01875838

Component

https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981231155169

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s online and in-store shopping behaviors changed significantly. As the pandemic subsides, key questions are why those changes happened, whether they are expected to stay, and, if so, to what extent. The authors answered those questions by analyzing a quasi-longitudinal survey dataset of the Puget Sound residents (Washington, U.S.). The authors deployed structural equation modeling (SEM) to build separate models for food, grocery, and other items shopping to explore the factors affecting such changes. The results revealed that people’s online and in-store shopping frequencies during the pandemic were affected by their perceived health risk, attitudes toward shopping, and pre-pandemic shopping frequencies. Similarly, it was shown that how frequently people expect to shop post pandemic is influenced by their attitudes toward shopping, changes during the pandemic, and their pre-pandemic frequencies. The authors also classified respondents into five groups, based on their current and expected future shopping behavior changes, and performed a descriptive analysis. The five groups—Increasers, Decreasers, Steady Users, Returnees, and Future Changers—exhibited different trends across online and in-store activities for shopping different goods. The analysis results showed that, while 25% of the respondents increased their online shopping, only 8% to 13% decreased their in-store activities, implying that online shopping did not completely substitute in-store shopping. Moreover, the authors found that online shopping is a substitution for in-store shopping for groceries, while it complements in-store shopping for food and other items. Additionally, more than 75% of new online shoppers expect to keep purchasing online, while 63%–85% of in-store Decreasers plan to return to their pre-pandemic frequencies.

© National Academy of Sciences: Transportation Research Board 2023.

English

0000-0001-6201-8319

0000-0003-3586-6835

0000-0003-2108-7953

19p

2023

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

Digital/other

References (73)

Behavior; COVID-19; Electronic commerce; Forecasting; Shopping; Structural equation modeling; Surveys

Puget Sound Region

Economics; Society; Transportation (General)

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Mar 17 2023 3:01PM