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Online Shopping Behavior during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Indian Perspective

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DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3874348

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 Online Shopping Behavior During COVID 19 Pandemic: an Indian

Perspective

Amit Ranjan Madhvendra Misra Jitendra Yadav*

M.B.A. Professor Senior Research Fellow
Department of Management Department of Management Department of Management
Studies Studies Studies
Indian Institute of Information Indian Institute of Information Indian Institute of Information
Technology, Allahabad, India Technology, Allahabad, India Technology, Allahabad, India
Email:
yadavjitendra.phd@gmail.com
Abstract

This study was focused to inspect the main components to determine the behavior of customer

towards online shopping from various ecommerce company during COVID-19 pandemics. The

study explores about the rapid use of internet, mobile, etc.in lockdown that imposed in the

country. Online shopping is now a days considered to be the most convenient way of shopping

to get away free from the spreading virus and keep ourselves in safe and secure environment.

The study involves quantitative research in the form of linear regression to evaluate the effects

online shopping attributes on customer purchase behavior. The findings indicated that the main

components like Social Media, Product Quality, Return and Exchange Policy, Product

Descriptions and Seller Information significantly influence the customer purchase intention

during the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. Some suggestions were also made to study

further and predict the customer online buying preferences or behaviors in future post

pandemic.

Keywords: Covid 19, Ecommerce, Online Shopping, Purchase Behavior, Pandemic

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3874348

 1. Introduction

The internet has been widely distributed across various articles, nations and sectors of business,

particularly in the e-commerce arena, in selling and buying products and services. This growth

is facilitated by the increased number of e-commerce portals, mobile trade (m-commerce)

applications and other internet channels used to share goods and services. E-commerce is an

online buying form in which consumers see an online commodity and are interested in it, so go

offline and make it, and vice versa. E-commerce platforms are among the mechanisms that

have greatly influenced how internet users shop and buy products. The growth and usage of e-

commerce technologies and websites has revolutionized the way manufacturers and customers

communicate all over the world. The term "Amazon ecommerce business" refers to an online-

to-offline or vice versa retail site that enables easy and effective online purchasing and offline

distribution of products and services. The usage of e-commerce websites and the revenues

raised by them have been steadily growing over the years. According to the Forbes 2020 study

Amazon's income in 2019 was 280.5 billion dollars, and risen to 380 billion dollars in 2020

(Kohan, 2020). By 2025, the turnover is forecast to reach one trillion dollars. The COVID-19

increase and spread have resulted in a global pandemic and, according to the World Health

Organization, it is estimated at 5 million cases recorded since May 2020 (Sullivan, 2020). By

February 2021, there had been nearly 106 million reported incidents, and over 2.32 million

deaths (NetIndian, 2021). Various prevention initiatives have been implemented in various

countries since the COVID-19 crisis. Wearing masks, keeping social distance, and self-

isolation are some of the methods used to avoid physical interaction between individuals. These

steps were taken to ensure the COVID-19 spread was as limited as possible.

To prevent physical interaction with individuals, there has been a rise in online shopping and

the usage of the internet for ecommerce for the buying of products and services. The shift from

conventional cash to digital services has increased consumer use and transaction patterns.

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According to a survey in the Economic Times, Amazon has 100 million users in India (J, 2017).

The rapid adoption of online shopping and digital payment methods in India has resulted in the

development of new applications, websites, and other services. It is critical for all stakeholders

to comprehend the variables that affect consumers' continued usage of e-commerce platforms

after the COVID-19 pandemics. Social media, merchandise content, return and exchange

policies, product descriptions, vendor statistics, delivery dates, shipping costs, web series or

movies, product price, and traditional advertising are all variables that affect e-commerce

acceptance and usage. Several studies have been undertaken to examine online consumer

purchasing intent to use e-commerce, but only a few have examined the subject during the

COVID 19 pandemic in India. As a result, the study aims to fill in the holes by identifying the

variables that influence the decision to use e-commerce for online shopping during the COVID-

19 pandemic.

2. Review of Literature and Hypothesis

E-commerce is amazing platform now a day for online shopping that uses numerous channels

and gives customers flawless experience across all channels, whether it's from websites or

mobile or other digital channels. The four masts of a holistic approach for e-commerce policy

are their sales channels, platform for marketing and advertising, their warehouse operations,

and at last their shipping and fulfillment of orders. All these roles established to work together

effortlessly to fulfill the best possible customer overall experience towards online shopping.

Consumer purchasing habits are developing rapidly and today's customer wants something

more beyond their expectation and gratification. They not want just a high-quality products or

items that fulfills their needs but they also require multichannel online services provided by e-

commerce companies for their seamless experience. All online retailers should require to

implement all rounded approach which includes conveniency, varied product availability and

seamless post shopping services of their customer expectation. Further, more small brands are

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3874348

trying to focus on their online business model to ensure unified as well as personally captivating

shopping experience for each individual at every stage through data driven intuition. Deloitte

the Big4 consulting firm State that 73% of the Indian customer are willing to spend more on

comfort, convenience and seamless platform provided by e-commerce companies. As all of

these customer experiences now become the vital growth drivers of e-commerce companies to

grow their business and generate good revenue, many companies are also raging up their efforts

to make their business grow by moving to customer-centric business models from channel-

centric or traditional ones. This in turn is enhancing all the customer requirements and seamless

experience including their satisfaction level, acquisition and retention towards e-commerce.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a positive effect on the e-commerce industry thanks to protection

laws prohibiting near contact and the social distancing traditions to mitigate the risk of

contamination. In the other side, the pandemic altered the buying habits of many consumers

and increased the demand for internet shopping. The number of customers shopping online in

India in the COVID-19 pandemic period increased, according to a survey conducted by

UNCTAD and Netcomm Suisse eCommerce Association. Many online shoppers see the site

as a means of reducing the number of outdoor visits and reducing the risk of transmission of

COVID-19. The opportunity to extend online shopping in the COVID-19 pandemic is based

on increasing user access and the availability of various online channels. During the pandemic,

e-commerce providers meet online portals, while also meeting comfort and security concerns

of customers.

3. Development of hypothesis

Multiple previous researches (Hwang et al., 2020; Lăzăroiu et al., 2020; Sarah et al., 2021)

have been conducted that have outlined the features impacting the consumers behavior when

shopping from a digital platform such as e-commerce website. One of the key components in

the basic consumer buying process is the search for information about the product itself and in

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todays era, it also includes the other customer exercises with the product. The theoretical model

of the study has shown in figure1. The introduction of social media has facilitated the exchange

of experiences among the consumers and the organizational entities. Through organization

websites and social networking channels, online marketing messages, especially EWOM,

online forums, and online ads, organizations are successful in fostering client loyalty and

product buying intention (Balakrishnan et al., 2014).This purchase intention is boosted by the

customized advertisements placed by the organizations on social media that give a sense of

homophily to the consumers and make the customers fell as if the advertisement is completely

aligning to their preferences and interests (Alalwan, 2018). Also, the dissemination of the

marketing message by the social media influencers also plays in driving the consumers

behavior towards purchases as the consumers perceive that the information is generated by a

trusted source and non-involvement of a business entity (Kudeshia & Kumar, 2017; Yadav et

al., 2021). Motivated by the role played by social media in building customer purchase

behavior, we draft our first hypothesis

H1: Social media positively affects customer purchase Intention on e-commerce during the

COVID 19 pandemic in India.

Product quality refers to how much time and energy consumers devote to a product. The

customer's cognitive mechanism shifts as the product quality improves throughout the

decision-making phase. Customers prefer to use a no compensatory imperfect sorting approach

dependent on characteristics when purchasing low-quality goods, putting fewer cognitive

resources into decision-making. Customers that purchase high-quality goods, on the other

hand, are more inclined to gather more knowledge and engage in a more complex decision-

making approach, which necessitates cautious analysis of data (i.e., using a formal thought

model) in order to mitigate danger. Product quality, on the other hand, cannot explicitly affect

the decision to buy, according to Lee et al. (2017), since a portion of buyers show that the

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quality of goods cannot be observed and perceived individually, and might be worried about

purchasing unsafe equipment when shopping on the internet. Since product quality is one of

the most important factors influencing consumer purchasing intent, we hypothesis that

H2: Product Quality positively affects customer purchase intention on e-commerce during the

COVID 19 pandemic in India

Post shopping experience that consists of post-purchase shipping and tracking have an impact

on the customer satisfaction and repeat purchase intention (Cao et al., 2018). Return plans that

are generous apply to those that make returns easier not only by facilitating discounts, transfers,

and merchandise credits, but also by putting minimum limits on them. A trade-off between the

advantages of a marketing deal and the expense of taking advantage of that offer is referred to

as customer value. A customer's estimation of the net profit associated with a retailer's return

policy and process problems is referred to as the relative worth of the return policy. A return

policy that allows customers to return goods over a prolonged period of time is thought to be

more generous because it allows the buyer more time to think about the product and decide if

it suits his or her requirements (Jeng, 2017). Based on the discussion, we have hypothesized

that

H3: Post Shopping Experience (Return and Exchange Policy) positively affects customer

purchase intention on e-commerce during the COVID 19 in India.

The advertisement copy used to explain a product's value proposition to new consumers is

called a product description. To help drive a sale, a convincing product description provides

consumers with information about functionality, challenges it fixes, and other advantages. Mou

and others (2019) in their research found that though product description does not has a

significant positive impact on the purchase intention but it has an impact over the product

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cognitive and affective engagement. To test the argument of Mou et al. (2019), we have

hypothesized that

H4: Product Description positively affects customer purchase intention on e-commerce during

the COVID 19 in India.

In general, a seller is a person or business that provides a product, service, or commodity in

exchange for money. Buyers and sellers may be compared, and the two are the most important

components of any trade or exchange. The information of the seller on the ecommerce websites

contribute significantly in building the attitude of the customers about the product as has been

observed in bookings of hotel rooms (Chen & Chang, 2018) and purchase of mobile phones

(Ghasemaghaei & Hassanein, 2015). Users of social networking networks may share details

without regard to time or space restrictions. Word-of-mouth and Seller details have been shown

to affect Instagram user satisfaction (Danniswara et al., 2020). Another study found that

consumer happiness and habitual Weibo-using behaviour influence intention to use Weibo

(China's equivalent of Twitter), while satisfaction is influenced by device consistency and

Seller details (Zhang et al., 2016). Thus, we hypothesized that

H5: Seller Information positively affects customer purchase intention on e-commerce during

COVID 19 in India.

Fast delivery and quality packaging, according to new studies from logistics and fulfillment

firm Dotcom Distribution, have a huge impact on customer loyalty (Dotcom Distribution,

2016). Delivery period is a critical element in the choice to buy with an ecommerce brand

again, according to 87 percent of the 558 online shoppers polled by Dotcom Distribution in

May for its new study, How Fast Delivery and Quality Packaging Drives Consumer Loyalty,

stressing the importance of shipping speed and package aesthetics in the customer experience

(Dotcom Distribution, 2016). Due to the ease that users benefit by utilizing online banking and

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payment services, Eriksson and Nilsson (2007) suggested that the time saving dimension has a

significant impact on post-usage utility. Based on the literature review, it is expected that time

saving orientation has an indirect effect on attitude through post-usage usefulness, as time

saving orientation has a direct effect on post-usage usefulness and post-usage usefulness on

attitude. Thus, we hypothesized that

H6: Delivery time positively affects customer purchase intention from e-commerce during

COVID 19 pandemic in India.

Previous studies (Chan, 2020; Gistri & Corciolani, 2020; Hwang et al., 2020; Sarah et al., 2021;

Spielvogel et al., 2021; Uribe & Fuentes-García, 2020) categorized product placements

depending on a variety of factors, with the aim of determining the efficacy of various product

placement classifications. While the findings differed based on the kinds of goods sold and

their television coverage, studies typically indicated that product placement has a significant

impact on customer perceptions, recall, and awareness of brands used in movies. Gupta and

Lord (1998) looked at the effect of various forms of product positioning on customer recall,

such as "prominence/subtlety" and "audio-only/visual-only" presentations. When opposed to

tv advertisements and more indirect advertising appearances, their findings showed that

prominently shown brands resulted in higher market recall. Additionally, users were more

likely to remember brands mentioned in audio messaging than ones seen in visual appearances.

Thus, we hypothesized that

H7: Web series/movies positively affects customer purchase intention during COVID 19

pandemic in India.

The cost of facilities used to move items from the seller's location to the buyer's location is

known as the delivery charge. Consumers purchase merchandise from department stores or

online outlets based on a cost-benefit analysis of the commodity and its availability. E-retailers

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exclude DT costs from the marginal price since the expense is determined by the distance it

travels from the customer's distribution location. For home distribution of products to

customers, e-retailers typically use their own logistics provider or have agreements with third-

party logistics. Depending what the company demands, logistics services utilize all three modes

of transportation. Domestic home deliveries are often transported by plane and rail, according

to e-retailers. Any e-retailers discount their DC costs from the competitive price, while long-

distance deliveries charge a different DC expense on the more costly goods. Consumers favor

lower-cost goods, according to (Fang & Ng, 2011), but they do not prefer DC because it

doubles the price of the products. Consumers who purchase high-priced items choose e-

retailers to cover the shipping costs and they spend a lot of money buying them (Day &

Gattorna, 1991). Because of technological advancements, save money by minimizing

unnecessary travel increases the ranking for free delivery. Free shipping encourages customers

to shop digitally and increases profits (Petrescu, 2011). Consumers look for specific product or

service details when purchasing goods because of the purchase expense. This provides more

information and time to compare similar products using key factors, such as the consumer's

budget, how quickly the product is delivered, payment methods, and the usefulness of the

products. This comparison and information lead the consumer to choose products that do not

increase the product's cost, and the search for free delivery products on the internet increases.

According to (Meng et al., 2015), online shoppers look for equivalent or alternative products

to prevent paying delivery fees or cancel orders as fees rise, and retailer's outlet charges are

important to the DC of online purchases. Customers are influenced to purchase goods in

grocery shops by delivery costs, which often boost the price of low-cost products. As a result,

a theory was established assuming that DC has an effect on commodity buying decision-

making.

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H8: Shipping charges positively affects customer purchase intention from e-commerce during

COVID 19 pandemic in India.

E-retailers' price drops on online sales have accelerated the rise of the e-commerce market in

recent years (Gehrt et al., 2012). Online sales rates were very low as opposed to offline retail

sale values, and this is a big factor pushing more internet purchases. The first benefit of price

drops is that they can be used to entice shoppers. The price policy is influenced by the benefit

and sales of the items, and it represents the market and backlog of goods on the internet order.

The commodities are priced using competitive procurement and discount pricing techniques.

Discounts provide exclusive discounts, multiple order discounts, repeat purchase discounts

available with reward points, and even unsold merchandise discounts. Consumers should be

aware of internet shopping deals such as low-cost, low-quality products and low-cost,

duplicate-branded items. Price decreases allowed all backlog products that had been sitting in

the warehouse for a long time to be sold (Petrescu, 2011). Price discounts lure consumers of

low financial status, and this type of purchase satisfies them.

H9: Product Price positively affects customer purchase intention during COVID 19 pandemic

in India.

The mechanism by which customers make a decision to buy a good or service as a result of ads

distributed by advertising media is referred to as purchasing intention (Huarng et al., 2010).

Purchase aim is often used to describe the purchase of products/services as a result of a match

between the advertising and the customer (Kim & Han, 2014; Xu et al., 2009) and to define the

final object of transmitting an advertisement. It's also included in advertisement effect studies

(Li et al., 2002) to determine what causes lead to an online transaction and to suggest

repurchase impact models. As a result, purchasing purpose may be used as a dependent variable

to assess efficacy at different stages.

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H10: Conventional Advertisement Positively affects purchase intention during COVID 19

pandemic in India.

Figure 1: Theoretical Model

Delivery
Social Time (DT)
Media
(SM)

H1 H6
Web series
Product /movies
Quality (WSM)
(PQ)
H2 H7

Post Customer Shipping

Shopping H3 Purchase H8 Charges
Experience Behavior (CPB) (SC)
(PSE)

H9
H4
Product Product
Description Price (PP)
(PD) H1
0
H5

Convention
Seller al
Information Advertisem
(SI) ent (CA)

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 3. Research Methodology

3.1 The Participant

Data were collected from the online shoppers using the online survey method during pandemic

(October 2020 – March 2021). A total of 600 questionnaire were circulated out of which 439

responses were collected and the males dominated the sample as 71 percent fell into this

category with the females making up the remaining 29 percent. The highest response (61%)

was obtained from the 18 to 25 years old age group.

3.2 Instrumentation

A questionnaire was formulated to measure the behavior of the customers towards online

purchases during pandemic. The preliminary measures were formulated through qualitative

research procedures which included a comprehensive literature review, observations made on

social network platforms, discussions with experts. A five-point Likert type scale ranging from

1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree” was used to measure the level of agreeableness

for each respondent.

3.3 Procedure

To measure the hypothesized model and its relationship with the constructs, online shoppers

were used for the study. A questionnaire was formulated to measure the impact of Social

Media, Product quality, Post shopping experience, Product Displays, seller information’s,

Delivery times, Shipping charges, Web series or movies, product price and Conventional

advertisement on the behavior of online shoppers during pandemic. The instrument was

distributed as an online survey. The data was collected by floating 600 questionnaires through

online mode out of which 439 usable responses were received. Statistical analysis was

performed using SPSS (version 25). Ordinary least square (OLS) regression was performed to

measure the relationship between the constructs.

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 4. Results

4.1 Participants’ demographic profile

The study sample obtained primary data from individuals who were knowledgeable of the

internet during the compilation of data. It is essential to use e-commerce rather than

conventional shopping since it is far more flexible and simpler to monitor all of your orders,

payment methods, and notifications, as well as make decisions based on your preferences,

whether online or offline. For the study, 439 questionnaires were collected and analysed. The

demographic data of the respondents are presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Demographic profile and frequency analysis

Number Percentage (%)

(Responses)
Gender Male 312 71
Female 127 29
Age Below 18 6 1
18-25 269 61
25-40 134 31
40-60 27 6
Above 60 3 1
Education level High School 54 12
Bachelor Degree 254 58
Master Degree 100 23
PhD 25 5
Frequency of Less than 10 (items) 59 13
Order Less than 20 181 41
(monthly) More than 20 148 38
More than 30 51 12
Average cart price Less than 1k 145 33
value Between 1k – 5k 221 50
Between 5k- 10k 51 12
Between 10k- 20k 13 3
More than 20k 9 2
Pre-payment for Yes 294 67
special Discount No 54 12
Maybe 91 21

Buy Prime Yes 207 47

Subscription No 84 19
Maybe 148 34

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According to the demographic distribution of the respondents, 29% of the respondents were

female and 71% were male. According to the respondents' ages, 1% were under the age of 18,

61 percent were between the ages of 18 and 25, 31 percent were between the ages of 25 and

40, 6 percent were between the ages of 40 and 60, and 1 percent were over 60. The majority of

the respondents were teenagers and working people, indicating that they had a clear

understanding of how to shop on the internet. Another aspect investigated was the frequency

of order quarterly during the pandemic. The results indicated that 13% order less than 10 items

,41% were order less than 20 items,38% were order more than 20 items, while 12% were order

more than 30 items on the quarterly basis and seen that due to COVID 19 pandemic the

customer are more frequently using e-commerce for online shopping.

Also got their average cart price in which 33% respondent were having cart value less than 1k

,50% were cart value between 1k-5k,12% were between 5k-10k, and very less no of more than

10k from this it depicts that the customer is purchasing their essential household items like

FMCG, Home Cleaning, etc. At last, the opinion was asked about pre-payment if the products

are in special discount so from the responses it was observed that 67% of the customer prefer

to pre-payment option if they go special discount ,12% not interested in any offer and 21% are

not sure about it. Also, opinion was asked to buy prime subscription if they benefit of all offers

like free shipping, pay later, faster delivery etc. It was observed that 47% respondent were

interested in buying Prime subscription if they will get all the benefits,19% not interested in it

and 34% were not sure.

4.2 Model Result

After receiving feedback on the model's and constructs' reliability, the next move was to test

the model using the study hypothesis as a guide. The study aimed to test ten hypotheses in

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order to ascertain consumer purchasing behaviour through e-commerce during the COVID 19

pandemic.

The internal consistency of the constructs in the study (Cronbach’s alpha = 0673) have been

found to exist in the range 0.65-0.80 and thus can be stated to be “adequate” to test the scale

used in the research (Green et al., 1977; Spector, 1992). According to the study's coefficient of

determination, a deviation of 25% in the result can be explained exclusively by estimating the

outcome using the covariates used in the model.

From the regression results presented in the below Table 3, Customer purchase intention during

the COVID-19 pandemic was influenced by: Social Media (β = 0.158, P<0.05); Product

Quality (β = 0.246, P<0.05); Post Shopping exp. (β = 0.176, P<0.05); Seller Information (β =

0.093, P<0.05); Product Description (β = 0.146, P<0.05). Where (β) stands for standard

coefficient Beta which implies Type II error in statistical hypothesis which compares the

strength of the dependency of each individual independent variable to the dependent variable.

Higher the value of beta higher is the dependency. Also, P value is significant value that

indicate which hypotheses should be accepted or rejected. P value (>0.05) indicate that it

should be rejected and P value (<0.05) indicate that it should be accepted as here positive

hypothesis have been assumed in all the independent variables throughout the research which

is inverse of null hypothesis. This implies that five of the variables out of ten variables taken

under consideration and significantly influenced the people purchase intention during the

COVID19 pandemic. Comparing the effects of individual constructs, Product Quality was

found to have the highest effect (β = 0.246) on purchase intention, followed by Return and

Exchange Policy (β = 0.176) and then social media (β = 0.158).

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Table 3. Effects of independent variables on the dependent variable

Coefficients Standard Stand. T Stat. P-

Error Coefficients value/Sig

Beta (β)

(Intercept) 0.7596 0.2329 3.2621 0.0012

Social Media 0.1409 0.0393 0.1582 3.5844 0.0004

Conventional -0.0771 0.0409 -0.0821 -1.8856 0.0600

Advertisement

Web series/movie 0.0506 0.0342 0.0653 1.4817 0.1392

Product Price 0.0116 0.0506 0.0114 0.2287 0.8192

Product Quality 0.2723 0.0515 0.2461 5.2831 0.0000

Post Shopping 0.1661 0.0445 0.1762 3.7361 0.0002

Experience

Seller Information 0.0702 0.0341 0.0923 2.0620 0.0398

Product Description 0.1443 0.0477 0.1464 3.0225 0.0027

Delivery time 0.0161 0.0399 0.0201 0.4026 0.6874

Shipping Charges -0.0078 0.0398 -0.0092 -0.1956 0.8450

Table 4 shows the results of the hypothesis evaluation and whether they were approved or

denied during the data analysis.

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Table 4. Evaluation of study hypothesis

Hypothesis Stand. Coefficients P- value/Sig Accepted/Rejected

Beta (β)

Hypothesis 1 (H1) 0.1582 0.0004 Accepted

Hypothesis 2 (H2) 0.2461 0.0000 Accepted

Hypothesis 3 (H3) 0.1762 0.0002 Accepted

Hypothesis 4 (H4) 0.1464 0.0027 Accepted

Hypothesis 5 (H5) 0.0923 0.0398 Accepted

Hypothesis 6 (H6) 0.0201 0.6874 Rejected

Hypothesis 7 H7) 0.0653 0.1392 Rejected

Hypothesis 8 (H8) -0.0092 0.8450 Rejected

Hypothesis 9 (H9) 0.0114 0.8192 Rejected

Hypothesis 10 (H10) -0.0821 0.0600 Rejected

5. Discussion

Ten hypotheses were evaluated based on the above table's assessment, with five being accepted

and five being rejected. This implied that the customer purchase intention during the COVID-

19 pandemic is significantly influenced by these five hypotheses that were accepted are Social

Media, Product Quality, Return and Exchange Policy, Product Descriptions and Seller

Information. Customer prefer to purchase online because of convenient, free shipping, faster

delivery and many more exciting services. When compared to the global scourge of the

COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen many companies focus increasingly on online consumers

not only to satisfy the protection regulations of reducing human-to-human interaction to lessen

the chance of transmitting the virus, but also to mitigate the deficit caused by months of

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lockdowns and restrictions imposed on many businesses. Because of internet usage increases

due to lockdown more and more customer gets habitat of online browsing, social media by

which they get updated with latest product launch. There Social media plays an important role

in highlighting the latest trends which influence the customer to go online and buy products.

From the finding it was shown that Product quality is most influential variable as compare to

other variables for customer purchase intention during COVID19 pandemic. Customer don’t

want to make any compromise with product quality at all while shopping online and they more

concerned about their health and hygiene products. The findings of the research also indicated

that Return and Exchange Policy followed by product quality is second most influential

variable considered as customer see return and exchange policy associated with the products if

they find the policy as per their expectations they definitely go and buy that product online

because due to lockdown customer don’t want stressed about the product if they ordered by

mistake, want to make different order, cancel their order etc. The findings of the study indicated

that the product description of the product along with display picture from various angles in

online shopping is also important that customer prefer to buy as they consider to buy product

if they get authentic information’s about that product with original image of the product as they

unable to go on store to feel and touch the product so they consider to be high quality image of

that product as like as it feels like Infront of them. At last, the results have shown that seller

information is also important aspect that customer considered while shopping online if any

product they want to buy the foremost thing they do is to check seller ratings and reviews of

the seller if they get authentic trusted seller for their product, they purchase that product online

from ecommerce sites. For all five hypotheses which are rejected or have no significant are

conventional Ad, web series or movies, product price, Delivery time and shipping charges,

these are not so considerable for purchase intention during COVID 19 as Consumer todays are

not want low price products but they want good quality they didn’t pay attention to deliver time

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as they can wait for time to get good products, also customer not consider conventional

advertisement like TV newspapers, web series or movies as much for their purchasing intention

during COVID 19.

6. Conclusion

The study intended to find the variables of online purchase that were sought to be most

important during COVID 19 by the Indian customers. The study finds that social media plays

an important role in disseminating information among the customers and reliance over it has

increased during COVID 19 pandemic. Other factors such as product quality, seller

information, product description, and post shopping experience were also key factors that

Indian customers kept in mind while making online purchases. Organizations should

concentrate more on these variables while serving in developing countries such as in Indian

when a condition of natural calamity arises. Due to the pandemic, the authors tried to restrict

their query to one question per variable and it is prime limitation of the research. Future

researches can take multiple questions per variable that will improve the overall prediction of

the behavior.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3874348

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