Abstract

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the retail sector, already dealt a severe blow by the boom of online retailers was brought to its knees as a result of social distancing regulations and consumer shifts. It can be considered one of the hardest-hit sectors. In this thesis, we performed a comparative study to analyze consumer foot traffic to over 1,000 shopping centers during the pre-pandemic (2018-2019) and the pandemic period (2020). Our study contributes to the research on the economic consequences of epidemics and pandemics. Specifically, we explore two central research questions: 1) how did trade area characteristics such as trade area size, socio-demographics, and transport modes affect consumer foot traffic before and during the COVID-19 pandemic? 2) What moderating effects did social distancing exert upon the consumer foot traffic through interaction with core trading area characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic? Our observation demonstrates significant drops in foot traffic as social distancing intensifies, the varying effects of trade area attributes before and during the pandemic, and the moderating effect various levels of social distancing had on trade area characteristics. In summary, this work aims to create a foundation for further work to understand the impact of the pandemic on the retail sector. We propose that government officials and retail managers need to pay great attention to trade area characteristics such as socio-demographics and transport modes for better response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and preparation for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.