Do Consumers Punish Retailers with Poor Working Conditions During COVID-19 Crisis? An Experimental Study of Q-Commerce Grocery Retailers

OpenAlex İngilizce

Purpose- The pandemic resulted in an unexpected volume of customer demand for quick delivery of grocery products. This, in turn, caused aterrific increase in the burden of delivery employees working for quick commerce (q-commerce) retailers. There was much news about workingconditions of couriers during the pandemic. In this study, under the theoretical guidelines of the Stimulus-Organism-Response model (SOR), theauthor aims to investigate how information regarding working conditions (stimuli) affect evaluation of brand reputation (organism) and retailpatronage intention (response). The framework of the study is limited to q-commerce grocery retailers because of their significant growthpotential.Methodology- A within-subjects experimental design was implemented to collect data. The author developed two scenarios based on true events.In the scenarios, two hypothetical q-commerce retailers were narrated to manipulate good and poor working conditions of delivery employees.Paired sample t-tests were conducted to test the mean differences of brand reputation and retail patronage intention. Additionally, two separatestudies were conducted to test what if a q-commerce grocery retailer with good working conditions also set higher prices.Findings- The findings show that the brand reputation of q-commerce grocery retailers with good working conditions is higher. Similarly, customersshow higher retail patronage intention for q-commerce grocery retailers with good working conditions. The results are valid even if the prices ofq-commerce grocery retailers with good working conditions are higher.Conclusion- The current article is one of the first empirical studies on q-commerce retailers. The study also contributes by providing new insightsabout consumer reactions to poor working conditions of retailers under extraordinary circumstances from which they also suffer. Poor workingconditions cause to lose customers besides the ethical considerations, but retention of customers is a must for the survival of infant q-commerceretailers.