COVID-19 and the Demand for Online Food Shopping Services: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan

We investigate how the coronavirus pandemic affected the demand for online food shopping services using data from the largest agri-food e-commerce platform in Taiwan. We find that an additional confirmed case of COVID-19 increased sales by 5.7% and the number of customers by 4.9%. The demand for gra...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chang, H.-H (Author), Meyerhoefer, C.D (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: John Wiley and Sons Inc 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
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008 220427s2021 CNT 000 0 und d
020 |a 00029092 (ISSN) 
245 1 0 |a COVID-19 and the Demand for Online Food Shopping Services: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan 
260 0 |b John Wiley and Sons Inc  |c 2021 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12170 
520 3 |a We investigate how the coronavirus pandemic affected the demand for online food shopping services using data from the largest agri-food e-commerce platform in Taiwan. We find that an additional confirmed case of COVID-19 increased sales by 5.7% and the number of customers by 4.9%. The demand for grains, fresh fruit and vegetables, and frozen foods increased the most, which benefited small farms over agribusinesses. The variety of products sold on the e-commerce platform also increased during the pandemic, which suggests the concentration of sales on niche products could increase as more consumers are drawn to online platforms. Our investigation of mechanisms for the shift to online food shopping indicates that sales were highly responsive to COVID-19 media coverage and online content. © 2020 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association 
650 0 4 |a Coronavirus 
650 0 4 |a Coronavirus 
650 0 4 |a COVID-19 
650 0 4 |a COVID-19 
650 0 4 |a demand-side management 
650 0 4 |a e-commerce 
650 0 4 |a electronic commerce 
650 0 4 |a empirical analysis 
650 0 4 |a food demand 
650 0 4 |a food market 
650 0 4 |a Internet 
650 0 4 |a online food shopping 
650 0 4 |a shopping activity 
650 0 4 |a Taiwan 
700 1 |a Chang, H.-H.  |e author 
700 1 |a Meyerhoefer, C.D.  |e author 
773 |t American Journal of Agricultural Economics