Changing purchasing behavior in crises period (COVID-19 pandemic) – price sensitivity and perceived quality

COVID-19, which emerged in Wuhan, China's Hubei province on December 31, 2019, affected the whole world in a short time. As a result, the restrictions brought with the declaration of the pandemic led to panic buying behavior and an increase in online shopping was observed. In this period, as a health crisis, consumers have turned to certain food products with the thought that they will be protected from the negative effects of the virus and that product availability will be limited in quarantine situations. During the pandemic period, especially the food product groups, the demand of which increased by the consumers, became fruits and vegetables in order to strengthen the immune system, and legumes and pasta in terms of their long shelf life and nutritive value. Looking at the past researches, it has been determined that the two most important factors in the purchasing process of consumers are price and quality, and likewise, price sensitivity and the perceived quality of food products increase by the consumer in times of crisis. For this reason, the main purpose of this study is to determine whether the purchasing behavior of consumers in the COVID-19 period has changed in terms of price sensitivity and perceived quality based on two food product groups, fruit-vegetable and legumes-pasta. For this reason, 447 data were obtained by the online survey method within the scope of the research. Data was analyzed with frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, factor and reliability analysis, Student's T Test and One-Way Anova Test. As a result, it was concluded that consumer behavior changed in the context of price sensitivity and perceived quality for the two food product groups during the COVID-19 period.