Is the Oil Price Hike a New Threat to Consumers' Buying Patterns?

Introduction

Jeff Rubin quoted that “We are in a world of triple-digit oil prices for the foreseeable future.’’ Whereas a politician Rodrigo Rato stated that “Oil prices have certainly become a threat for the world economy.” As the prices of daily commodities are rising limitlessly, people are getting affected massively. The conventional cuisines of South Asian region like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc. are based on using a lot of soybean oil. Due to the massive price hike, people are facing a lot of problems to cope up with the situation (Maitra et al., 2021). One of the main reasons behind this massive price hike is the imbalance between the supply and demand of oil in the market due to the Russia and Ukraine war. Covid-19 also played a significant role here and these factors caused inflation, recession throughout the whole world (Leandro et al., 2022). Studies showed that during covid -19 people have become more health concerned. They are more focused on the nutritious diet, good substitutes and trying to minimize health issues by improving the lifestyle with a cost effective dietary plan (Dizon et al., 2021). On another side of the argument, poor and middle class people are mostly suffering because of the oil price hike, however it is affecting the whole nation. Not only it's affecting them financially but also it's affecting their conventional food habits which is now considered as a threat to their lifestyle. To overcome the problem, people need to switch to alternative oils that are convenient to them (Jetter et al., 2006).

Many academics referred to price hikes as increased prices for daily necessities in the market. Among all of them, the oil price hike gained the most attention because it caused a lot of disturbance in the whole supply chain, economic aspects and in other fields as well. That’s why it’s regarded as one of the biggest concerns our nation is facing and because of this many researchers are trying to find alternatives to reduce the environmental impact on mineral oil (Islam et al., 2019). There are several reasons behind the oil price hike. Some could be the internal factors like the disbalance in the supply and demand of the products, corruption etc. Other factors could be war like it generally threatens supply while increasing demand (militaries require a lot of energy) (shipping oil becomes more dangerous, and access to oil fields is limited), natural calamities, political instabilities etc. Price hike hits different groups of people. In Bangladesh, recently this issue is causing some serious damage by threatening the lifestyle of different social classes. Mostly the poor and the middle class people are suffering the most as the consumers but the entire nation is going through a tough time (Maitra et al., 2021) People are searching for alternative options which will fulfill their needs and also have biodegradable characteristics. Researchers have suggested some of the alternatives that are available in the market such as mustard oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, rice bran oil etc. These vegetable oils are environment friendly and also it is proposed for high voltage application (Islam et al., 2019) These are healthier options too but would consumers switch to these oils as a result of the current price hike? In this research we aim to find out if consumers will switch alternatives or not which is the main objective of this research.