Introduction

This paper argues that while the COVID-19 pandemic was anticipated to encourage a critical and necessity-driven type of consumption, it re-established consumerism as a central response through the dynamics of emotional coping behaviours, reliance on digital platforms, and the rearranging of online publics that prevail the norms of capitalism. The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the digital economy, retail ecosystems, and the way consumers participate in consumption. Accompanying these shifts was a rediscovery of how online publics form and act, within the networks of an online sphere. While much of the attention has been paid to the new consumer behaviour, not nearly enough has been paid to the human relationships that take place in the digital spaces in which these changes occur. Drawing from the increasing interest in researching online consumer behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper reflects on the transformations introduced in our everyday practices and how they can be shaped and framed through the concept of networked publics and digital discourse.

Digital Consumer Shifts

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it triggered a worldwide reboot in how people relate to consumption. Shutdowns, economic insecurity and health fears pushed consumers to re-evaluate their priorities. Gu et al. (2021) highlights the pandemic’s endpoints have accelerated the pace of digitalisation across several industries, pushing businesses to switch to an e-commerce strategy, while consumers switch to online shopping as a necessity rather than a preference. Supermarkets were one of the retailers experiencing an outstanding 34.4% increase in online engagement (Gu et al., 2021). Consumer needs shifted to survival and health over leisure and luxury, with complete sectors such as fashion and travel experiencing contractions as consumers grew more particular and budget minded (Gu et al., 2021). In contrast, Das et al. (2022) argues that crises like pandemics have a history of affecting consumers towards more conservative, risk-averse behaviours. Consumers during COVID-19 also started prioritising affordability, cleanliness, and local products, and showing greater interest in welfare and fitness digital platforms. According to Thapa (2024), this narrative is refined and some consumers engaged in more mindful and necessity-driven consumption, but greed persisted, especially in categories like fashion and electronics. So even while some consumers were experiencing financial stress or facing job insecurity, the aspirational consumption continued to be shaped by networks of peers and in digital culture, raising questions about the permanence of mindful habits after the crisis has passed. (Thapa, 2024). Digital spaces have shifted from being places to shop to places where people connect, share, and form communities. Social media platforms now play a key role in shaping conversations about consumption, identity, and crisis response (Thapa, 2024). But the idea of those online spaces as “networked publics” is a concept that merits interrogation. Ojala and Ripatti-Torniainen (2023) argue that research on networked publics wrongly treats these online communities like crowds. Suggesting people only interact with others who think like them, creating echo chambers where different opinions are ignored. Furthermore, digital publics are not crowds, they are forums where individuals can engage in thoughtful discussion, air their opinions, and explore important issues (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023). E-commerce sites became platforms in which people left reviews, criticised companies, debated health misinformation and expressed solidarity with each other. These interactions showed that the digital publics are part business, part community, and that while they react to events, they also reflect on them (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023).

Digital Consumerism and the Economy

The pandemic highlighted not just the economic but the emotional drivers of consumption. As stress, uncertainty, and isolation grew, many sought retails therapy to cope. Thapa (2024) argues how consumer spending not only continued, but thrived during the pandemic, as shopping provided a dented sense of emotional uplift amid diminished incomes. Brands were swift to respond to these emotional needs, creating empathetic campaigns, focusing on safety, unity and resilience (Thapa, 2024). Online advertisements took on a different tone, showing families brought together over video calls or support for frontline workers. Appealing to emotional solidarity rather than simply the value of a product (Thapa, 2024). Not only did this strategy drive sales, but it also built stronger brand loyalty as well. Emotional branding, now widely propagated through influencers and user-generated content, showed how closely consumption was knit into coping outlets during the pandemic (Thapa, 2024). The economy shows the way in which consumption is more than a rational choice. While some consumers exercised mindfulness in their spending, others gave in to impulsive or compulsive buying, hoarding essentials, or splurging on aspirational goods (Thapa, 2024). This is further reflecting on the role of socio-economic status in access to wellness and entertainment products. People with higher incomes might move to digital fitness platforms or organic products, and others focus spending on essentials. That uneven distribution of consumer adaptation indicates that digital commerce created opportunities but exercised a deepening of existing inequities (Das et al., 2022). Grocery and essential goods purchasing is illustrative of the larger trends. Pathak et al. (2023) argues that most consumers shifted to unorganised and online retail platforms during the pandemic. Products once reserved for trips to the grocery store like milk and fresh produce, for example, were still tied to physical stores. But others like hygiene products or packaged goods went online. This hybrid behaviour only further establishes the rise of what we could call the “multi-channel consumer”, who weighs and selects platforms on a matrix of criteria: convenience, price, perceived hygiene, and trust (Pathak et al., 2023). It also highlights the blurred lines between online and offline consumption, as well as the businesses that will be required to adapt their distribution models to suit (Pathak et al., 2023).

Rethinking Digital Publics

Ojala and Ripatti-Torniainen’s (2023) argue that the pandemic provided a moment for rethinking how we might envision the intersection of digital consumption with public discourse. Social media e-commerce reviews and influencer platforms took centre stage in the back-and-forth dance of consumer choices. But the quality of these exchanges differed greatly. To be sure, crowd-like behaviour was on display including panic buying and reacting to viral trends. Arguments about price gouging, the ethics of sourcing, the treatment of delivery workers, and the brand response to social movements showed that there is room for well-considered and reasonably diverse digital discourse (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023). These engagements are more consistent with the “public” than “crowd” formulation of digital audiences. Instead of taking for granted a homogenous, passive crowd consuming online content, it is more useful to think about the online class as active participants in the process of meaning-making (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023). They do not simply buy they discuss, compare, share, protest, shape narratives about consumption. These digital spaces come in many flavours — from Reddit threads debating corporate ethics to TikTok creators reviewing wellness products or Instagram users boycotting brands. What they share is a capacity to influence narratives outside of corporate control (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023). The networked mechanism of these publics allows for a single user’s voice to resonate, to disrupt dominant discourses, to mobilise collective action. This makes online consumption not just economic but profoundly social and political (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023).  The changes catalysed by COVID-19 are not here today, gone tomorrow disruptions, but rather symptoms of permanent shifts in the consumer landscape. The adoption of e-commerce is likely to continue with many businesses are doubling down on investments in digital infrastructure and data-driven personalisation (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023). The infusion of Artificial Intelligence into retail, the rise of subscription models, and the mainstreaming of flexible payments are all signs of an increasingly digital-first economy (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023). Yet at the same time, the crisis has already revealed the fragility and inequality of consumer access. Not all consumers have been beneficiaries of digital transitions. Those without stable internet access, digital literacy or disposable income were often cut out from the conveniences of online consumption (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2023). Thapa (2024) argues, although there is heightened consciousness around mindful consumption, brands and platforms will always prey upon desire, organising even necessities around aspirational vectors. The gap between need-based and identity-driven consumption may never quite resolve and will most likely only expand as environmental and economic insecurities pervade our media and lives (Thapa, 2024). Within this framework, platforms must not be understood solely as retail outlets but also as cultural and political spaces. It is where identities are constructed, ideologies are contested and where publics are forged. Through this lens, we see that to understand the post pandemic consumer, we need to go a lot further than just analysing buying data, and instead need to explore the discourses, emotions and power structures, surrounding digital consumption (Thapa, 2024).

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped consumption patterns, with online behaviour becoming increasingly emotional and rich in discourse. The leap to e-commerce and digital engagement magnified the systemic inequities and eventually challenged the simplistic consumer behaviour personas we relied on. The pandemic also revealed where online publics have tended to be treated as if they were one dimensional as well as across platform and domain interruptions. Online publics are naturally shifting to interstitial spaces of discussion, negotiation, hybrid identity. This paper has argued that as consumers change their habits, theories of digital publics must also develop and adjust. It is a blend of adversity, technology, and sentiment that has forged a new breed of consumer, in which people are not just news makers but creators, content consumers and participants in the community-building of social networks. This reality will have important implications for scholars, marketers and policymakers seeking to shape a clear path a post-pandemic life.

References

Das, D., Sarkar, A., & Debroy, A. (2022). Impact of COVID‐19 on Changing Consumer Behaviour: Lessons from an Emerging Economy. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 46(3), 692–715. wiley. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12786

Gu, S., Ślusarczyk, B., Hajizada, S., Kovalyova, I., & Sakhbieva, A. (2021). Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Online Consumer Purchasing Behavior. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 16(6), 2263–2281. MDPI. https://doi.org/10.3390/jtaer16060125

Ojala, M., & Ripatti-Torniainen, L. (2023). Where is the public of “networked publics”? A critical analysis of the theoretical limitations of online publics research. European Journal of Communication, 39(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231210207

Pathak, G., Dadhich, B., & Vedpathak, N. D. (2023, May 17). Covid-19’s Impact on Consumer Behavior in Essential Goods Shopping across Organized, Unorganized, and E-Retail Platforms in Metropolis. SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4451217

Thapa, S. (2024). Impact of COVID-19 on Consumer Behaviour and Mindful Consumption. Open Journal of Business and Management, 12(03), 1604–1618. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojbm.2024.123086