Abstract
The novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) impacted daily life for residents of
the majority of countries worldwide. In this this research note, we
explore how the pandemic is changing religious-oriented shopping with a
focus on Muslim shopping. While supermarkets provided online shopping
and home delivery services, Islamic store, as small business, could not
opt for such services in Belgium and many other countries. Therefore, we
designed and conducted a consumer survey with a special target of Muslim
shoppers between April 27 and May 6 2020 in all Belgium regions. We
found that despite stay-at-home directives that is effective since early
March 2020, Muslims are still leaving their homes to buy Islamic
groceries “Halal”. Most importantly, the daily pattern of shopping has
significantly been changed, which helped in reducing the density of
shoppers in the stores.