Background: The novel coronavirus (Covid-19) spread globally from its outbreak in China in the beginning of 2020, causing numerous deaths and strained on the health care systems all over the world. Most countries gave answer to this pandemic by implementing national lockdowns, which often evoked panic among citizens and therefore lead to stockpiling or sometimes panic buying behaviours. However, Sweden decided to take another approach in handling the crisis and refrained from implementing a forced lockdown and mainly focused on the responsibility of individuals. Given the lack of research in the field of stockpiling behaviour among Swedish residents and the magnitude of difference in the “Swedish approach”, compared to other countries, this situation provides the perfect ground to research stockpiling behaviour in Sweden. Purpose: This research aims to identify patterns and drivers within stockpiling behaviour among Swedish residents during the Covid-19 outbreak. Method: The paper is based on a qualitative study. A frame of reference to support findings and provide important links to existing literature regarding the psychology behind consumer behaviour, in particular stockpiling during critical situations, has been presented. To create in-depth insight into the reasonings behind stockpiling behaviour in Sweden during the Covid-19 outbreak, six semi-structured interviews have been conducted. Conclusion: Two patterns, rational stockpiling and the absence of irrational stockpiling, along with five drivers, namely, governmental restrictions and recommendations, fear from the disease or transmission, risk mitigation, convenience, and level of trust in the government, have been observed.

This paper investigated the effects of panic buying induced by the Covid-19 pandemic on groceries' Consumer Price Index (CPI) within Sweden. The years of interest are mainly 2020 to 2021. However, the thesis also looks into years before the pandemic, specifically 2018-2019. The use of years before the pandemic, is to understand better how the CPI of selected groceries behaves in ordinary years and see if changes in CPI from 2020 to 2021 were out of the ordinary. The paper discusses different economic behaviours, specifically looking into how times of crisis affect consumer behaviour. To better understand how CPI for the chosen groceries behaves, graphs were created to show how the CPI values of the goods change over the years. Secondly, two regression analyses were performed in STATA to test whether there are any correlation between panic buying and changes in the CPI values for the chosen groceries. The results given from the graphs indicated that there could be some relationship between panic buying and CPI changes. However, once the regression analyses had been performed, the results showed no correlation between panic buying and changes in CPI for the chosen groceries. This result is not unexpected, as there can be a variety of reasons behind why panic buying did not induce any abnormal changes in CPI for the goods. These reasons are discussed further later on in the thesis as well.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how consumer behavior related to food changed during the pandemic in Sweden. At the beginning of 2020 a global pandemic named Covid-19 hit all the countries, Sweden being one of them.  The pandemic has forced everyone to change their usual lifestyle in order to be safe from the virus. The consumers' food choices have been changed during the pandemic, this topic would be interesting to be researched by the authors. Since the pandemic has urged worldwide, most of the countries have been affected because of it. The researchers have conducted a  questionnaire in order to be able to analyze the situation in Sweden from the consumers point of view. The findings indicate changes in consumer behavior and buying behavior that are tied with the pandemic times in the context of health. Some changes have been observed in product buying for food consumption as many people bought healthier products.