Üsküdar University Faculty of Communication Department of Advertising Dr. Cihan Becan, Assistant Professor, together with Gökçe Tamer, a student of the Neuromarketing Department program, conducted a study on the changes in consumers' shopping habits before and during the pandemic period.
New generation applications, which have entered our lives in the last few years, have started to take a significant place in shopping as well. These applications, referred to as new generation shopping platforms, are essentially mobile applications that allow us to do grocery shopping via smart devices and deliver orders to consumers within certain hours. 'İstegelsin', 'Banabi', 'Getir', 'Migros Hemen' are some of these applications. Dr. Cihan Becan, Assistant Professor at Üsküdar University Faculty of Communication, Department of Advertising, together with Gökçe Tamer from the Neuromarketing Department Program, examined consumers' shopping habits before and during the pandemic period and the use of online applications in their research conducted for the November-December 2020 period.
Dr. Assistant Professor Becan said regarding the research; “Consumers participating in the online survey conducted between November 25 and December 15, 2020, answered questions measuring motivations prepared for the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. A total of 487 people participated in the highly reliable survey, of whom 73% were women, 47% were in the 25-34 age group, and 51% were employed. In line with the averages of the motivation factors identified, according to the results from dependent-sample paired tests, it was found that the rate of consumers switching to shopping on new generation shopping platforms increased by 18% during the pandemic period compared to the previous period. We observe that the consumer group who were previously aware of new generation shopping platforms but used them infrequently has now started shopping more frequently and intensively. Within the framework of consumers' motivation factors for shopping on new generation shopping platforms, a significant difference emerged between the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods.”
“Consumers Find New Generation Shopping Platforms Safer”
Dr. Assistant Professor Becan stated, “According to the factor analysis results for the scale questions posed to consumers, we found that 'perceived risk' was the factor with the highest reliability coefficient. The opinions of the participants in the research, that they obtained products healthily by using new generation shopping platforms, felt safer in terms of health, and that shopping on new generation shopping platforms was smarter, were observed to have the highest average on the scale. The fact that utilizing new generation shopping platforms allows people to avoid crowds is also predominantly expressed by the participants.'” he said.
"Time Spent in Digital Environment Increases New Generation Shopping"
Dr. Assistant Professor Becan added, “We observed that participants' motivations towards new generation shopping platforms differed statistically significantly according to their time spent connected to the digital environment. As a result of pairwise comparisons with the Tukey test from the Post hoc tests conducted to determine between which connection times the differentiation occurred, we can say that the interest and motivations of participants who connect to the digital environment for more than 3 hours daily towards new generation shopping platforms increased compared to those with shorter connection times.'” he said. Dr. Becan also stated that as the frequency of shopping on new generation shopping platforms increases, people's desire to shop through these applications further increases.
“Consumers Will Prefer New Generation Shopping in the Future Too”
Dr. Becan stated that the research results show that consumers will continue to heavily use new generation shopping applications in the future, and particularly noted that clothing, food, and electronic products tend to be purchased online. Dr. Becan also stated that the research results indicate consumers will continue to use online alternatives even if physical shopping opportunities are available in the future.