Conscious shopping of middle-class consumers during the pandemic: Exploratory study in Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, and Sri Lanka

The economic and social consequences of the ongoing pandemic may be compared with those of the 2008 recession. However, the current ongoing crisis also has its idiosyncratic features. This is truly exogenous and not the result of the past financial imbalances that triggered recent recessions. Moreover, the wide range of possibilities depends on unpredictable non-economic factors. Finally, this crisis is truly global. The recession of 2008 did not affect as many countries, especially those in Asia [Bank for International Settlements, 2020].

In this study, some of the circumstances reflected in consumer behavior were considered. Noticeably, even after the recession was over, many consumers felt insecure, and their recession shopping habits remained as such [Govender and Govender, 2013; Weisser, 2014]. Many consumers were worried about losing their jobs, suffered from “post-recession panic”, reduced their spending, deferred traveling, and even gave up charity donations [Weisser, 2014]. They also embarked upon bargain hunting and preferred shopping in discount shops while postponing the purchase of non-essential items. These changes in the consumer purchasing strategies also led to changes in the supply of goods [Govender and Govender, 2013]. As consumers became price conscious and more sensitive to price changes, there was an increase in footfall and purchases from discount retailers with few luxury items; shoppers searched for better values for their money over the same period [Hampson et al., 2018]. A reduction in impulse buying was also recognized (signifying a positive correlation between money available to consumers and non-essential impulse buying) as well as a decrease in retailer loyalty (replaced by a search for better values for their money) [Hampson and McGoldrick, 2013].

Regarding ethical purchasing, in general such products are more expensive thus less attractive due to consumers’ price sensitivity during economic downturns. While ethical considerations are important for some shoppers, many consumers focus solely on the value. Another major ethical consideration is convenience: this is because as consumers become more price conscious, retailers started to focus on fast selling products, hence less prime space is reserved for ethical products. This leads to fewer ethical products being available or convenient to buy [Hampson and McGoldrick, 2013]. On the other hand, Bondy and Talwar [2011] noticed that dedicated buyers of “fair trade products” continued to buy them due to strong ethical beliefs. These authors recommend future research on this group of consumers to shed light on international differences that may exist, thus inspiring us to conduct the current study.

Consumers are more conscious of sustainable products due to the high-profile attention now given to ethical consumption [Marzouk and Mahrous, 2020]. This topic is now top on the agenda both in public and academic circles. While a lot of research has been undertaken on this issue in developed markets, it has attracted less attention in emerging and post-communist economies. The essence of the debate is to substitute or reduce the dependency of natural or toxic resources that will produce emissions or are detrimental to the environment, adversely affecting future generations [Miczyńska-Kowalska, 2020]. The new millennium has seen a rapid growth in interest for sustainable consumption [Veiga Neto et al., 2020].

Sustainable consumption is about prioritizing our present needs and changing current lifestyles for the benefit of the future generations. This allows for long-term thinking so as not to curtail the aspirations of generations to follow [Biswas and Roy, 2015]. Previous studies on conscious consumption have shown a differential between intentions and the actual behaviors of consumers. This is because consumer decisions are affected by other considerations such as price, location, availability of the products, convenience, habits, peer pressure, emotional appeal amongst other factors [Sajn, 2020].

Noteworthy terms such as sustainable consumption, ecologically conscious consumer, green consumer, green consumption, ecologically concerned or pro-environmental behavior are used to describe the same construct [Carfagna et al., 2014; Banovic et al., 2019; Marzouk and Mahrous, 2020; Veiga Neto et al., 2020]. Given the example of incorporating environmental awareness and sustainability rules, in a configuration called ethical or “conscious consumption” [Carfagna et al., 2014], in this study the term consumer consciousness was applied. Thus, a conscious consumer is defined as a rational, reasonable, and responsible individual.

In light of the reasoning in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, regarding each of the four countries, the following hypothesis is proposed:

The middle-class builds the fundamentals of socio-economic development and consists of creative professionals, who motivate others and become a reference group for them [OECD, 2019]. Therefore, during the pandemic or economic downturns, they have powerful and influential consumption patterns. In this context, Mohan [2019] noticed a remarkable phenomenon: although the term middle-class was ambiguous, more people prefer being classified as middle-class.

Rodas et al. [2019] claimed that although the middle-class is defined differently in the literature, some facets were comparable such as lifestyle, education, and patterns of consumption. Thus, income distribution should not become a dominant criterion. This group is predominantly concentrated in urban areas [Kardes, 2016]. The research attested to the growing middle-class in developing countries, and in the case of Nigeria, formed around 23% of the population. Shimeles and Ncube [2015] with data from 37 African countries, showed an improvement in the percentage of people moving into the middle-class in the decade spanning 2000–2010.

From a global perspective, a radical transformation is being spurred by a rise of middle-class in emerging markets [Marsh and Li, 2016; Cavusgil et al., 2018], where it usually indicates a preferred status. In this study, we followed Rodas et al., [2019] who underlined the “functional role of the middle-class, its occupational structure or specific system of values” [p. 295] and [Cavusgil et al., 2018], who depicted middle-class in emerging markets as active buyers in both the economic and the social sense. Consumers in this group can afford discretionary expenses, which allow them, for instance, to purchase aspirational brands [Kardes, 2016].

Thus, regarding each of the four countries, the present paper seeks to answer the additional research question:

RQ 4: Did the representatives of the middle-class buyers encourage other consumers to shop consciously during the pandemic of 2020?

Quite unexpectedly, analysis of the data on actual online shopping habits (presented in Table 2) did not find statistically significant differences across the investigated states. In other words, none of the four statements (search for bargains more intensely; purchase generally less but better quality; an exact shopping list prepared; impulse purchases reduced): can be taken for consideration in this study.

In turn, in the case of the future online shopping habits (i.e., after the pandemic) the statement “I will search for online bargains/sales promotions more intensely”, which is in line with the recession habits [Hampson and McGoldrick, 2013], was confirmed by the buyers in Mexico (15.9% strongly agree, 22.7% agree, and 15.9% rather agree), in Nigeria (20.0% strongly agree, 20.0% agree, and 14.0% rather agree), and in Sri Lanka (only 3% strongly agree, but 24.2% agree, and 12.1% rather agree). Likewise, in the recession of 2008, bargain hunting emerged as the most important trend and globally, 59.0% of respondents preferred bargains [Euromonitor, 2011]. However, in Poland the attitudes toward future promotions were neutral (27.9% neither agree nor not agree) and negative (10.5% strongly disagree, 14.0% disagree, and 12.8% rather disagree). This vanishing enthusiasm for promotional campaigns among Poles during the pandemic was also annotated in other studies. Poles were cautious about using the promotion mainly due to the uncertain economic situation and tried not to exceed their previously assumed budget [Santander Consumer Bank, 2021].

Regarding actual stationary shopping habits, the statement “searching for bargains/sales promotions in traditional shops more intensely” was denied in Nigeria (20.0% strongly disagree, 10% disagree, and 8% rather disagree), Poland (22.1% strongly disagree, 22.1% disagree, and 18.6% rather disagree), and Sri Lanka (although none “strongly disagree” nor “rather disagree”, the dominant answer was: “disagree” chosen by 27.3%). Compared to other buyers, Sri Lankans declared much less stationary shopping during the pandemic. It may be explained twofold: they were used to buying from the street vendors and on the “pola” – farmers’ markets [Ratnayake, 2015], and/or felt more secure while purchasing in the open-air markets. Contrary to the consumers from the aforementioned three countries, this statement was accepted (20.5% strongly agree, 11.4% agree, 18.2% rather agree) in Mexico. It can be explained by the fact that Mexicans appreciate bargains, their level of fear of infection is low (in this study only 8.9% indicated it was a major factor of changing shopping habits, while in Poland 21.6%) and are ranked as the most brand or company loyal in the world [Santander Trade, 2021].

Considering future stationary shopping habits, we noticed that in Mexico (25.0% strongly agree, 27.3% agree, and 18.2 rather agree) and Nigeria (12% strongly agree, 20.0% agree, and 10% rather agree) the buyers planned to “search for bargains/sales promotions in traditional shops more intensely”. This contradicts the actual stationary shopping habits declared by Nigerians. Such a phenomenon may be explained by the results of another pandemic survey. Its findings indicated that many Nigerian consumers were expecting a reduction in their incomes, hence, planned to reduce their non-essential consumption and to change their future habits as they became more frugal with their spending [McKinsey & Company, 2020].

Whereas in Poland and Sri Lanka the answers were very diverse (for example: 17.4% of Poles agree while the same percent rather disagree; 24.2% of Sri Lankans agree but 27.3% disagree). Referring to the prospective purchases and replacing the quantity with quality, Mexican buyers felt strongest about that (although none strongly agree, 15.9% agree, and 36.4% rather agree). Sri Lankan consumers’ attitude was not so expressive, however, most of them accepted this statement (none strongly agree, but 21.2% agree, and 24.2% rather agree). Nigerian buyers seemed to prefer such a behavior as well, but less explicitly (2.0% strongly agree, 12.0% agree, and 32.0% rather agree). Similar to the previous statement, here also the Polish buyers’ answers were remarkably inconsistent.

Among all the reasons for changing shopping habits, statistically significant differences across the researched countries were found in four of them, shown in Table 3. As it was highlighted in the research methods description, the respondents could select three of ten reasons.

The first reason was the desire to save money (41.3% of all respondents). The largest percentage of respondents who expressed such a desire was in Poland (15.0%), and in Nigeria and Mexico (11.7% in each country). In Sri Lanka, only 2.8% of respondents wanted to save. Further, 24.4% of all respondents declared their willingness to save money on time after the end of restrictions and the detail are as follows: in Nigeria 11.7%, Sri Lanka 7.0%, Poland 5.2%, and only 0.5% in Mexico. Referring to the basic principles of economics, especially to the principle that people respond to stimuli and the principles of business cycles, this behavior should be considered fully economically rational [Mankiw and Taylor, 2015]. In the face of the crisis, when consumers are concerned about the stability of their income, it is rational to reduce current consumption in favor of savings that postpone consumption over time. Another reason for changing shopping habits was responsibility for family (39.0% of all respondents). A greater percentage of respondents indicating this response were among Poles and Mexicans (11.7% each). In Nigeria and Sri Lanka, this reason was given by 8.9% and 6.6%, respectively. However, Poland and Mexico are rooted in catholic, conservative traditions in the same manner, where family belongs to the highest values [World Value Survey, 2021]. In the case of Nigeria, the difficult economic condition may have led to people focusing less on family and more on individuals [Financial Times, 2020]. In Sri Lanka, the pandemic led to a significant loss of jobs and a contraction in the economy [World Bank, 2021].

Regarding personal satisfaction of being a rational consumer (19.2% of all respondents), the highest number of responses in this case were from Nigeria (8.0%), while from Poland (5.6%) and, to a small extent, Sri Lanka (2.3%) and Mexico (1.9%). There are various reasons for this depending on governmental financial support for citizens during the pandemic.

In all the four countries, the influential middle-class buyers [OECD, 2019] – as we assumed a priori – would recommend to others conscious and rational behaviors. The Mexicans’ and Poles’ answers were very close. The consumers were in agreement, while suggesting “using actual buyers’ opinion before purchase”, “compare offers on the internet”.

However, from this study's perspective, the behaviors that differentiate consumers in the four countries are in focus (Table 4). Therefore, >50.0% of them would advise “reading all the info/labels on the packaging”. By and large, researchers appeared to agree that a level of buyers’ awareness of such info was low worldwide [Hornibrook et al., 2015]. Thus this attitude may be very appealing in the conscious consumption context. Nevertheless, Sri Lankans were not so determined (extremely likely 24.2%, likely 21.2%, and rather likely 18.2%), while both Poles (extremely likely 27.9%, likely 38.4%, and rather likely 12.8%) and Mexicans (extremely likely 22.7%, likely 31.8%, and rather likely 27.3%) felt very strongly about that. Most buyers would recommend “using your own basket/shopping bag”. However, in Nigeria, 58.0% of consumers declared such a recommendation, while 30.0% did not, which markedly exceeded the denials in other states (for instance only 4.7% of Poles and 9.1% of Mexicans would not recommend it). This may be due to the lack of charge for shopping bags. In the UK for example, shoppers increased the use of their own bags from 29.0% to 58.0% after charges were introduced for shopping bags in 2015 [Poortinga et al., 2016].