objectives

This study was conducted with the primary purpose of profoundlyunderstanding the spending trends of Vietnamese people at supermarkets

during the stressful pandemic At the same time, the article also aims to

gain insights into changes in consumer behavior's impact on thesupermarket system in Vietnam Furthermore, this paper will present detailed

information about the new changes in the conduct of the Vietnamese people

and present insights into the impact of the results Therefore, this will bring

positive values to the management of supermarkets because they can

understand and capture new consumption trends and lead to appropriate

developments

1.5 Research Question

The hit of the Covid-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of the world, which

has plunged the whole world into turmoil, and people's health is at stake

Therefore, governments have enacted policies that restrict and close most of

the economic-related parts, which leads to stunting economic development

Because consumers have changed the way they interact with brands and

products It has a strong impact on the sales of the sellers Based onassessments like these, three research questions have been formulated below:

How did consumer buying behavior change during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Sub-questions:

(1) What factors strongly influence customer behavior during the pandemic?

(2) Which products do consumers focus on the most?

(3) Is product quality the top concern of customers?

(4)Online shopping and home delivery are the most common behaviors during the pandemic?

1.6 Research Methodology

To sample results is objective, the study relied on primary and secondaryresearch In particular, Primary research will apply a quantitative researchmethod, which surveys Vietnamese consumers who have made shoppingbehaviors during the development of Covid-19 Meanwhile, Secondaryresearch will use research materials from other experts who have done theformer According to theory, the total sample size is 385, but 416 validanswers were collected Furthermore, the data will be analyzed through SPSSversion 26 software with five main statistical methods, such as: descriptive,Cronbach's alpha, EFA, Pearson correlation and regression Finally, the articlehas a total of 4 main factors and 18 observed variables, which will help theauthor to evaluate the problem of the research

1.7 Structure of Report

This report consists of six main chapters: introduction, literature review,methodology, analysis of survey data, discussion of survey results withtheories, presentation of limitations and recommendations from statisticaldata, and conclusion

Chapter 1 – Introduction: presenting the basic details of the researchpaper, including: background of the project, purpose, research questions aswell as analytical methods to be carried out in the article.

Chapter 2 - Literature Review: introducing theories, statements anddocuments related to how consumers react during the pandemic whenshopping at supermarkets Then, the main hypotheses are drawn, which are

considered as the foundation for the author to ask interview questions

Chapter 3 – Methodology: describes the methodologies used in theresearch, the basis for the literature study, the case study, how the data

collection was conducted, and reflects on the methodology used

Chapter 4 – SPSS Analyze: analyzing the data collected from thequestionnaire Based on these results, the author will have a more detailed

look and understanding of the actual buying behavior of Vietnamese people at

supermarkets during the Covid-19 period

Chapter 5 – Discussion: discussing and evaluating the results obtained by the

author and comment on these results with previously mentioned studiesand documents on the significance of the theory and the results collected

from reality

Chapter 6 – Limitation & Recommendation: providing limitations or barriers

in the research paper through statistical analysis' results Also, offersuggestions or solutions for future topics

Finally, the conclusion presents the main insights and concludes the report

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction:

First of all, the general theories of consumer behavior, as well as influencingfactors, will be presented in detail in this section Furthermore, the researchquestion “How have customers reacted during Covid-19?” will also beanswered through definitions and theories from previous studies The analysis

is based on several references, particularly, the documents used will havecontent related to consumption trends during the pandemic

2.2 Customer Behavior:

Many definitions of “What is customer behavior?” exist together Collectively,these definitions describe the act of people investigating, purchasing, using,evaluating, or disposing of a product However, each author has differentperspectives on defining the term customer behavior For instance, consumerpurchasing behavior is defined as how people decide how to spend theirresources (money, time, effort, etc.) concerning acquiring and using productsand services to meet personal requirements (Kolter, 2007) In addition, it issuggested that the mental-physical behavior of an individual or a group isrelated to the final consumption behavior, which is associated with theacquisition, private production, use, or deprivation of the product (Ling, n.d.).Similar to Ling's statement, consumer behavior is also considered by Priya to

be an action derived from psychology, the process that a person has gonethrough to identify needs and solutions to those needs, they make purchasingdecisions, analyze information, plan and execute them (Priya, n.d.) Throughthese definitions, the author believes that to lead to the final purchase

been condensed while also showing what percentage of the observedvariables have been lost (Lorenzo, 2013).

- Factor Loading, also known as factor weighting, is a value showing thecorrelation relationship between the observed variable and the latentvariable This value can also be written as factor loading In addition, theload factor is also sometimes referred to as the normalized regressionweight Regarding the magnitude of the load coefficient, it may be statedthat the greater the factor loading, the stronger the correlation is betweenthe observed variable in question and the factor in question, and vice versa(Fontaine, J., 2005).

3.6.4 Pearson Correlation:

The goal is to check the close linear correlation between the dependent andindependent variables and catch the problem of multicollinearity early.Before you can do a linear regression analysis, you must first do a Pearsoncorrelation analysis It's important to note that the r-coefficient is onlysignificant when sig alpha = 0.05 and that the Pearson correlation r can havevalues between -1 and 1 People also say that the Pearson correlationcoefficient is an inferential statistic because it can be used to test statisticalhypotheses For instance, the link between two variables can be looked at(Turney, 2022)

3.6.5Regression:

After analyzing correlation coefficients to evaluate the relationship betweenthe independent and dependent variables, the author next analyzes linearregression, which tests hypotheses regarding the relationship between thevariables (two or more variables) (Gallo, 2015) This article also provides thismethod to evaluate the relationship between the behavioral characteristics ofVietnamese consumers in supermarkets and the change in purchases during