What is the role of Saudi consumers’ perceptions of social and environmental responsibility in preference online shopping after the COVID 19 crisis?

Abstract

Online shopping has become essential to the success of businesses in the period of the Covid- 19 pandemic. Many studies have indicated that this electronic transformation in shopping has processed many environmental and social issues. Moreover, this transformation contributed to realizing part of Vision 2030. Vision 2030 seeks to transform 80% of the retail sector into electronic stores. Also, vision 2030 aims to keep the environment and developed the quality of life. However, few studies have examined the factors influencing consumers' decisions about online shopping in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it has become essential to identify the factors that may affect the customer's behavior to preferring online shopping compared to the traditional method. Based on the technology acceptance model, this study evaluated factors that may affect the Saudi consumer's decision to online shopping after the pandemic. The four variables in this study are perceived utility, perceived ease of use, social responsibility, and environmental responsibility. The data was collected online using the snowball sampling technique. For this study, 210 samples were obtained. For data analysis, SPSS version 26 was used. For descriptive and quantitative analysis of the data, a set of tools were used. Multiple regression was used to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and social responsibility had a significant impact on the adoption of technology for online shopping. But environmental responsibility was not affecting consumer decisions in adopting online shopping after the pandemic. Based on these results, retailers are advised to consider influencing factors when designing their marketing policies .