Customer’s Decision to Shift to e-Purchase Through Social Media in COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The study aimed mainly to describe the role of COVID-19 pandemic in the shift of the customer’s purchasing decision from the traditional purchase to e-purchase through social media. To achieve the objectives of the study, the analytical descriptive approach methodology and simple random sample technique were adopted, the researchers designed a questionnaire depend on previous studies, which consisting of (24) items to gather the information from the study sample which reached (740) respondents. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used to analyze and examine the data and the hypotheses. The main results were: Customer's experience e-purchase experiment through social media was satisfying from the point of view during the COVID-19 pandemic and there is a statistically significant impact of that experiment on customer satisfaction. Also, that experiment has increased the level of customer trust toward e-purchasing through social media during the pandemic and there is a statistically significant impact of that experiment on customer trust. On the other hand, the research found a positive relation between customer satisfaction and customer trust of that experiment during the pandemic and the intention to continue e-purchase after the pandemic. Also, the research proves that experiment in COVID-19 pandemic affected the customers buying decision to shift to e-purchase through social media by strongest customers satisfaction and increased the level of customers trust and this shifting will continue to the future after the pandemic. The research recommends the stakeholders to exploit the social media platforms in their marketing strategies due to their great advantages in such crises and pandemics.