As reported by KOMPAS.com [1], Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan explained that PSBB (bottom-up regulation) gave the regions the authority to determine policies in their area, later the regional heads must seek approval from the Minister of Health. Meanwhile, in Emergency PPKM (top-down regulation), the central government immediately stipulates the regions that are obliged to follow the policy. So are there any differences felt by the community from the implementation of PSBB vs PPKM? and let's see how PSBB vs PPKM affected consumer behavior.

Our survey shows that 49% of respondents feel that there is no difference between PSBB vs PPKM because the two regulations have the same goal which is to suppress the spread of the coronavirus. While the other half of respondents feel that PPKM regulations are stricter than PSBB.

More specifically, many of them feel that PPKM has the most personal impact on their lives in terms of the changes in income, expenditure, and shopping habits. But in the other hand, they also believe that PPKM is the most effective regulation to suppress the spread of the coronavirus.

The changes above from the implementation of these regulations are caused by the changes in income figures, where their incomes tend to decrease due to activity restrictions. This surely affected their monthly expenses, which must be suppressed in order to survive during the pandemic.

At the beginning of PSBB, the mobility trend declined more deeply, because many employees were asked to Work from Home (WFH) and some were even laid off. Meanwhile, during the PPKM period, the mobility in early May 2021 increased due to the preparations for Ramadan. Apart from that, there are no significant changes, people still choose to limit their activity and prefer to stay at home, probably because the work from home (WFH) rule already applied long before and remains the same in most of the offices/business. School from home is also still on. Their mobility is only triggered by crucial needs, such as going to grocery stores and pharmacy stores.

At the beginning of PSBB, many people did panic buying due to unclear information about PSBB itself and the fear of scarcity of goods, especially staple needs. However, during PPKM, many people choose to buy groceries at the nearest minimarket and with normal purchases because they have learned from the PSBB experience that there is no need to do panic buying.

Now let's dive into the sales trend of several product categories during PSBB vs PPKM. The health category increased during Emergency PPKM, this was caused by the increasing number of COVID-19 cases which triggered public awareness to maintain their immunity and health. However, there are also other categories that increase which are home cooking, cleaning, and personal care categories. Those are the trending categories during the pandemic.

We hope these insights are beneficial for you, and if you want to know more about your customers and their behaviors during the pandemic, feel free to contact us.

Source :

[1] Apa Beda PSBB dengan PPKM Darurat? Ini Penjelasan Menko Luhut. (2021, Jul 02).https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2021/07/02/11461111/apa-beda-psbb-dengan-ppkm-darurat-ini-penjelasan-menko-luhut?page=all , accessed on 13 August 2021.