SURVEY ON CHANGE IN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR IN ONLINE

SHOPPING PRE AND POST COVID

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Online shopping was a widely acknowledged but not so quiet frequent phenomenon among
people until a year back. However, with the outbreak of a huge pandemic that caused the world
economy to unsettle, the surge in the online shopping was an event or occurrence that cannot be
overlooked. Being locked out from their constant window shopping and grocery visits, people to
a very large extent were compelled to shift from offline purchases to online shopping. Well, on a
positive note, this shutdown has helped people to stay close to their family and friends, but it
also raises a concern of people over-spending, as the technological advancements most of us are
equipped with will deliver anything from pin to airplane at our footstep. One might think why
would anyone have any expenditures sitting at home? But the “work from home” / “Online
classes” episode has definitely drawn in more customer needs. One must be well equipped with
a good system support to finish their office/school work. This might prompt one to but new
gadgets/ equipment to help him/her with the same. Since both parents and kids are evolved in
the workaholic environment, this often invites online food delivery needs. Or some are just over
driven by the enthusiasm to try new products/outfits they saw on the social media because ever
since everything has been made virtual, it has given even more platform for all the
businessmen/sellers and advertisers to attract consumers. Analyzing all these factors urges us to
take a look at this new pattern developed in the consumer behavior in online shopping and
comparing the same with the pre-covid situation.
So, what exactly is the concept of consumer behavior? Consumer behavior is the study of
how individual customers or groups select, buy, use and dispose goods and services to satisfy
their needs and wants. It includes the underlying motives for those actions of the customers.
Producers/Manufacturers identify that by understanding consumer behavior helps them to
understand what causes the consumers to buy particular goods or a particular service at a
particular place/region and this will in turn help the sellers to determine what products and how
much of them are required to be in the market and how they should be presented. A consumer is
considered to be the actor in the market; as he plays the role of the informant, the user, the payer
and the disposer of a product which is very important in the decision-making process of the
producers. There are a number of factors that affect and influence Consumer Behavior. This
ranges from marketing factors, personal factors, psychological factors, situational factors and
social factors. A new methodology adopted for promotional activities or a new packaging or
product design leads to changes in Consumer Behavior. Personal factors like age, sex, income
and education do play a part in altering Consumer Behavior. Social factors like social status and
situational factors like physical surroundings and specifically in our scenario, the nationwide
shutdown affected the consumers to shift their preferences and explore new products/services.
Consumer behavior can differ from consumer to consumer depending on their lifestyles and
region to region and country to country. The knowledge and insight on the buying behavior of
the consumers of their market is one of the essential components which will help the
producers/sellers to bring innovations and take decisions about their marketing strategies.
Through this study/survey, we intent to study the changing pattern in the consumer behavior
towards online shopping and understand how much has the pandemic affected this purchasing
behavior of the consumers. We have carefully managed to collect a total of 150 responses
thereby analyzing the shifts and preferences in their consumption scale.

METHODOLOGY ADOPTED
For our statistical survey, we adopted the method of questionnaire to collect data. A
questionnaire is an instrument for research, which consists of a list of questions, along with the
choice of answers, printed or typed on a form which is used for acquiring specific information
from the respondents. It is a mode of primary data collection. The questionnaires are generally
delivered to the correspondents either by post or mail thereby requesting them to answer the
questions and return it. A questionnaire should seek the data which cannot be obtained from
anywhere else. It should be short, comprehensive and should include a set of well-written
question. Questionnaires are a common and inexpensive method of primary data collection used
by NGOs, government, private companies or individuals to get feedback, collect data and for
research. A questionnaire is free from the bias of the interviewer as the forms as directly filled
by the respondents themselves. Questionnaires also enable to cover a large section of the
respondents/public thereby helping to study a large group of the society. For our statistical
survey, we chose the questionnaire method as it is easier and more inexpensive and less time
consuming considering the present pandemic situation. Our questionnaire included a total of 14
questions based on the topic Online Shopping during Pre and Post Covid. We prepared the
questionnaire in the form of a google form which we circulated among different people for the
responses. Our respondents where between the age of 17 – 27. Most of them (66.7%) belonged
to the Urban living setting while the rest 33.3% resided in a rural area. We were able to collect a
total of 150 responses and the questionnaire method has proved to be very useful and
straightforward for our study.