The Influence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Outbreak on Online and Offline Markets for Retail Sales

The Influence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Outbreak on Online and Offline Markets for Retail Sales

Eunae Jung, Hyungun Sung

This study investigates whether the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in Korea affected online and offline retail sales and determines the presence of a substitution or delay effect between the two. We analyze the monthly retail sales of electronic goods, semi-luxury goods, and groceries using an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model with intervention. The findings are as follows. First, offline sales of electronic goods declined by 7.9%, while online sales increased by 7.03%, indicating that these markets can act as substitutes. Second, the offline sales of semi-luxury goods decreased for two months, while online sales remained the same, indicating that there can be a delay effect in the offline market. Finally, despite the slight increase in online sales and the moderate decrease in offline sales, the MERS outbreak did not have a statistically significant effect on grocery sales. Our research findings imply that stakeholders such as the government and retail provided useful information on how to deal with the unexpected outbreak

2017

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), online market, offline market, substitution effect, delay effect, retail sales

DOI: 10.3390/su9030411

Sustainability

MDPI AG

Environmental sciences, Renewable energy sources, Environmental effects of industries and plants

EN