Diversification of student consumption during the pandemic - Albania, Poland and Portugal

Consumption occupies a special place in the economic sciences. Reflections on consumption are conducted by representatives of many fields of science, including economists, psychologists and sociologists (Czapiński & Panek, 2015; Di Crosta et al., 2021; Grzywińska–Rąpca, 2021). Consumption is important, as from the individual point of view it determines the development of the individual, while from the social point of view it determines social status and lifestyle. Through the literature on the subject, we most often encounter an approach to consumption as a process of using or consuming goods and services in order to satisfy human needs. Market participants, depending on macro- and microeconomic conditions, satisfy their needs and simultaneously change the level of consumption. A change in their behaviour also occurs in the event of crises, which undoubtedly include the COVID19 pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic presented a wide range of phenomena interfering in the spheres of household life and the economy. Unusual shopping behaviour, different than before the pandemic, could be expected. Restrictions on movement introduced by the authorities of many European countries meant that a person was introduced overnight into a dimension of unknown living conditions. The spread of the coronavirus around the world has resulted in a change in household lifestyles and businesses (Gardocka-Jałowiec et al., 2020).

Bearing this in mind, a survey was conducted to determine the impact of the epidemiological situation on changes in the shopping habits of students – young consumers in Albania, Poland, and Portugal. The main objective was to verify whether there are differences in the purchasing decisions of young consumers depending on gender and nationality. The topic was known to be important in the face of observed market trends. Increased demand is caused by panic, manifested by the accumulation of food and/or another kind of goods.

The present paper is organised as follows. After the introduction, a brief theoretical overview will follow on the topic of the shopping behaviour of consumers in general and young consumers specifically. This is followed by a special section related to behaviours during the pandemic situation. Then the data and the methodological approach, based on analysing the online questionaires, are explained, with the responses reflecting on results, conclusions, and discussions presented at the end.

The purchasing behaviour of consumers and households is conditioned by numerous economic, social, and cultural factors (Yin et al., 2022). Some other authors studied dogmatism (a personality trait of individuals who believe that the knowledge and information they have is the correct one) as a shopping behaviour (Laghari et al., 2016; Paul et al., 2021). From one or another perspective, the diversity of behaviours turns difficult to predict; the reactions of human individuals or the households they create differ. However, guided by the principles of rationality, it is possible to determine some dependencies. At least marketers are hoping this to happen – since they “need to understand trends and psychological thinking in consumer behaviour and specifically for young consumers” (Paul et al., 2021).

The well-known determinants of consumer economic behaviour can be classified into several groups. Even presented in many different ways (Ahn & Park, 2022; Cui et al., 2021; Le et al., 2020; Yang, 2021), they can be organised into five common areas: biological, social, cultural, economic, and emotional/psychological. During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, factors related to health security also played a very important role in the purchasing process of each consumer (Eriksson & Stenius, 2022). According to Truong and Truong (2022), fears for health and fears for financial conditions have effects on customers’ behavioural changes in terms of shopping decisions. On the other hand, Vázquez-Martínez et al. (2021) found that customers’ behavioural changes proved to be more related to consumers’ perceptions of the crisis than to its practical effects. ‘Theory suggests that shoppers have both positive and negative shopping (consumption) orientations (Darden & Reynolds, 1971; Westbrook & Black, 1985) and some conceptual studies (Sheth, 2020) have proposed the coexistence of positive and negative shopper behaviours linked to COVID19’ (Sit et al., 2022).

One way or another, there is no doubt that the pandemic was a boost in the digital transformation process, namely in terms of online shopping (Eriksson & Stenius, 2022), but other concerns such as trust are also important for this buying process (Faqih, 2022). Research conducted by many authors indicates that there are different approaches to identify factors determining consumer behaviour in the purchasing process (Ahn & Park, 2022; Cui et al., 2021; Le et al., 2020; Yang, 2021). In the Polish literature, in the most commonly used classification of factors determining consumer purchasing behaviour, three sub-basic groups of factors are distinguished: economic, social and psychological (Kieżel 2000). In the Anglo-American and German literature, the key group of factors emphasised by the authors are psychological factors, also referred to as internal or individual (Di Crosta et al., 2021; Gu et al., 2021; Hesham, Riadh & Sihem, 2021; Trommsdorff 2004; Balderjahn & Scholderer 2007; Evans et al., 2006; Solomon et al. 2006; Wright 2006; Kotler & Keller, 2007; Lins & Aquino, 2020). In addition to the listed classifications, many authors point to demographic factors as determinant of purchasing decisions (in several different areas) (Si et al., 2022; Xu et al., 2020), while others did not find a relation between the demographic factor and the purchasing decision (Ahn & Park, 2022; Nimri et al., 2020). The latter found that only gender influenced the decision purchases, in this case, related to green hotels. For the sake of this research, among a large group of factors shaping consumer behaviour, sociodemographic factors (gender, nationality) were considered important. Both gender and nationality are features of the host individual, which are to a large extent associated with the group of socioeconomic determinants. The combination of these features influences individual behaviour in the purchasing process. Purchasing decisions for women are different from men's (Nimri et al., 2020; Kovacheva et al., 2022; Basak et al., 2020; Karpinska-Krakowiak, 2021). Women are more sensitive to information and are more quickly influenced by marketing tools. Women, unlike men, focus more on such product features such as packaging or graphic design.

The education and place of residence of young buyers are factors that affect the type and scope of needs, and consequently affect their specific conduct on the market.

An important role in the purchasing process of a young consumer is played by mass media culture, family, peers, tradition, or consumption patterns. However, it should be noted that the above elements are less important for young consumers as they get older (Bartosik-Purgat 2019).

Consumers’ shopping behaviour is also conditioned by external factors, which include unusual crises or extreme situations. A pandemic is undoubtedly such a situation, during which decisions are made based on the available information (Truong & Truong, 2022; Vázquez-Martínez et al., 2021; Larios-Gómez et al., 2021). The government and population of a given country, at the time of the outbreak of the pandemic, tried to introduce measures to minimise its impact on people's life and the functioning of the economy by imposing new rules for the individuals’ behaviour in public areas. The tools and methods differed depending on the level of organisation of the state as well as the effectiveness of the health system. The outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 led to similar health safety measures in the three countries under analysis in this paper (Table 1).

The COVID19 pandemic was declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11, 2020, and since then various types of measures have been introduced in many countries to limit the spread of the SARS-COV2 virus. The first key action in Poland, Portugal, and Albania was the introduction of lockdown. This was connected with the transition to online work in schools and universities and in some enterprises, and restrictions imposing sanitary rigor (masks, distance and limits of people in service and commercial institutions) were introduced.

The research was conducted in 2021 on a sample of 668 people studying in Albania, Poland, and Portugal. Therefore, it can be assumed that the date of the study is an appropriate date for analyses allowing for the diagnosis of students’ behaviour regarding changes in the housing market, the labour market, and changes in shopping behaviour. The empirical study aimed to determine the impact of the epidemiological situation on changes in the shopping habits of students – young consumers. The essence of defining the term ‘young consumer’ is to define the age bracket of the consumer who can be classified into this market segment. Analysing the scientific achievements in the field of consumer behaviour, it can be concluded that among the authors there is a wide variety of proposals for determining the age range describing the category of young consumers. Speaking about the category of young consumers in the context of this study, they are people born after 2000 (Beyhan, 2014; Tarka & Kukar-Kinney, 2022; Shahina & Sachitra, 2021; Guan et al., 2021; Sashikala & Vijayudu, 2021).

The study was conducted using the survey method, and the use of this form of measurement was determined by the possibility of its implementation during lectures and exercises while ensuring the anonymity of students completing the questionnaire. The research instrument was a standardised survey questionnaire, which was divided into three thematic blocks. The first part of the questionnaire contains questions on the housing conditions of students. The second part concerned activity on the labour market, and the third part covered issues related to shopping. For the purposes of the analyses presented in this paper, out of a dozen or so survey questions, responses to questions concerning the frequency of shopping before the pandemic, the frequency of shopping during the pandemic, and the place of shopping for selected consumer goods, were used.

A division by gender and nationality was done, in order to conduct some comparative analyses.

The sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents differentiate the preferences of students in terms of the frequency of shopping to a relatively small extent. The obtained results indicate that more than half of Albanian and Polish students made purchases upon the occurrence of the need before the pandemic. The responses obtained by Portuguese students indicate that both before and during the pandemic they made purchases once a week (Figure 1 and 2).

As a consequence of the lockdown and sanitary restrictions introduced by the government of the countries during the pandemic, changes in single-dose purchase quantities of selected consumer goods were recorded. The one-time amount of purchases of food and soft drinks and cosmetics has not changed (Table 2).

Based on the presented list of respondents’ answers (Table 2), it can be concluded that after the pandemic, female students from Albania increased the one-off amount of purchases related to personal hygiene (indications of 51.1%). Both males and females also increased the consumption of products defined as household chemicals (indications of 53.3% of women and 58.3% of men), which were the only registered increases.

Regarding the behavioural changes in terms of a shopping decrease, we see a change among Albanian male students regarding alcohol and tobacco consumption. In Poland, female students decreased their shopping for clothes and footwear. All the remaining items stayed the same.

Another issue analyzed in the context of changes in students’ shopping habits during the pandemic was the indication of the place where shopping was done (Table 3). Analyses concerning the research on preferred shopping places were conducted by m.in. Urban and Michałowska (2013), and Angowski and Domańska (2015). The authors emphasise that the choice of the place of purchase of goods and services is one of the stages of the purchasing process. At this stage, the information at the disposal of the shopper and the provided opportunities allow the consumer to choose the place of purchase, which is a crucial issue, especially during the pandemic, due to maintaining health security. With the pandemic's arrival, people changed their behaviour. ‘According to Forbes (2020), in 2019, 81% of US consumers had never purchased groceries online. However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation has turned the other way around. In 2020, 79% of US consumers ordered their groceries online’ (Tyrväinen & Karjaluoto, 2022). According to the same authors, online shopping was inevitable during the pandemic, and the challenge was how to keep it going.

The indications of the place of shopping by respondents shown before and during the pandemic pointed out that the most popular place to buy products such as food and non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages and tobacco products, personal hygiene products and household chemicals, is the supermarket. In the case of purchasing clothing and footwear as well as cosmetics, the most popular place to shop, according to the indications of students participating in the study, are online stores. Thus, it might be said that there is a variability in the shopping behaviour in terms of purchasing place (Table 3). In the table, the positive variations above 5% are assigned in bold, while the negative ones, below 5%, are gray shaded.

From Table 3 the first conclusion to be drawn is that the impact on online shopping was not the expected one (an increase). In fact, in some categories there was a decrease in online shopping: clothes and footwear and cosmetics among Polish males, and personal hygiene items and household chemicals among Albanian females. However, in these four identified situations the decrease was below 5%. The Portuguese students shifted their clothing and footwear shopping from hypermarkets and small shops to the online option. Still, in Portugal, females also increased their online shopping for cosmetics items. The most relevant increases were noticed in household chemicals. This result is aligned with the tendency observed from the literature review on health concerns (Jacobs et al. 2010; Gąsior 2012; Eriksson & Stenius, 2022; Truong & Truong, 2022).

The remaining items presented some changes but the figures or the changes don’t appear to be relevant for the purposes of this research.

From Table 4 it is possible to conclude that Polish students drastically decreased their consumption of books, newspapers and magazines (95.7% in males and 89% in females). Besides these drastic decreases, some other not so relevant decreases can be pointed out:

Cinema, theater, and museums – male and female from the 3 analysed countries

To estimate the relationship between the place of shopping before and during the pandemic, a chi-squared independence test was performed (refer to Table 5). The analysis was carried out taking into account the gender and nationality of the students. Regarding the shopping place change only in the case of male students from Albania, it can be concluded that there is no dependence. The significance for this group of respondents was at the level of 0.81 for food and non-alcoholic beverages and personal hygiene products and household chemicals. The chi-squared test performed for the remaining dependencies was at the level of < 0.001 (for = 0.05). The determined v-Crammer coefficient for the relationship between the place of shopping for food and non-alcoholic beverages before and during the pandemic reached the highest value in the group of males from Albania (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.871), and the lowest for females from Albania (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.625). In the case of the place where alcoholic beverages and tobacco are purchased, the strongest relationship between the place of shopping before and during the pandemic can be determined based on statistical analysis in the group of females from Portugal (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.947). The lowest value of the v-Crammer coefficient was achieved for a group of Polish females (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.562). The determined v-Crammer coefficient for the relationship between the place of shopping for clothes and footwear before and during the pandemic reached the highest value in the group of males from Portugal (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.803), and the lowest for Polish males (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.519). The value of the v-Crammer coefficient for the relationship between the place of shopping for cosmetics, personal hygiene items, and household chemicals before and during the pandemic reached the highest value in the group of males from Albania (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.917), a male from Portugal (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.732), and female from Portugal (v-Crammer coefficient = 0.794), respectively.

Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that there is a strong relationship between the place of shopping before and during the pandemic. At the same time, the values of the assigned statistics indicate differences between gender and nationality.

This paper results from a study performed in three different countries (Albania, Poland, and Portugal) aiming to analyse the shopping behaviour differences among students. The research focused on the pandemic period, and from the literature reviewed it was clear that the conditions brought about by this pandemic led to a change in general shopping behaviour, from the physical to the online world. The pandemic made grandparents learn how to use social networks and pushed several firms towards e-commerce and process digitalisation.

This situation has affected the health security of students, as well as the level of their economic safety. A significant proportion of students have been working in the sectors of the economy most affected by the pandemic (tourism, gastronomy, trade). The pandemic has left young consumers without income overnight. At the same time, the need for remote education and, in many cases, the return to family homes have retrogressed their process of becoming independent. A negative effect on young people was also the limitation of the possibilities of undertaking activities and tasks specific to this group.

Regarding the factors analysed in this research, nationality and gender, the literature tends to identify women as more sensitive to marketing tools. No studies were found mentioning different behaviours according to nationality. However, the literature suggests that the place of residence influences the needs of young consumers. Mass media (where social networks are included) also influences consumption patterns among younger consumers.

From the research performed some conclusions were found that can be summed up as follows:

The pandemic did not change the periodicity of shopping, since both Albanian and Polish students sustained the tendency to shop according to their needs, while the Portuguese, in the habit of a different behaviour (shopping once a week), also kept this shopping pattern. In general, a decrease in daily shopping habits was identified.

The conclusions formulated in the study, as well as the topicality of the issues, allow them to be considered useful for institutional entities interested in observing changes in consumption during the pandemic. Functioning during a pandemic is undoubtedly an unusual situation and there are factors (such as health security) that determine the change in consumption behaviour. The scientific contribution of the theoretical and empirical considerations is mainly the systematisation of theoretical foundations and the conceptualisation of the category of factors determining the diversity in the purchasing behaviour of young people (students).

Among the results presented above, some are unexpected, in particular the unexpected small change in terms of online shopping. That might occur due to online shopping habits that existed before the pandemic. This result opens an interesting research area for the future. What are the younger consumption habits after the pandemic? Are they more digital nowadays or did they return to the ‘old normal’? How are companies dealing with e-commerce and process digitalisation after the wave that gave the 4th Industrial Revolution a push? These are questions that the authors would like to research in the near future, enlarging the aim of the project that started by analysing students’ consumption behaviour under the Covid19 crisis.