Perception of Consumers Towards Online Buying During COVID-19 Pandemic Era

Abstract

Because of COVID-19, 2020 will be recognised as a year that had a profound effect on all aspects of human life. The economy will never be the same as it was prior to the implementation of COVID - 19. From the 23rd of March, our country was placed under complete lockdown. Nearly all services and production facilities were shut down on March 23rd, the first day of the lockdown. There has been surge in online shopping complications, which may be dangerous. Customers will be encouraged to shop online, taking advantage of the conveniences that come with it. Consumers are shifting their purchasing habits from traditional to online shopping, as well as where and how they shop. It boosted the amount of money spent on purchasing through websites and mobile applications. The growing threat of the corona virus is causing customers to avoid public locations, which is increasing their interest in doing their shopping through the internet. Now is the time for e-commerce companies to improve their rules in order to fulfil the changing expectations of consumers. As a result, in order to provide the best possible service to our customers, we must evaluate the impact of this epidemic on their online purchase habits. The second objective of this paper is to assess the effect of Covid-19 on the sales of chosen Indian FMCG companies. A total of 1000 consumers situated in Gujarat have been targeted for this study, with secondary data analysis conducted on the HUL and Dabur Limited enterprises. There is no correlation between consumers' perception of online shopping during the pandemic time (Covid 19) and their demographic profile, and there is no statistically significant difference in sales before and after the pandemic, implying that there was no effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on sales of the selected companies prior to and following this outbreak.