An Empirical Analysis into Perception, Attitude, Sentiments and Consumer Behaviour during COVID-19 Lockdown in Odisha

Consumer behaviour is the key to the success of a business. In the current economic context, it is the survival of a business. The novel coronavirus has created an incredibly difficult situation in the business climate today. Business has faced lot of new challenges like closure of import and export due to international boarder close, shutdown of brick and mortar businesses, big malls and home isolation of people. Many companies faced closures, with many employees laid off and many were given less salary. Our consumption pattern also changed on a massive scale. The availability of goods was the main concern, which led to some panic buying of essential items, in bulk. Consumers’ behaviour and perception got changed, as an impact of this unprecedented pandemic. This paper, in this context, aims to analyse the perception, attitude, sentiments and buying behaviour of consumers of Odisha during the COVID-19 lockdown period (i.e. from March to October, 2020). Further, it aims to study the change of media consumption habits of the consumers. This study tries to infer how COVID-19 lockdown changed the behaviour of consumers in Odisha over 8 months and what would be future implications