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The influence of Covid-19 Influence of

Covid-19 on
on consumer behaviour: consumer
behaviour
a bibliometric review analysis
and text mining 585
Abu Bashar Received 7 December 2022
Revised 17 March 2023
School of Management, IMS Unison University, Dehradun, India 27 April 2023
Brighton Nyagadza Accepted 4 May 2023

Department of Marketing,
Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (MUAST),
Marondera, Zimbabwe
Neo Ligaraba
Department of Marketing, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, South Africa, and
Eugine Tafadzwa Maziriri
Business Management, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa

Abstract
Purpose – This paper is a bibliometric analysis of articles published on the influence of Covid-19 on consumer
behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach – Biblioshiny and VOSviewer applications are employed for the
bibliometric analysis and visualisation, respectively.
Findings – The most influential documents, authors, affiliations, countries and journals are presented.
Citation, Co-citation and keyword co-occurrence analysis is conducted and presented in the form of a clustered
network diagram.
Practical implications – This paper found three main themes of the research in consumer behaviour amid
Covid-19 a) Food purchasing decisions and food wastage, b) Adoption of technology and c) Intrinsic and
extrinsic influence on consumer behaviour.
Social implications – The Covid-19 pandemic has shaken the world’s economy and left behind its adverse effect
on almost every walk of life. Consumer behaviour is no exception, studies have reported paradigm shifts in the way
consumers are reacting to marketing stimuli, making purchase and consumption decisions. For the marketers
to sustain profitability, they need to understand the changing behaviour and tailor their offerings accordingly.
Originality/value – The article offers the emerging theme and sub-themes in the consumer behaviour
research that leads to future expansion of this research domain.
Keywords Consumer behaviours, Bibliometric analysis, Covid-19, VOSviewer, Biblioshiny
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The world has witnessed one of the most disastrous viruses – Covid-19 – and it has
devastated the global economy in almost every aspect. The virus not only affected businesses

© Abu Bashar, Brighton Nyagadza, Neo Ligaraba and Eugine Tafadzwa Maziriri. Published in Arab
Arab Gulf Journal of Scientific
Gulf Journal of Scientific Research. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published Research
under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, Vol. 42 No. 3, 2024
pp. 585-601
translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), Emerald Publishing Limited
subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be e-ISSN: 2536-0051
p-ISSN: 1985-9899
seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode DOI 10.1108/AGJSR-12-2022-0281
AGJSR but also forced the closure of a few of the businesses because of social distancing norms and
42,3 lockdowns (Rabbani et al., 2021). Moreover, it has created several psychological issues
because of reduced incomes, job losses and uncertainty about future. Consumer behaviour
has also been affected and has gone through a comprehensive change, irrespective of product
category (Falke & Hruschka, 2022). For the firms to sustain and operate successfully, it is
important to understand these changes and behaviour, and re-strategise themselves to fit to
the new normal.
586 The recent economic distress and behavioural changes led to various studies pertaining to
economics, business and consumer behaviour (Baber, 2020). Recent articles have focused on
consumer behaviour research in the wake of the pandemic to understand its unique effects on
consumer buying and consuming habits. These articles needed to be gathered, structured and
studied to gain insights into the trends in consumer behaviour research.
There are studies that have been conducted on consumer behaviour during Covid-19; most
of such studies are either based on methodological aspects or have been studied in 2021
(Clement Addo, Fang, Asare, & Kulbo, 2021; Dou et al., 2021; Nyagadza, 2022; Larios-G
omez,
Fischer, Pe~nalosa, & Ortega-Vivanco, 2021; Luo, 2021; Toubes, Vila, & Fraiz Brea, 2021).
Because of the importance of consumer behaviour research, there are continuous publications
of the literature focusing on the important facets. Therefore, a comprehensive study is
required to collect, analyse and visualise the most recent studies that can be a guide for the
researchers and decision-makers to strategise accordingly. This study is an attempt to
present a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the literature on the influence of Covid-19 on
consumer behaviour available on the Scopus database as of 10 March 2022.
This article intends to answer the following research questions:
RQ1. What is the current state of the research on Covid-19 and consumer behaviour?
Which are the best countries, authors, journals, affiliations and documents?
RQ2. What is the social intellectual structure of the research on Covid-19 and consumer
behaviour?
The rest of the article is structured as follows. The second section is based on the data and
methodology, followed by the results and analysis. In the fourth section, the major trends
and themes are presented. The fifth and sixth sections are devoted to the conclusion and
limitations, respectively.

2. Data and methodology

A systematic approach is employed for the collection, screening and inclusion of data for this
research. The data was sourced from the Scopus database. A combination of appropriate
keywords for Covid-19 such as coronavirus, Covid-19 pandemic, sars-Cov-2 and consumer
purchasing, consumer shopping and consumer buying for consumer behaviour were
searched in the TIT-ABS-KEY field of Scopus search engine. The following strings were
employed. ((Covid-19) OR (Corona virus) OR (Pandemic) OR (epidemic) OR (SARS-CoV-2))
AND ((Consumer behaviour) OR (Online behaviour) OR (Consumption behaviour) OR
(Consumer preferences) OR (Consumer attitude) OR (buying behaviour) OR (Consumer
Shopping)).
The first search string returned 1134 articles that were exported in .CSV format. Several
inclusion criteria were designed to ascertain that the articles must be on the effects of
Covid-19 on consumer behaviour. It was crucial to distinguish between health studies and
other aspects of human studies during Covid-19. The title and abstract of each paper were
thoroughly investigated by the researchers to find suitable studies as per the scope of the
research. Only articles written in the English language were included. Conference papers,
short notes, editorial notes, etc. are excluded; only research and review articles were
considered for the inclusion. The inclusion criteria excluded 499 articles and 635 quality Influence of
articles were considered for further analysis. Covid-19 on
For descriptive analysis, the Biblioshiny web application of R is used – it is one of the most
used methods for analysing and presenting results in tabular and graphical forms (Bashar,
consumer
Singh, & Pathak, 2021; Singh and Bashar, 2021). VOSviewer software application is behaviour
employed for creating a network visualisation map. The visualisation of social and
intellectual structures is comprehensively mapped and themes can be identified using
VOSviewer applications (Ariza-Garz
on, Camacho-Mi~ nano, Segovia-Vargas, & Arroyo, 2021; 587
Tandon, Kaur, M€antym€aki, & Dhir, 2021).

3. Results and discussion

The following section presents the descriptive and bibliometric analysis of research in
consumer behaviour during Covid-19.

3.1 Description of the data

The data characteristics used in this analysis are presented in Table 1. The data set consists of
635 documents published during 2020–2022 of which 15 are review papers and 620 research
articles focusing on consumer behaviour during Covid-19. These articles are published by 310
sources and attracted an average citation of 8.4 per document. 2112 authors have published
their papers, of which 48 articles are single-authored and 2064 are multi-authored documents.

3.2 Publication trend

The Main data characteristics describes in Table 1.

3.3 Influential country

The countries with their total number of publications, total citations and average citations are
presented in Table 2. The United States of America (USA) published 84 articles, followed by
China (58) where the pandemic was first reported. The next countries, in terms of publication,
are Korea which is followed by Italy. The United States scholars studied the food waste habit,
food waste sustainability, household decision-making, alcohol consumption, etc., while
Chinese researchers are focused on the issues of food security, country of origin affect,
consumer risk perception and overall consumption behaviour.

Description Results

Time span 2020:2022

Sources (Journals, books, etc.) 310
Documents 635
Average years from publication 0.951
Average citations per document 8.4
Average citations per year per doc 3.608
References 36,285
Articles 620
Review 15
Authors 2,112
Author appearances 2,369
Authors of single-authored documents 48 Table 1.
Authors of multi-authored documents 2,064 Main data
Source(s): Prepared by authors characteristics
AGJSR Average
42,3 Number of Total article
Country papers citations citations Research focus

USA 84 757 9.01 Food waste habit, food waste sustainability,

household decision-making, alcohol
consumption
588 China 58 460 7.93 Food security, country of origin affects,
consumer risk perception and overall
consumption behaviour
Korea 33 234 7.09 Panic buying, consumer attitude, unusual
purchasing behaviour
Italy 26 322 12.38 Consumption behaviour, consumer attitude
India 25 88 3.52 Online consumer behaviour, Covid-19 panic
buying
United 20 349 17.45 Family decision-making, consumer intention to
Kingdom purchase, consumer wellness
Poland 18 79 4.39 Consumer attitude, purchase intention, panic
buying
Germany 17 135 7.94 Hygiene-related issues, consumer online
adoption
Australia 15 141 9.40 Online food ordering, consumer purchase
intention
Spain 14 195 13.93 Consumer behaviour and obvious changes in
purchase attitude
Turkey 12 42 3.50 Consumption behaviour, consumer attitude
Romania 10 95 9.50 Food behaviour, overall consumption
behaviour
Qatar 7 139 19.86 Consumer attitude, food wastage behaviour,
food consumption
Denmark 5 89 17.80 Online behaviour, shopping attitude, panic
buying
Norway 4 196 49.00 Consumer expenditure, behavioural
Table 2. psychology
Country production Source(s): Prepared by authors

3.4 Most influential authors

Table 3 shows the most prolific authors in the research domain of Covid-19 and consumer
behaviour. The table details the various indices along with their total number of citations over
the period. Sheth, J. is the most cited author, having 318 total citations in his

Element h_index g_index m_index TC NP PY_start

Sheth J 1 1 0.33 318 1 2020

Dhir A 1 1 0.33 192 1 2020
Farooq A 1 1 0.33 192 1 2020
Islam Akmn 1 1 0.33 192 1 2020
Laato S 1 1 0.33 192 1 2020
Kirk CP 1 1 0.33 177 1 2020
Rifkin ls 1 1 0.33 177 1 2020
Allington D 1 1 0.50 174 1 2021
Table 3. Dhavan N 1 1 0.50 174 1 2021
Top ten most Duffy B 1 1 0.50 174 1 2021
influential authors Source(s): Prepared by authors
single article titled as “Impact of Covid-19 on consumer behavior: Will the old habits return or Influence of
die?” (Sheth, 2020). This article is one of the earlier studies on the effect of Covid-19 on Covid-19 on
consumer behaviour and adequately presented with probable habit changes that can be
regained and habits that will change forever. The next author in the list is Dhir, A, who is also
consumer
having a single paper, but this document attracted 192 citations. This paper is based on the behaviour
unusual consumer purchasing behaviour during Covid-19 (Laato, Islam, Farooq, & Dhir,
2020; Ligaraba, Nyagadza, Dorfling, & Zulu, 2022). The other authors have also contributed
to the understanding of the impact of Covid-19 on consumer behaviour. 589

3.5 Most important documents

The most influential documents with their total number of citations and annual citations are
presented in Table 4. In line with our findings in the previous section, Sheth, J. is the most
prolific author, as seen from his document which was published in the Journal of Business
Research in 2020 and cited 318 times – the most in the current data set. The next document

Total TC per
Author Year Journal Title of the article citations year

Sheth J 2020 Journal of Business Impact of Covid-19 on consumer 318 106

Research behavior: Will the old habits return or
die?
Laato S 2020 Journal of Retailing and Unusual purchasing behavior during 192 64
Consumer Behaviour the early stages of the COVID-19
pandemic: The stimulus-organism-
response approach
Kirk CP 2020 Journal of Business I’ll trade you diamonds for toilet 177 59
Research paper: Consumer reacting, coping and
adapting behaviors in the COVID-19
pandemic
Allington D 2020 Psychological Medicine Health-protective behaviour, social 174 87
media usage and conspiracy belief
during the COVID-19 public health
emergency
Jribi S 2020 Environmental COVID-19 virus outbreak lockdown: 158 52.667
Development and What impacts on household food
Society wastage?
Shin H 2020 International Journal of Reducing perceived health risk to 115 38.333
Hospitality attract hotel customers in the
Management COVID-19 pandemic era: Focused on
technology innovation for social
distancing and cleanliness
Laguna L 2020 Food Quality and The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on 99 33
Preference food priorities. Results from a
preliminary study using social media
and an online survey with Spanish
consumers
Islam T 2021 Journal of Retailing and Panic buying in the COVID-19 96 48
Consumer Services pandemic: A multi-country
examination
Hall MC 2021 Journal of Service Beyond panic buying: consumption 94 47
Management displacement and COVID-19
Ben Hassen T 2020 Sustainability Impact of COVID-19 on food behavior 90 30 Table 4.
and consumption Top ten most
Source(s): Prepared by authors influential documents
AGJSR which has contributed the most is authored by Laato, S. and published by the Journal of
42,3 Retailing and Consumer Behaviour and cited 192 times. The next article in the list is published
by the Journal of Business Research and written by Kirk, C.P, which has been cited 177 times.
The other articles in the list have also contributed towards the development and
understanding of the research in consumer behaviour in the wake of Covid-19.

590 3.6 Most important sources

The ranking of the influential journals in the research of consumer behaviour and Covid-19 is
presented in Table 5. Sustainability ranked number one with 58 articles. This journal has
published articles on the role and interplay of Covid-19 on consumer behaviour, especially
from purchasing decision and selection of product categories points of view (Alam, Schlecht,
& Reichenbach, 2022; Grashuis, Skevas, & Segovia, 2020; Lin, Marjerison, Choi, & Chae, 2022;
Mart
ınez-Fern
andez et al., 2021; Ligaraba, Chuchu, & Nyagadza, 2023). The International
Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health has published 34 articles and ranked
second in the table, this journal has also focused on the importance of the role of Covid-19 on
the overall consumer behaviour, especially the hygiene factor that leads to the psychological
and behavioural intentions about the supply chain mechanism, etc. (Akram, F€ ul€op, Tiron-
Tudor, Topor, & Capușneanu, 2021; Dong et al., 2022; Harba, Tigu, & Davidescu, 2021). While
the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services published 17 high-quality papers that
addressed the consumption patterns during Covid-19, fear of shopping, adoption of online
mode of shopping, food waste behaviour, etc. (Guthrie, Fosso-Wamba, & Arnaud, 2021; Park,
Lee, Lee, Lee, & Chung, 2022; Wang, Cheah, Lim, Leong, & Choo, 2022). The other sources
have also focused and published on the important aspects of consumer behaviour that has
been affected due to the pandemic, mainly the psychological factors and motives (hedonic vs.
utilitarian). Most journals in this list are focusing on food, health and hygiene. Food habits
and hygiene were of utmost importance during pandemic and authors focused to gauge the
consumer behaviour from these prospects. These behaviours were most suitable to be
published in journals which are not considered as core marketing journals. This is because
core marketing phenomenon was not published in the traditional marketing journals at that
time because of the publication delays.

3.7 Most important affiliations

The top affiliations with the number of articles published are presented in Table 6. The
University of Queensland, Australia, is the top affiliation and contributed 21 articles about
consumer behaviour and Covid-19 research. The scholars of this university have undertaken

Source Rank Freq Cum Freq

Sustainability (Switzerland) 1 58 58
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2 34 92
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 3 17 109
Plos One 4 16 125
British Food Journal 5 14 139
Foods 6 12 151
Nutrients 7 10 161
Appetite 8 9 170
Table 5. Frontiers In Psychology 9 9 179
Top ten most Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 10 9 188
important sources Source(s): Prepared by authors
Affiliations Articles
Influence of
Covid-19 on
The University of Queensland 21 consumer
Nanyang Technological University 18
Jilin University 17 behaviour
The Bucharest University of Economic Studies 16
Chung-Ang University 14
Purdue University 14 591
University of North Texas 13
Aarhus University 12
The University of Tennessee 12
G. D’annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara 11 Table 6.
Source(s): Prepared by authors Top ten affiliations

studies to gain deep insight into the reaction of the consumers during adverse marketing
situations like the lockdown, social distancing, fear, etc. (Li and Shu, 2021; Romeo-Arroyo,
Mora, & V
azquez-Ara
ujo, 2020; Segovia, Grashuis, & Skevas, 2021). Second in the list is the
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, which has published 18 articles, followed by
Jilin University, China, with 17 publications. These institutions have diverted their effort and
focused entirely on studying and understanding the effects of Covid-19 on consumer
behaviour. The results of these studies help the decision-maker to tap the nerve of the scene
and redesign their strategies to reach their target consumers and sustain profitably (Cho, Oh,
& Chiu, 2021; Hansen, 2022; Nakamura, Shirai, & Sakuma, 2021; Pratiwi, Maftuhah,
Wessiani, Partiwi, & Gunarta, 2021).

3.8 Citations analysis

Citation analysis is a tool to identify the best document, author or a source by counting the
number of times the document is cited by another document; it helps in recognising the
impact of the documents in a specific theme or trend (Delle Foglie and Panetta, 2020).
The VOSviewer application is used for citation analysis, it is one of the most comprehensive
methods to visualise the pattern of the research in a given area of research (Mustak, Salminen,
Pl
e, & Wirtz, 2021).
The criterion for a document to be included in citation analysis was that a document must
have at least five citations. Out of 635 articles in the data set, only 130 documents matched the
criteria. The network thus formed has three clusters and presents a specific theme of research
in consumer behaviour and Covid-19 by assembling similar documents in each cluster.
The network thus obtained is represented in Figure 1, first cluster is represented in red
colour and is made up of 71 documents that are based on the food purchase habits during
Covid-19. Some of the important aspects in this cluster is about consumer behaviour towards
grocery purchases (Segovia et al., 2021; Vizuete-Luciano, Boria-Reverter, Sol
e-Moro, & Gil-
Lafuente, 2022), eating behaviour (Ben Hassen, El Bilali, Allahyari, Berjan, & Fotina, 2021;
Romeo-Arroyo et al., 2020), food purchasing (Altarrah, Alshami, Alhamad, Albesher, &
Devarajan, 2021; Segovia et al., 2021), and online food ordering and adoption (Dsouza &
Sharma, 2021; Habib, Hamadneh, Al wadi, & Masadeh, 2021; Tasnim, Alam, Saha, &
Rabbi, 2022).
The second cluster is made up of 30 documents primarily based on consumer adaptation
to the new normal and is represented by a green colour. A few of the influential studies in this
cluster are based on the importance of hygiene products, as compared to most expensive
commodities (Palomino Pita, Carolina, & Oblitas Cruz, 2020; Sheth, 2020), in-store adaptation
with adherence to all Covid-19 safety norms, such as social distancing, wearing masks,
AGJSR
42,3

592

Figure 1.
Citation analysis of
documents

personal protective kits, etc. (Altarrah et al., 2021; Mogaji, 2022; Park et al., 2022), new
behavioural paradigms (Brandtner, Darbanian, Falatouri, & Udokwu, 2021; Hesham, Riadh,
& Sihem, 2021; Nilashi et al., 2021), and whether the old habit will sustain or whether there will
be an acceptance of the new behaviour (Sehgal et al., 2021; Vatamanescu, Dabija, Gazzola,
Cegarro-Navarro, & Buzzi, 2021; Zhang & Chiu, 2021).
The smallest cluster, represented by blue colour, is made up of 29 documents which are
based on the unusual purchasing behaviour (Cervellati, Stella, Filotto, & Maino, 2022; Laato
et al., 2020), panic buying (Omar, Nazri, Ali, & Alam, 2021; Taylor, 2021), reducing perceived
risk (Fihartini, Helmi, Hassan, & Oesman, 2021; Shin & Kang, 2020), and the importance of
understanding the consumer behaviour post Covid-19 era (Cooke et al., 2021; Kim, Yang, Min,
& White, 2022).

3.9 Keywords co-occurrence analysis

Keywords analysis is a method to analyse and count the paired data and similarity of the
documents, authors and sources in a specific data set to find out the scientific structure of
the knowledge. The co-occurrence of keywords is created using the VOSviewer application.
The network is presented in Figure 2 and is made up of 75 keywords and three clusters, which
have occurred at least ten times in the data set.
The largest cluster of the network (red) is based on 33 keywords, the most prominent
keywords in this cluster are Covid-19, coronavirus, epidemic, consumption behaviour,
uncertainty, China, etc.; these words specify the research trends on consumer behaviour which
stems from the fear of uncertainty amid the Covid-19 pandemic (Derkacz, 2021; Kim et al., 2022;
Polas, Tabash, Afshar Jahanshahi, & Ahamed, 2022). This cluster also indicated the evolution
of research in the domain of online commerce, food delivery, food waste, etc. (Palomino Pita
et al., 2020; Park et al., 2022; Soon, Vanany, Abdul Wahab, Hamdan, & Jamaludin, 2021).
The second largest cluster, represented by the green colour, is made up of 27 keywords.
The most prominent keywords in this cluster are human, adult, epidemiology, health,
demography, food intake, feeding behaviour, etc. (Adkins-Jablonsky et al., 2021; Alaimo,
Fiore, & Galati, 2020; Chua, Yuen, Wang, & Wong, 2021). This cluster shows the important
aspect of the research in human behaviour which pertains to the behavioural and
psychological understanding of the impact of Covid-19 on consumer behaviour
 Influence of
Covid-19 on
consumer
behaviour

593

Figure 2.
Co-occurrence analysis
of keywords

(Baicu, G^ardan, G^ardan, & Epuran, 2020; Din et al., 2022; Vanderpool, Huang, Mollica,
Gutierrez, & Maynard, 2021).
The smallest cluster (blue) consists of 15 keywords and health behaviour, government
regulations, mental health, anxiety, virus pneumonia, etc. are prominent keywords. This
cluster signifies the importance of the research to understand the various psychological
phenomena because of Covid-19 and its accompanying regulations and effects (Dou et al.,
2021; Hall, Fieger, Prayag, & Dyason, 2021; Rabbi, Ol
ah, Popp, M
at
e, & Kov
acs, 2021; Teare &
Taks, 2021). These important studies helped in understanding and formulating marketing
strategies to cope with the new normal.

4. Discussion and future scope of research

Consumer behaviour amid Covid-19 and post-pandemic behaviour of the consumers are
analysed and mapped in this paper. The understanding of the psychological and behavioural
aspects of consumers as a result of the impact of Covid-19 is crucial for the marketing
organisations to formulate marketing campaigns that can create confidence in customer
spending and consumption (Quintal, Sung, & Lee, 2022).
The e-commerce firms need to adopt the changes in consumer buying behaviour and
incorporate in their websites items that can attract, engage and instigate consumers to
purchase from them. There has been a great increase in the use of technology in almost every
AGJSR aspect of business. It has also given a tremendous push to digital adoption in e-purchasing, e-
42,3 ordering, e-learning, etc. It has, however, also created a digital divide among the consumers.
Therefore, the marketing firms need to design their strategies that can cater with all segments
of the target markets. This extensive review and scientific mapping led to the evolution of the
following themes that enable the understanding of underlying consumer behaviour in the
wake of Covid-19. This study has made a solid foundation for the understanding of consumer
behaviour and Covid-19. The following are the major trends that signify the consumer
594 behaviour research amid Covid-19 and probable directions for future research.
(1) Food purchasing decisions and food wastage: The finding of the research offers
detailed understanding of the selection of food, ordering of food and consuming this
with an intention not to waste. The consumers have also shown sustainable behaviour
during purchasing and consumption of food. Additionally, local products have also
seen a surge in their demand. The hygiene factors have been researched significantly
and shed light on the handling of food with the utmost care to avoid infections.
Moreover, the reaction of the consumer on the price dynamics of food has also shown
that consumers were ready to pay more if they were assured of the hygiene of the
products and their delivery (Ghali-Zinoubi, 2021). Since the pandemic will eventually
end and the studies on the purchasing and handling of hygienic products and personal
products will also diminish, future studies can compare the consumer behaviour before
and after the pandemic with a special focus on food purchasing and wastage. A cross-
cultural study between developed and non-developed nations will also be interesting to
gain insight into the consumer behaviour. It will be useful to analyse the factors that
urge consumers to look for sustainable products and sustainable consumption.
(2) Adoption of technology: The consumers have adopted online methods to order
their necessary items like food, hygiene and personal protective equipment. The
results show that there is a sea change in the adoption of the technology and the
e-commerce industry has seen a significant growth in their revenue and profitability.
Moreover, studies have shown that the consumers are accepting the omnichannel
retailing and the retailers need to access their target market via online channels.
Studies also have shown the instrumental role of technology in changing consumer
avoidance purchasing behaviour (Bytyçi, Shala, Ziberi, & Myftaraj, 2021; Dong et al.,
2022; Stern, Georgsson, & Carlsson, 2021).
The role of technology can be further analysed to understand the aspects where it
has affected the consumer behaviour at most. The role of disruptive technologies like
AI, ML and robotics may also be investigated to understand the adoption and positive
change that will bring for marketing firms. The mobile applications’ and web portals’
role in pleasure buying and eudaimonic pleasure buying will offer great insight to the
e-retailers in formulating their marketing strategies that can help them to increase
their revenue and profitability.
(3) Intrinsic and extrinsic influence on consumer behaviour: The results of the
studies have shown that the pandemic has affected both intrinsic and extrinsic
factors of consumer buying behaviour. The results show that almost every aspect of
consumer behaviour has been affected by the adverse impact of Covid-19. Both the
hedonic and utilitarian motives are affected by the coronavirus. The consumers have
shown more impulsive shopping in a few of the cases to reduce their anxiety and
loneliness while some studies have shown that consumers were shopping more for
essential commodities and act rationally that signifies utilitarian motives for
purchasing behaviour (Kim et al., 2022; Mirzaei, Sadin, & Pedram, 2021; Smaldone,
D’Arco, Marino, & Pellicano, 2021).
 Future studies can be conducted to find the moderating and mediating role of Influence of
Covid-19 on the relationship between shopping motives and shopping behaviour. Covid-19 on
Additionally, a study about risk perception and its mitigation should be conducted to
understand the underlying phenomenon and to reach out to the consumers to create
consumer
confidence and trust in their products and services. Additionally, the impulse behaviour
purchase behaviour across product categories before and after Covid-19 can provide
great understanding about the way consumers are expected to behave. Finally, the
pandemic has shown a dynamic behaviour that is entirely non-linear and a complex 595
combination of old behaviour and adopted behaviour; it demands regular studies on
the various aspects of consumer behaviour to gain insights that will help in deciding
on timely and accurate marketing strategies.

5. Conclusion and limitations

A bibliometric analysis of 635 articles based on the consumer behaviour during Covid-19 is
carried out in this paper. The current state of the research and probable future directions are
discussed. The best authors, documents, journals, countries and affiliations are presented
with their contribution to this domain of research. Visual representation is done using
network maps for the keyword occurrences and citation analysis which helps in discovering
the trends in this area of research.
Three main themes are found in the research of consumer behaviour and Covid-19 – Food
purchasing decisions and food wastage, Adoption of technology, and Intrinsic and extrinsic
influence on consumer behaviour. The probable areas of future research expansion are
charted and presented. As far as limitation is concerned, this research is based on the Scopus
database which is one of the most extensive databases for the social sciences and allied
subjects, but there might be a few good articles that may not be included because they are not
indexed. Moreover, only research and review articles are considered, there might be good
research presented in conferences, short notes, etc. that have been left behind and biased the
data. However, it was important to limit the data to systemise this review.

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Further reading
Sharma, R., Dhir, A., Talwar, S., & Kaur, P. (2021). Over-ordering and food waste: The use of
food delivery apps during a pandemic. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 96.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2021.102977.

About the authors

Dr Abu Bashar (Ph.D.) is currently working as a software consultant in a leading IT firm in the Kingdom
of Bahrain. He is also associated with the MTC (Micro Training Centre) as an instructor for Digital
marketing and allied subjects. His area of research is in online consumer behaviour – especially impulse
buying behaviour, sustainable marketing practices and consumer behaviour. He has published several
articles in international journals of repute such as International Journal of Sustainable Development and
Planning, Review of Financial Economics, International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing,
International Journal of Business Information Systems, International Journal of Electronic Business,
International Hospitality Review, Journal of Open Innovation Technology Market and Complexity,
Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Journal of Risk and Financial Management, Risks, etc. He has
presented several papers in international conferences organised by leading universities and institutions
such as UoB (University of Bahrain), JMI (Jamia Millia Islamia), IEEE, etc. School of management, IMS
Unison University, Dehradun, India.
Dr Brighton Nyagadza (CIM, Ph.D.) is a full-time lecturer and A/Chairperson of the Department of
Marketing (digital marketing) at Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology
(MUAST), Zimbabwe, a research associate of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK), University of
Johannesburg (UJ), South Africa, a full member of the Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ), an
associate of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (ACIM), United Kingdom and a power member of the
Digital Marketing Institute (DMI), Dublin, Ireland. He has published several book chapters in Routledge
books, published by Taylor & Francis, New York (USA), Emerald Insight, United Kingdom (UK),
Lexington books published by Rowan & Littlefield, Maryland (USA) and in reputable international
journals such as Journal of Digital Media & Policy (Intellect), Sustainable Technology & Entrepreneurship
(Elsevier), Journal of Fashion Marketing & Management (Emerald), European Journal of Management
Studies (Emerald), Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies (Emerald), Journal of
Environmental Media (Intellect), European Journal of Innovation Management (Emerald), Africa Review
(Brill), Tourism Critiques: Practice & Theory (Emerald), SN Social Sciences (Springer), Journal of Asian &
African Studies (SAGE), PSU Research Review (Emerald), Youth & Society (SAGE), Quality Assurance in
Education (Emerald) and The Marketing Review (Westburn), among others. Brighton sits on various
corporate and academic boards including the Mashonaland East Province Zimbabwe National
Development Strategy (NDS) Committee (2021–2025) – ICT & Human Capital Development cohort.
Brighton Nyagadza is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: brightonnyagadza@gmail.com
 Dr Neo Ligaraba (Ph.D.) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Marketing, School of Business and Influence of
Economic Sciences, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, South Africa. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of the Witwatersrand, focusing Covid-19 on
on Brand Experiences and Young Consumers. Her areas of research are Digital Marketing and Brand consumer
Management. She has published papers in reputable journals including Journal for New Generation behaviour
Sciences, The Service Industries Journal, Solid State Technology, Real Estate Management and Valuation
and The Retail and Marketing Review.
Dr Eugine Tafadzwa Maziriri (Ph.D.) is currently a senior lecturer in the Department of Business 601
Management at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a Y-rated
scientist of the National Research Foundation (NRF). He is an entrepreneurship, small business
management and entrepreneurial marketing researcher who has produced several papers in these fields
in prestigious journals such as Gender in Management: An International Journal (Emerald Insight, UK),
Journal of Public Affairs (Wiley, USA), Data in Brief (Elsevier), Global Journal of Emerging Market
Economies (SAGE, London, UK), Arab Gulf Journal of Scientific Research (Emerald Insight, UK), PSU
Research Review: An International Interdisciplinary Journal (Emerald Insight, UK), Cogent Business and
Management and Cogent Psychology (Taylor & Francis, England & Wales, UK), among others. He has
also presented papers at local and international conferences. Furthermore, he has supervised over 25
honour students, 10 master students and two Ph.D. students. He earned his Ph.D. in Business Sciences
from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Also, he sits on the editorial
board of the Southern African Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management
(SAJESBM). Moreover, he currently has 1113 citations to his research works, and reflects a Google
Scholar h-index of 19 and an i-10 index of 27.

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