Consumer Buying Behavior during COVID-19 Pandemic A Comparative Study

Purpose – This paper investigates the impact of COVID-19 on consumer buying behavior in Egypt and Saudi Arabia because of the different lockdown rules and measures that applied during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/Methodology/Approach - An online structured questionnaire was designed by using Google forms and sent to the respondents. A sample of 1042 responses (508 responses from Egypt, 534 responses from Saudi Arabia) were recorded for this study. The effect of pandemic on consumer buying behavior was assessed using statistical analysis techniques.
Findings – The results showed there is a significant relationship between lockdown rules applied during COVID-19 pandemic and consumer buying behavior in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, also it was found that in Egypt the most significant factor on consumer buying behavior was the personal factors and the least factor was culture while in Saudi Arabia the economic factor was the most significant factor on consumer buying behavior and also the least factor was culture.
Research limitations/implications – This research paper has some limitations as, the area of research is restrained to Egypt and Saudi Arabia only during COVID-19 pandemic, because of which the results cannot be generalized for other countries because of the differences in culture, income, personality, etc.… Also, the study was confined to the urban areas in Egypt and Saudi Arabia during COVID-19 pandemic, so the results cannot be generalized for rural areas and due to continuous changes in behavior, attitude, culture and other factors, the response of the consumers in the present study during COVID-19 pandemic may not be relevant in the future time period.
Originality/value – The present paper is among the first to focus on examining the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on consumer buying behavior between two different countries that applied different lockdown procedures i.e., Egypt and Saudi Arabia.