Online Purchasing Behavior of Graduates during Covid– 19 Pandemic Situation

Abstract

The global online purchasing trend emerged as a transformative situation in shifting consumer behavior. The COVID-19 pandemic increased consumers' tendencies toward online purchasing. However, some consumers are reluctant to use this due to the risk of revealing financial details and privacy. Therefore, this study examined the graduates' online purchasing behavior by selecting 120 graduates using cluster sampling. Data were collected through pre-tested questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon-signed rank test. External factors, including the availability of information, ICT facilities, advertising, the lifestyle of the reference group, sales promotions, the durability of the products, and product quality, and internal factors, such as perceptions, awareness, experience, and knowledge, had a significant influence (p<0.05) on online purchasing motives. The privacy of the transaction, the trustworthiness of the website, security measures, and the accuracy of the information were the main filtering elements that had a highly significant impact (p<0.05) on online purchasing decisions. Most graduates expressed diverse online purchasing behavior by using local and foreign sites, purchasing mainly electronics items as products, online banking as services, and social media as a source of information. Strategies to ease online purchasing include incrementing local platforms, sales promotions, enhanced online marketing, userfriendliness of online platforms, establishing a proper local tracking system, and establishing a social platform (p<0.05). Thus, consumer engagement in online marketing can be achieved by considering all these factors and filtering elements when developing marketing strategies