Abstract:

Online shopping has grown in popularity over the last few years all over the world. With COVID-19 and its consequential restrictions, for example, regarding travelling to physical stores and restaurants, e-commerce has grown even more. Consequently, e-commerce has become more relevant than ever to companies worldwide because of their ability to adapt to this new reality can dictate their survival in the market.

Since young people with higher education levels are the ones that buy online the most, it is essential to understand if changes occurred due to COVID-19 that can possibly, become permanent behaviours in the future. This demographic has the highest incidence of acquired online shopping behaviours, so if there are any changes, this is the social group with the more significant analysis potential and information. Portugal is no exception to this tendency since the youngest and most educated people are also the most prominent online buyers, particularly young adults aged between 24 and 35.

So, because of this new pandemic context, it is crucial not only to analyse this group’s online shopping behaviour but also to investigate possible changes in behaviours/. Effectively, according to statistical data, this is the generation of consumers of the future. Therefore, it is considered that a comparative analysis can be determinant because the earned buying habits in this phase may dictate the future trends for online commerce. So, we must evaluate if the consumers want to maintain or break with these possible new habits.

In this paper, we present a methodology and preliminary results for the characterization of the online shopping behaviours/habits both before and during the COVID-19 lockdowns, evaluate and report possible changes and evaluate the consumers’ intention of keeping or breaking with them. We use a survey-based hypothetico-deductive process, using descriptive and comparative methods, to both describe and observe habits/behaviours. Given the relevance of the young and highly educated population, our target sample consists of higher education students, aged between 18 and 30 years old, living in Northern Portugal.

The core of our analysis includes the evaluation of two different concepts: online trust and purchase behaviour. Regarding online trust, there are three main dimensions that will be evaluated, specifically consumers’ trust on the internet, consumers’ trust in the suppliers and consumers’ trust in other entities involved in e-commerce. Secondly, the purchasing behaviour will be evaluated through several dimensions, including impulse purchases, devices, places, payment methods, product/services categories, information search, purchase frequency, spending, behaviour change and intention to maintain or disrupt the behaviour. This second category of questions will be used to compare behaviours before and during lockdowns.

Our results provide information regarding higher education students online purchase behaviours, which can serve as a basis to identify future e-commerce trends.

Keywords:

COVID-19, higher education students, online shopping behaviour, e-commerce, trust, purchase behaviour.