Trading in crisis: economic implications of COVID-19 on petty traders in Hyderabad, India

The COVID-19 pandemic had posed unprecedented challenges to the informal sector in the big cities. Thousands of informal traders, who earn their livelihoods through petty trading in big cities, faced problems during the pandemic because of limited access to space (for street vendors), disrupted supply chains, and a lower consumer base. Petty trade can be defined as small traders selling food and other consumer goods. Petty trading mostly falls under the informal sector and involves both own-account workers and employers. The lockdowns and the pandemic not only caused economic losses for petty traders, but also exposed them to significant post-lockdown challenges. In general, long working hours, financial insecurity, and the threat of eviction are the major challenges faced by petty traders (Bhowmik, 2005; Ray and Mishra, 2011; Mahadevia et al., 2016; McKay et al., 2016; Musa and Acheampong, 2015; Otoo, 2012; Liviga and Mekacha, 1998). In the Indian context, petty traders encounter challenges like risks of eviction and financial distress (Harriss-White, 2010; Mahadevia et al., 2016). However, an external shock posed by the pandemic brought additional challenges to their livelihoods, such as difficulties in following COVID-19 protocols while running their business, constant dwindling of earnings and long-term concerns for children's education (Sharma et al., 2021; Meher et al., 2021; Nandhini, 2021; Kaur et al., 2020). These studies mainly focus on the challenges faced by petty traders and the coping strategies they adopt. On an optimistic note, some studies have also observed that petty traders in developing countries have demonstrated strong evidence of dynamic capabilities to combat the COVID-19 crisis (Gaffar et al., 2022).

Various studies have examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on street vendors and small traders from different perspectives and degrees of vulnerability. Some of the studies examined vulnerabilities from a gendered perspective (Kaur et al., 2020; Thanh and Duong, 2022). These studies report that women petty traders were more affected by the pandemic than their male counterparts. The lack of knowledge and awareness of government schemes, along with low educational levels, also indicates another dimension of vulnerability that might determine the impact of the pandemic on petty traders (Sharma et al., 2021; Khatiwada, 2021). The sellers of food and agricultural products were economically weaker and faced the risk of selling perishable goods during the pandemic. The type of product sold indicates another dimension of petty traders' vulnerability, which has been examined by Meher et al. (2021), Kabir and Hussain (2021), and Majithia (2021). Moreover, some of the existing studies also examine the resilience and coping mechanisms of petty traders during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kalinga, 2023; Nasution et al., 2021). Interestingly, Kalinga's (2023) study revealed that selling COVID-19 safety and hygiene commodities was one of the important strategies adopted by petty traders in Tanzania. Ogunmefun et al. (2022) and Kabir and Hussain (2021) sought to understand petty traders' perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on petty traders has also been addressed from the mental health dimension by Pheunpha (2023) and Ogunmefun et al. (2022), where the debt burden of the trader, the severity of COVID-19 disease, and the lack of government aid were major causes of anxiety and depression among the petty traders. Hence, the aforementioned review suggests that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on petty traders differs according to the vulnerabilities posed by their socioeconomic backgrounds.

However, empirical studies estimating economic losses across heterogeneous groups of petty traders during various waves of the COVID-19 pandemic are limited. The present study contributes to the existing literature on three counts. First, while several studies have examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on petty traders in urban spaces (Kalinga, 2023; Ogunmefun et al., 2022 ; Khatiwada, 2021), none of the existing studies have compared the effect of the pandemic on petty traders who are traditionally engaged in this business and migrant petty traders, especially in the Indian context. Second, while most of the existing studies examining the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on petty traders are qualitative in nature, the present study conducts a quantitative assessment of the economic losses incurred by petty traders during the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Further, the study explores the other socioeconomic determinants of losses incurred by petty traders, the major problems they faced, and the coping strategies they adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The contribution of the present study is empirical and contextual in nature and the study does not provide a theoretical advancement on understanding informal sector business.

In order to revive the urban informal economy in the post-pandemic period and to design policies to moderate the effects of such events in the future, it is extremely important to assess the heterogeneity of losses and challenges faced by different groups of petty traders. Further, such research will also help to understand the vulnerability and resilience of urban informal economy to external shocks, and undertake appropriate policy measures. Analyzing primary data collected from 200 petty traders in the city of Hyderabad, India, the study finds that migrant petty traders in the new city area, faced substantially higher loss of revenue, especially during the first wave of the pandemic, as compared to traders in the old city who are traditionally engaged in petty trade. However, in terms of relative loss, the loss per unit of normal earnings is higher for the old city traders, who are traditionally engaged in petty trading. Shifting occupations and taking loans from relatives or friends were the prominent coping strategies adopted by migrant petty traders. The nature of the problems these traders faced during the pandemic also differed. While the new city petty traders who migrated to the city in search of a livelihood, reported sudden reduction in demand as the main problem, the old city petty traders revealed that shortage of funds for procuring raw materials and products sold by them was the major constraint.

The present paper is divided into seven sections. Section 2 outlines the background of the study. Section 3 delineates the analytical framework, followed by the data and approach presented in Section 4. The economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on petty traders are discussed in section 5. Section 6 highlights the major challenges faced by petty traders and the coping mechanisms adopted by them to combat the COVID-19 crisis .The major conclusions from the study are presented in the section 7.

The study was conducted in Hyderabad, a city that has experienced an uneven, exclusive form of urban growth. The city of Hyderabad experienced the highest inflow of migrants since 2001, mostly employed in the informal sector. A study by Rao (2015) states that the informal sector contributes to 64% of the city's total employment. The migrant population engaged in various occupations, including street food vending, domestic work, security guard work and construction, constitute a large part of this city's informal economy. Given the rapid urbanization, presence of a large informal sector and migrant population, the city of Hyderabad, provides a good context for studying the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the informal economy, especially petty traders.

The act of street vending can be theorized under four major perspectives depending on the dynamic mechanisms characterizing this informal activity – namely modernization perspective, structuralist perspective, neo-liberal perspective, and postmodern perspective (Williams and Gurtoo, 2012). In a rapidly urbanizing city like Hyderabad, the street vendors are heterogeneous, hailing from various regions. Most migrant petty traders in the new city align with a structuralist perspective, which views street vending or petty trade as a necessity-driven activity and a survival strategy in the absence of alternative livelihoods. The characteristics of old city petty traders depend on their community traditions, which aligns with the postmodern perspective. The postmodernist perspective considers street vending or street entrepreneurship as a voluntary cultural endeavor rather than a rational economic choice, viewing street entrepreneurs as social actors. Given these differential characteristics, migrant traders in the new city might have faced the specific challenges encountered by the informal sector migrant workers in India during COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges include a higher risk of infection due to residing in congested places, lack of social security, reverse migration to the place of their origin, and lack of support and relief measures. Further, differential levels of social capital and business networks among migrant workers might lead to differences in the coping strategies adopted by migrant petty traders in the new city area compared to those traders who traditionally own this business.

Hence, to capture such differential effects, the present study adopts an analytical framework as presented in Figure 1.

Petty trade can be defined as small traders selling food and other consumer goods. A large number of petty traders run their businesses in Hyderabad. These petty traders mostly sell products like food items, betel, clothes, bangles, imitation jewelry, bags, plastic items, small utensils and footwear from small carts or very small temporary shops. Hence, the operational definition of petty traders in the present study includes those traders who sell their products in small quantities, ranging from agricultural commodities to other daily-life consumer goods such as cooked food, snacks, clothes, bangles, imitation jewelry, bags, plastic items, small utensils and footwear.

To understand the economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on these traders, we have used multistage sampling. In the city of Hyderabad, large numbers of traditional petty traders (for whom petty trade is a community- or family-based business) run their businesses in the old city area, while migrant petty traders operate primarily in the new city area. Hence, in the first stage, two areas from the old city of Hyderabad, namely Charminar and Malakpet, and two areas from the new city of Hyderabad, namely Gachibowli and Q city, have been purposively selected. In the second stage, to choose the final units of analysis, i.e. the petty traders, sampling frame provided by two civil society organizations working on informal sector workers in the chosen areas have been used. From each of these sampling frames for new and old city areas, we have randomly selected 100 petty traders. Hence, we finally selected 100 petty traders from the new city area and 100 from the old city area. Given the pandemic scenario and non-availability of an official list of petty traders in the chosen areas, we had to rely on the aforementioned sampling frames. However, these sampling frames may not be exhaustive, and hence, there is a possibility of selection bias, which is a limitation of this study. A survey of 200 petty traders was administered during July–August, 2021, using a semi-structured questionnaire. Both face-to-face and telephonic interviews were conducted. COVID-19 appropriate protocols were followed during the interviews and information was collected with informed consent from the respondents. The major aspects covered in the questionnaire are – socioeconomic background of petty traders, business details, initial investment, major challenges and losses faced during the COVID-19 lockdown, coping strategies adopted during the COVID-19 lockdown and types of support needed from the government [see Appendix A4]. The data have been analyzed using quantitative techniques. The economic loss incurred by the petty traders has been assessed considering two periods: lockdown period 1 and lockdown period 2. Lockdown period 1(see Appendix A1) corresponds to the first phase of the pandemic and indicates the period between March 24, 2020 (when the first official lockdown was declared in India) to June 30, 2020. Lockdown period 2 (see Appendix A2) corresponds to the second phase and specifically indicates the period between May, 2021 and June, 2021.

The daily earnings of the petty traders and the total daily losses incurred during lockdown periods 1 and 2 are estimated separately across the old city and new city areas of Hyderabad. Petty traders in the new city area are dominated by migrants who adopted petty trading because of a lack of alternative livelihood, and petty traders in the old city area are dominated by traders who are traditionally engaged in petty trade. To examine whether the type of business, locational factors and socioeconomic characteristics specific to petty trading have impacted the loss incurred by these traders, we used ordinary least squares regression (OLS). The justification for employing OLS regression is mainly due to cross-sectional data. Algebraically, the OLS model can be written as:

where $Yi$ is the estimated loss (in Indian Rupee – INR), X_i is a set of explanatory variables. $β′$ is the slope coefficient vector associated with explanatory variables and ε_i is the error term, which follows iid.

Selection of the explanatory variables and expected signs: The differences in street vending in terms of their socioeconomic (Coletto, 2013; Coletto et al., 2021) and spatial aspects (Coletto et al., 2021; Crossa, 2014) have been reflected in the literature. For example, Coletto et al. (2021) state that the differences between street vendors emerge from the way the street vendors build their identities, along with other factors such as migration status, gender, age and membership in an association. During the COVID -19 pandemic, the existing inequalities, especially in the labor market, have been reported to be exacerbated (Ferreira, 2021) because of the inability of lower-skilled and uneducated workers to work remotely. There are evidences that the pandemic had hit the women informal sector workers including street vendors and small traders worse than their male counterparts (Chakraborty, 2020; Azeez et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2021; Meher et al., 2021; Kaur et al., 2020) due to double burden of work, lack of childcare facilities or simply their inability to access loans. A close review of the relevant studies on petty traders in the context of developing countries reveal that despite business permissions during lock downs, sellers of essential products reported to have faced challenges such as enhanced cost of raw material procurement due to travel restrictions and reduced shelf life of perishable fruits and vegetables (Majithia, 2021). Keeping the aforementioned diversities among petty traders in view, we have included variables pertaining to the nature of product sold by the traders, the nature and location of trade, as well as some of their socioeconomic and health conditions, which are likely to affect their business during the pandemic. A detailed description of the variables is given below.

Given the nature of the pandemic restrictions, since essential commodities were allowed to be sold and people needed to buy those commodities, it is expected that the daily loss for essential commodities will be less and hence $E_Dummy$ will have a negative expected sign. As evident from the literature (Kaur et al., 2020; Arsene et al., 2020), women street vendors faced challenges to procure raw material and lost a substantial percentage of their earnings. Hence, in order to understand whether there exists any difference in losses incurred by women petty traders vis-à-vis their male counterparts, we have included the variable $Gender$⁠. The difficulties in procuring raw materials during the restriction periods might affect the daily sales of the traders. Since, the non-availability of transport and high transport cost were reported during the pandemic, petty traders who had to visit the supplier/wholesalers for procuring raw materials are expected to incur higher economic loss during the pandemic. So the variable $Raw_material$ is expected to have a positive impact on the losses. The richer petty traders with better economic conditions might be in a position to run their business better and minimize the loss. Hence, the variable $PercapEx$ is expected to have a negative impact on the losses. Those who had been affected by COVID-19 infection are expected to have a greater economic loss. So, the COVID variable is expected to have a positive impact on the economic loss incurred by petty traders. As COVID-19 pandemic made the aged people more vulnerable, $Age$ should have a positive impact on the economic loss.

Equation (1) is further expanded into three models:

where,

• $LOSS1_PDi$⁠: per day loss incurred by petty trader i in lockdown period 1 (in ’000 INR)

• $LOSSTT_PDi$⁠: per day loss incurred by petty trader i in lockdown period 1 and lockdown period 2(in’000 INR)

• $LOSST_PDi$⁠: total revenue loss incurred by petty trader i in lockdown period 1 and lockdown period 2 due to complete closure of their shops/business(in ’000 INR).

• $E_Dummyi$⁠: a dummy variable indicating the nature of the commodity. $E_Dummy$ assumes the value 1 if the commodity sold by petty trader i is an essential commodity and 0 otherwise.

• $Genderi$⁠: a dummy variable indicating gender. $Genderi$ assumes the value 1 if the petty trader i is a female and 0 otherwise.

• $Agei$⁠: age of the petty trader i(in number of years).

• $Newcity_Dummyi$⁠: a dummy variable indicating the area from which petty traders operate, $Newcity_Dummyi$ assumes the value 1 if the petty trader i operates from the new city area and 0 otherwise.

• $PercapExi$⁠: per capita household expenditure of petty trader i (in ’000 INR).

• $Raw_materiali$⁠: a dummy variable indicating the source of procuring raw materials for their business. If a petty trader i directly visits the supplier/wholesaler for procuring raw material, then $Raw_materiali$ assumes the value of 1 and 0 otherwise.

• $COVIDi$⁠: a dummy variable indicating whether the trader or any family member of the trader got a COVID infection or not. $COVIDi$ assumes the value of 1 if infection is reported by petty trader i and 0 otherwise.

As discussed in the previous section, majority of the petty traders covered from the new city area are migrants (85%). The socioeconomic profile of the sample petty traders is explained in Table 1. It can be observed from the table that, in terms of educational attainment, most of the petty traders in the old city have studied up to the 10th and 12th standards. However, the majority (49%) of the new city traders did not attend school. It can be observed from Table 1 that the petty traders in the old city area had a larger average family size as compared to their counterparts in the new city area who have migrated from other districts of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. About 85% of the old city petty traders had four or more members in their family. Since the average family size is smaller for the new city's petty traders, dependence on their income is less.

As evident from Table 1, only 33% of the old city petty traders sell essential products, while majority (79%) of the new city petty traders earn their livelihoods by selling essential commodities, especially food items.

The economic status of the petty traders has been captured by the total and per capita household expenditure of the sample petty traders (Table 2). The per capita household expenditure of the old city petty traders was a little higher than that of new city traders, and the difference is statistically significant.

The economic implications of COVID-19 on petty traders can be captured by calculating the nature of disruptions in business due to closure of shops and the difference between the average daily earnings and normal earnings during various phases of the pandemic. In India, COVID-19 restrictions imposed on businesses differed by the nature of commodities. During the first lockdown, essential commodities were allowed to be traded, and in the subsequent restricted periods, even business of non-essential commodities were allowed for a restricted/limited time.

As evident from Table 3, the majority (48%) of the traders in the new city have closed their shops for more than 5 months, and most of the old city traders have reported that they closed their shops for 3–5 months. Our survey revealed that many of the traders had to keep their business closed in March, April and May during the first lockdown period (2020). Further, many traders closed their shops between April and May during the second lockdown period (2021). It can be observed from Table 3 that, during the first lockdown period, only 5% petty traders had zero earnings in the old city, but this percentage was as high as 65% in the in the new city. About 42% of the new city traders have reported that they faced some police intervention during the lockdown, whereas in the old city this percentage was 11% .

It can be observed from Table 4 that, the average per day sales during normal times for the new city petty traders was higher than that of the old city petty traders (INR 3561 and INR 2785 for new and old city petty traders respectively). However, during the first lockdown/restriction period, average per-day sales (during the business days) for old city and new traders do not differ much ( INR 701 and INR 656, respectively). Further, Table 4 reveals that average per-day sales in the lockdown period 2 for the new city petty traders was much higher than the old city petty traders, and the difference is found to be statistically significant. However, the per-day loss (difference between the average normal sale and the sale during the lockdown) in lockdown period 2 for the new city and the old city petty traders did not differ much. As evident from Table 4, the average per day loss of revenue for the new city petty traders was higher than their counterparts in the old city. But the percentage loss of normal trade due to the COVID-19 restrictions was higher for the old city petty traders (52%) as compared to the new city petty traders (42%).

Table 5 presents the same parameters across the types of commodities sold by these traders. Here, we can observe similar trends of a greater loss in lockdown period 1 vis-à-vis lockdown period 2. However, it is interesting to note that, in terms of the per-day loss of sales and sales of traders, there is no significant difference across the types of commodities. Though during lockdown, essential commodities like food items were allowed to be sold, but the sellers of these commodities also suffered from substantial losses.

Now, as discussed in Section 4, this paper tries to understand the determinants of economic loss incurred by petty traders using a regression model. The descriptive statistics and regression results are presented in Tables 6 and 7, respectively.

The estimation results of equation (2), equation (3) and equation (4) are presented in Table 7 as Model 1, Model 2 and Model 3 respectively. Though the R² for these models are lower, in the context of cross-sectional data, the results can be interpreted. Despite lying within acceptable limit, the lower R² values remain as a limitation of the study. The coefficients presented in Table 7 are robust estimates and are adjusted for heteroscedasticity. As reported in Appendix A3, the mean variance inflation factors (VIF) for alternative regression models lie between the range 1.22–1.25 which is less than 4 (see Appendix A3), indicating no significant multicollinearity. The results presented in Table 7 exhibit that the coefficient of $Gender$ is negative in Model 1 and Model 2 which is in contrary to the expectation and do not corroborate with finding from studies by Kaur et al.(2020) and Arsene et al. (2020). But field survey and analysis of the raw data reveal that most of the women petty traders were selling vegetables, fruits and flowers. The normal daily earnings of these items were much lower than those of the male traders. Though the average per day loss of the women petty traders is less than that of their male counterparts, when we consider the effect of $Gender$ on the revenue loss due to the complete closure of the shops, the coefficient is not statistically significant.

The regression estimates further reiterate the findings from the t-test presented in Table 5, stating that the losses during COVID-19 by the petty traders did not differ much across the nature of the commodity. It can be observed from Table 7 that the coefficient of $NewcityDummy$ is positive and significant. This implies, on the average per day loss in lockdown period 1 incurred by new city petty traders was higher by INR 1.02 thousand than their counterparts in the old city, keeping the other factors constant. On the whole, due to the closure of their shops during the lockdowns, the estimated revenue loss incurred by the new city traders was INR 182.11 thousand higher than that of the old city petty traders. This could be because of the fact that most of these traders were migrants and had to close their shops for a longer period of time. Moreover, though essential commodities were allowed to be traded, the closure of IT companies had led to huge losses for the new city area petty traders. A qualitative interview with a vegetable seller in the new city area revealed that the migrant construction workers were also her customers, and since all of them went home during the lockdown period, she suffered from substantial loss of business.

It can be observed from Table 7 that Age is negatively associated with the economic losses considering Model 1, Model 2 and Model 3, respectively. This result indicates that older petty traders have incurred lesser loss. Though the older traders had a greater probability of being infected during the pandemic, the loss was higher (given the other things constant) for younger petty traders as their normal earnings were also higher. Surprisingly the COVID variable is not statistically significant. One of the reasons of this could be due to lack-of awareness many of these traders did not conduct medical test for COVID-19 infection and hence avoided to report the infection appropriately.

During the pandemic, various newspaper reports flagged concerns about the condition of small retail business owners in Bengaluru, India. Supply chain disruptions and reduction in footfalls seemed to be the major issues faced by the local grocery stores. The falling profit margins, reduction of demand and lack of government support were also highlighted as major challenges faced by small traders during the pandemic (Gatty, 2020). As evident from Table 8, the most prominent problem for the old city traders was securing funds to pay for their household expenses, expenditures toward securing raw materials or procuring the products they sell.

Since most of these traders sold non-essential commodities, procuring the products they sell was important and the pandemic disrupted this supply. On the other hand, a drastic reduction in demand was the most prominent problem for the new city's petty traders whose business was dependent on the corporate offices and business centers. Since, most of these traders were selling essential commodities and food items, they were not completely barred from running their business and faced partial restrictions, but the demand was lacking.

Since securing funds for maintaining business and family (see Table 8) was cited as one of the most prominent problems faced by petty traders during the COVID-19 lockdown, it will be interesting to explore how these traders managed to run their household expenses during the pandemic. It can be observed from Table 9 that 36% of the old city traders stated that they were maintaining their expenses from whatever little earnings they had from the existing business. 52% of the traders said that they have managed the expenses from the previous savings. But the situation for the new city traders was very different.

Though 33% of them could manage their expenses from the earnings they had from their business, 47% of them had to manage their finances by taking loans from friends, relatives and informal money lenders. A further disaggregation of these sources states that, 19% of the new city petty traders had taken loans from informal money lenders and the remaining 28% had relied on friends and relatives. This re-emphasizes on the role of networks and social capital for the new-city petty traders for surviving the COVID-19 crisis. However, the nature of help they received from their social network was very different from that received by tribal street food vendors in Mizoram, where in a close-knitted society, the YMA and churches actively distributed basic rations like fruits, vegetables and oil, which helped to ensure food security of the street vendors during the pandemic (Lyngwa and Sahoo, 2024). About 13% of the new city petty traders said that they could manage the expenses from relying on gold loans, selling some assets, moving back to the village and stay with their relatives, etc. The primary data also reveal that 36% and 90% of the petty traders from new and old city respectively were trading in the same place for the last 3 years (or since they started the business). Further, 17% and 19% of the old and new city traders respectively have reported that, due to the lockdown and government intervention they lost their trading place during the pandemic.

Now, another very important aspect is to understand the various ways in which petty traders tried to cope with the economic crisis infused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the strategies they preferred to adopt in order to recover their business. The studies by Nasution et al., 2021 and Kalinga (2023) identify some coping strategies adopted by the traders in informal sector during the pandemic. Nasution et al. (2021) report that the coping strategies adopted by food stall business were online trading, storage, conversion of saleable food items into frozen food and finding strategic locations. A study by Turner et al. (2021) identifies that, like the migrant workers in India, in Vietnam also street vendors resorted to returning to their natives, and switched to cheaper food for reducing food expenditure. Our study reveals that petty traders in the old city area, who are traditionally engaged with petty trade, did not resort to a change in occupation (see Table 10).

However, 34% of the petty traders from the new city area have changed their occupation and worked as domestic helps, construction laborers. Some of them, who were selling non-essential commodities earlier had turned into vegetable sellers. Our data reveal that only 10% and 6% of the sample petty traders in the new and old city areas, respectively had received actual support from the government or other non-governmental organizations. Those who received help have reported that in some cases they have received cash amounting to INR 5000–10000 or ration from the NGOs.

During the pandemic various fiscal and monetary policy measures were under taken to facilitate the livelihoods of the street hawkers by the Government of India. On June 1, 2020 the PM Street Vendors; Atmanirbhar Nidhi (PMSVANidhi) Scheme. A special microcredit facility for street vendors was introduced where collateral free working capital loans of up to INR10,000/- of one-year tenure, to approximately 50 lakh street vendors were sanctioned. The major objective of this scheme was to help the street vendors to resume their business. From the field survey, we tried to understand the type of support expected by petty traders during the COVID-19 pandemic. As evident from Table 11, the preference differed across the space of business of the petty traders. While 98% of the old city traders preferred direct cash as a support from the government to purchase of raw materials for their business, 59% of the new city traders revealed that they would like to have better loan/credit facilities to revive their business. Hence, the microcredit schemes like (PMSVANidhi) which are more preferred by migrant street vendors will cater to their needs better than the traders traditionally engaged with petty trade. However, when we inquired about their awareness about the scheme, only 12% of the total sample petty traders positively responded in favor of their awareness. Hence, the civil society organizations and NGOs should work toward creating more awareness about such schemes. Moreover, greater effort needs to be pondered to issue the vending cards which are essential for availing the benefits of the government schemes. In the month of May 2022, GHMC (Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation) has started extending the vending ID cards to vegetable vendors. Such effort should be escalated.

It is evident from Table 12 that the business revival strategies reported by old and new city petty traders differed.

The new city petty traders dominated mostly by migrants were more enthusiastic (40%) to revive the business on their own once the lockdown eases, but a substantial percentage (58%) of the old city traders wished to depend on government support to revive their business. In a pandemic situation, many of the big business houses could minimize the possibilities of their loss by strengthening the online trading. In the new city, only 3% of the sample petty traders had reported that they tried out selling their products with some of the online platforms. A trader selling food items revealed that since food quality certificate is needed to register ononline trading platforms, he could not go for online trading during the pandemic. A women garment trader actually preferred to go for door visit rather than trying for online selling, because of the possibilities of cancellation of the online orders. During the pandemic, efforts of some business-to-business e-commerce platforms like Jumbotail and NearStore were helpful for local retailers. The local shop owners said that after they partnered with these players, their businesses almost doubled (Ghosh, 2020). Hence, during the pandemic, such kind of support would have been useful to minimize losses incurred by petty traders and develop dynamic capabilities among these traders during a crisis like COVID-19 pandemic.

This study examines the economic implication of COVID-19 pandemic on the business of the petty traders. The study is based on a primary survey administered on 200 petty traders in the city of Hyderabad. The sample is collected from two groups of petty traders – migrant petty traders from the new city area and traders traditionally engaged with petty trade from the old city area. The study identifies differential vulnerability of petty traders in an urban space across the place of business and pre-existing socioeconomic condition. This study reveals that the petty traders in the new city area, dominated by migrants, faced substantially higher loss of revenue during the first lockdown period as compared to traders in old city who are traditionally engaged with petty trade. Sixty five percent of the migrant petty traders in the new city reported zero earning during the lockdown and half of them had to suffer from complete closure of their business for more than five months during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we did not find statistically significant difference between per day loss among these two groups during the second lockdown period. The study indicates that though the absolute loss was higher for the new city petty traders, the relative loss was higher for the petty traders in the old city. The OLS regression analysis further supports the initial findings and unfolds that the new city petty traders suffered from a higher per day average loss of earning during the two lockdowns and higher total loss due to complete closure of their business during the COVID-19 pandemic. The regression analysis further reveals that on the average economic loss of women petty traders was less than their male counterparts during partial restrictions. The study also indicates that type of problems faced, business revival and coping strategies adopted by the new and old city petty traders differed. While the old city petty traders reported, lack of funds to purchase procure goods and raw materials for running their business as a major problem, new city traders revealed that a drastic drop in demand was the salient problem faced by them during the pandemic. A considerable portion of the new city traders had to take loans from various sources to meet their family expenditures, while the old city traders could manage their expenditures using their savings. Majority of the old city petty traders preferred government support for revival of their business, most of the migrant petty traders in the new city expressed their interest to revive the business on their own after the pandemic subsides. Hence, in a nutshell, the findings of the present study indicate the need for better credit policies during an economic shock like COVID-19, especially for migrant petty traders. Logistics and technical support could be given to the migrant petty traders during a crisis like COVID-19 pandemic, so that traders can retain partial business by home delivery/app-based sales of their product. Also, the integration of the local petty traders with retail chains and online platforms, during such a crisis will help to reduce their vulnerabilities and create dynamic capabilities. Hence, future research on petty traders should focus more on understanding the extent and challenges of fintech access and digital adoption by these traders.

The authors are grateful to the TISS Research Council for funding this research. We are thankful to all the respondents for their time and to the field investigators for their support. The authors also acknowledge the valuable comments and suggestions extended by anonymous reviewers However, the ususal disclaimers apply.

This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India and was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (Approval no. 2020/0909/Poulomi, Date of approval: November 10, 2020).

All participants were provided informed consent prior to their participation in the study. Participation was voluntary, and respondents were informed of their rights to withdraw at any time without consequence. All data were collected and stored confidentially and used solely for research purposes.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.