The challenges of operating a seafood business during a new emerging phase of COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of fresh-food markets in Ladprao district

Abstract

Thailand’s second phase of COVID-19 pandemic emerged from Mahachai seafood market which is the biggest wholesale seafood market. This cluster led to high numbers of transmission and impact on customers’ behavior. People were afraid of going to fresh-food markets and consuming seafood products and that has significantly impacted the seafood business in many areas. Ladprao district is an area that has a large population with several fresh-food markets. The researchers aimed to investigate the challenges that seafood sellers in the fresh-food market of Ladprao district faced during the second phase of COVID- 19 pandemic as well as how they manage the challenges. The researchers applied both in-depth interview and observation techniques to collect qualitative data. Ten key informants with more than four years of experience in operating seafood businesses in Ladprao participated in this study. Also, the crisis management conceptual model was used to identify 4 aspects of challenges including management, logistics, human, and building-related factors. The results showed that the sellers encountered many challenges in management, lower revenue resulting from sales drop and higher expenditure, loss of customers, fear of consuming seafood, leftover products, and shorter opening hours. Challenges in other aspects involve price drop, delay shipping, higher transportation cost, and temporary lack of suppliers. To manage the challenges, the seafood sellers had to bring back customers’ confidence by issuing COVID-free certificate and following COVID-19 prevention measures, joining the government’s half-half co-payment program to boost sales, adding more online channels, and focusing more on the pre-order to manage stock effectively.