DocumentCode
2421205
Title
The Role of Online Shopping and Fulfillment in the Hong Kong SARS Crisis
Author
Forster, Paul W. ; Tang, Ya
Author_Institution
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
fYear
2005
fDate
03-06 Jan. 2005
Abstract
The SARS crisis in Hong Kong during early 2003 dramatically changed consumer behavior. These changes contributed to the high indirect and secondary costs that characterized this crisis. In this paper we investigate the role online shopping played during the SARS crisis and how future growth in online shopping might influence consumer behavior in future crises. Using data from Hong Kong´s largest online supermarket we find demand for online shopping grew during SARS in an apparent response to the growing fear of infection. Online shopping provided consumers with an alternate source for goods normally purchased in traditional supermarkets as well as a means to distribute products for infection prevention. We build on these observations to suggest that online shopping empowers individuals during a prolonged crisis and may change how policy makers need to approach centralized coordination during a crisis such as SARS.
Keywords
Bioterrorism; Consumer behavior; Costs; Electronic commerce; Environmental economics; Influenza;
fLanguage
English
Publisher
ieee
Conference_Titel
System Sciences, 2005. HICSS '05. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on
ISSN
1530-1605
Print_ISBN
0-7695-2268-8
Type
conf
DOI
10.1109/HICSS.2005.615
Filename
1385795
Link To Document