Post-covid festive purchase and marketing strategies used by the managers to attract customers

Abstract

Covid-19 had a significant impact on the consumer market in India and across the world. The consequent lockdowns restricted the mobility of the people to a large extent. Apart from that, the uncertainties associated with Covid led to changes in the consumer buying pattern as well as consumer behavior. The managers also tried to improvise the products and services they provide to meet the consumer needs. This project aims to understand the change in the consumer buying pattern amid the lockdown. The project mainly focusses on the festive seasons (Sept-Dec) of 2020 and 2021 to understand the consumer behavior and the steps managers took to increase their sales. The upcoming festive season is going to be an important one for the companies, hence, the project aims to identify the measures the managers can take to woo the customers. The methodology adopted comprises of primary and secondary research. The primary research was conducted through floating a survey amongst the target group as well as conducting consumer interviews. The secondary was conducting by going through various market reports and newspaper articles. The interviews and surveys revealed some trends that have been observed post pandemic. It was observed that there has been an increase in digital payments and disposable income. Respondents were found to spend more time on shopping Apps than before, and secondary research revealed that India had the maximum increase in number of shopping apps downloaded in the world during the pandemic. While this certainly is good news for managers looking to boost sales. Care must be taken to establish the actual causation of the pandemic on such effects. In the absence of a credible control group, one that has not witnessed the pandemic, we cannot ascertain the actual extent to which the pandemic was responsible for these trends.