Customers and ecommerce in post covid era

Abstract

COVID-19 came as a curse to the lives of billions. However, the same cannot possibly be said for the e-commerce sector. As India went into lockdown and people refrained from stepping out from their houses, the Indian e-commerce sector grew by 117% between February and June 20201. There was a surge in users as Tier III cities saw a 53% year-on-year growth in e-commerce adoption1. However, can the sector sustain this growth in the post-COVID era or will brick-and-mortar stores revive? Through this project, we aim to answer questions by analysing variables like seller interaction, option to bargain, ability to touch and whether they have any impact on purchase decisions. The objective of our research is to study consumers’ perception towards eCommerce platforms in the post-COVID era. To achieve the purpose, we will be conducting primary research to understand the difference in consumer perception between shopping offline and online and gauge their interest in both the shopping methods in a post-COVID world. We will also review existing literature relevant to our work. We will use the data collected from our research to check the correlation between variables like seller interaction or option to bargain and purchase intent. We will also use tools like ANOVA to test the hypothesis.