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To buy or not buy food online: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in China

Drawing on a recent online survey combined with city-level data, this paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 on consumers’ online food purchase behavior in the short term. To address the potential endogeneity issues, we adopt an instrumental variable (IV) strategy, using the distance from the sur...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Gao, Xuwen, Shi, Xinjie, Guo, Hongdong, Liu, Yehong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7440641/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32817693
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237900
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author Gao, Xuwen
Shi, Xinjie
Guo, Hongdong
Liu, Yehong
author_facet Gao, Xuwen
Shi, Xinjie
Guo, Hongdong
Liu, Yehong
author_sort Gao, Xuwen
collection PubMed
description Drawing on a recent online survey combined with city-level data, this paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 on consumers’ online food purchase behavior in the short term. To address the potential endogeneity issues, we adopt an instrumental variable (IV) strategy, using the distance from the surveyed city to Wuhan as the instrumental variable. We show that our IV method is effective in minimizing potential bias. It is found that the share of confirmed COVID-19 cases increases the possibility of consumers purchasing food online. This is more likely to be the case for young people having a lower perceived risk of online purchases and living in large cities. Despite some limitations, this paper has policy implications for China and other countries that have been influenced by the COVID-19 epidemic. Specifically, government support and regulation should focus on (i) ensuring the safety of food sold on the internet, (ii) protecting the carrier from becoming infected, and (iii) providing financial support to the poor since they may have difficulties in obtaining access to food living in small cities. Moreover, how to help those who are unable to purchase food online because of their technical skills (e.g., the elderly who are not familiar with smart phones or the internet) also deserves more attention for the government and the public.
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spelling pubmed-74406412020-08-26 To buy or not buy food online: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in China Gao, Xuwen Shi, Xinjie Guo, Hongdong Liu, Yehong PLoS One Research Article Drawing on a recent online survey combined with city-level data, this paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 on consumers’ online food purchase behavior in the short term. To address the potential endogeneity issues, we adopt an instrumental variable (IV) strategy, using the distance from the surveyed city to Wuhan as the instrumental variable. We show that our IV method is effective in minimizing potential bias. It is found that the share of confirmed COVID-19 cases increases the possibility of consumers purchasing food online. This is more likely to be the case for young people having a lower perceived risk of online purchases and living in large cities. Despite some limitations, this paper has policy implications for China and other countries that have been influenced by the COVID-19 epidemic. Specifically, government support and regulation should focus on (i) ensuring the safety of food sold on the internet, (ii) protecting the carrier from becoming infected, and (iii) providing financial support to the poor since they may have difficulties in obtaining access to food living in small cities. Moreover, how to help those who are unable to purchase food online because of their technical skills (e.g., the elderly who are not familiar with smart phones or the internet) also deserves more attention for the government and the public. Public Library of Science 2020-08-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7440641/ /pubmed/32817693 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237900 Text en © 2020 Gao et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gao, Xuwen
Shi, Xinjie
Guo, Hongdong
Liu, Yehong
To buy or not buy food online: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in China
title To buy or not buy food online: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in China
title_full To buy or not buy food online: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in China
title_fullStr To buy or not buy food online: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in China
title_full_unstemmed To buy or not buy food online: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in China
title_short To buy or not buy food online: The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in China
title_sort to buy or not buy food online: the impact of the covid-19 epidemic on the adoption of e-commerce in china
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7440641/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32817693
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237900
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