COVID-19 pandemic supply chain disruption and simulation of retail store resilience

The uncontrollable spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and countries' countervailing responses to mitigate its impact on their people led to prolonged stockouts of essential consumer products, resulting in consumer panic buying, which further exacerbated the stockout crisis. The retail stores were unable to mitigate this crisis. This study offers a conceptual framework for retail stores to become resilient to such disruptions in the future using their existing resources and capabilities. Later, we illustrate the testing of the framework using simulation methodology. The results demonstrate that stores can quickly and cost-effectively mitigate stockouts by deploying appropriate substitute products, discounts, return policies, demand containment, and effective communication with consumers. Finally, we furnish implications for supply chain resilience and retail managers and describe the study's limitations.