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Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on grocery retail operations: An analytical model.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound effects on grocery retailers, forcing them to make many operational changes in response to public health concerns and the shift in customers' shopping behavior. Grocery retailers need to understand the impact of pandemic conditions on their operations, but the literature has not modeled and analyzed this issue. We bridge this gap through economic models that consider the documented changes in the customers' shopping behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, including less frequent in-store shopping and bulk-shopping tendency. We capture the impact of occupancy limitation guidelines on grocery retailers' service capacity, customers' shopping behavior, and, consequently, on the retailers' store traffic and profit. We find that though store occupancy limitations reduce the in-store foot traffic (which helps with curbing the disease spread), interestingly, they do not necessarily result in a profit decline. Under occupancy limitations and when the retailer offers the delivery or curbside pickup service, our analyses highlight the externality impact of online customers on the shopping behavior of in-store customers. When the retailer adds the delivery service, such externalities may increase the store traffic (higher infection risk inside the grocery store) and reduce the retailer's profit. When the retailer adds the curbside pickup instead, it has more control over the impact of externalities, which helps in lowering the store traffic and increasing the profit. Our results offer valuable insights into how retailers should regard occupancy limitations and health safety measures. Our results also highlight conditions under which various operating modes may help retailers reduce infection risk and achieve higher profit.

SUBMITTER: Delasay M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9115409 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:(1) Background: To date, there are limited data in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that collect, monitor, and evaluate food environments in standardized ways. The development of a pilot survey tool, tailored to LMICs and focused on retail food environments, is necessary for improving public health nutrition. (2) Methods: A novel survey tool was developed and piloted in a sample of village retail food environments (n = 224) in Matiari, Pakistan between October 2020 to April 2021. Villages were randomly selected, and food outlets were surveyed within a 500-m radius from each village center. Descriptive statistics (counts and percentages) were used to describe the characteristics of food outlets and the availability of food. To test whether there was a difference in characteristics or in the mean of number of healthy, unhealthy, and total food items available by village size, a χ2 test or one-way ANOVA was conducted, respectively. (3) Results: In total, 1484 food outlets were surveyed for food accessibility, availability, and promotion across small (n = 54), medium (n = 112), and large villages (n = 58). In small and medium-sized villages, mobile food vendors were the predominant food outlet type (47.8% and 45.1%, respectively), whereas in large villages, corner stores (36%) were more prominent. The mean number of total food items (p < 0.006) and unhealthy food items (p < 0.001) available in food outlets differed by village size. The proportion of food outlets with available fruits, meat and poultry, water, and sugar-sweetened beverages also differed by village size (p < 0.001). (4) Conclusions: This study informs the global evidence gap in the current understanding of food environments in various ethnically diverse and dynamic LMICs, and the developed methodology will be useful to other LMICs for measuring and monitoring the food environment, especially among vulnerable population groups. This work complements current national and provincial survey efforts in Pakistan.

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Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on grocery retail operations: An analytical model.

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