Association Between Household Online Grocery Delivery Service Use and Food and Drink Purchase Behavior in England: Cross-Sectional Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Online grocery delivery services (OGDSs) are a popular way of acquiring food. However, it is unclear whether OGDS use is associated with the healthiness of purchases and whether there are sociodemographic differences in OGDS use. If so, the increased prevalence of OGDS use may have implications for population diet, and differential OGDS use could contribute to diet inequalities. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to examine whether OGDS use varies by sociodemographic characteristics and is associated with the amount and types of groceries purchased. METHODS: Item-level take-home food and drink purchase data (n=3,233,920 items) from households in London and the North of England were available from the 2019 UK Kantar fast-moving consumer goods panel (N=1911). Purchases were categorized as being bought online or in-store. We used logistic regression to estimate the likelihood of an above-median frequency of OGDS use by sociodemographic characteristics. We used Poisson regression to estimate the differences in energy and nutrients purchased by households that had above- and below-median OGDS use and the proportion of energy purchased from products high in fat, salt, and sugar (HFSS) online versus in-store among households that used both shopping methods (n=665). RESULTS: In total, 668 (35%) households used OGDSs at least once in 2019. Of the households that used OGDSs, the median use was 5 occasions in 2019. Households were more likely to have above-median use in London versus in the North of England (odds ratio 1.29, 95% CI 1.01-1.65) and if they had a higher annual household income (odds ratio 1.56, 95% CI 1.02-2.38 for ≥£50,000 [US $64,000] vs <£20,000 [$25,600]). Households with above-median OGDS use had a higher weekly mean purchase of energy by 1461 (95% CI 1448-1474) kcal per person compared with households with below-median OGDS use. For households that used a combination of in-store and online shopping, HFSS products made up a lower proportion (-10.1%, 95% CI -12% to -8.1%) of energy purchased online compared to in-store. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in grocery purchases between households with above- and below-median OGDS use could have positive or negative consequences. The extra energy purchased among households with above-median OGDS use could lead to overconsumption or food waste, which has negative consequences for population and environmental health. Alternatively, this extra energy may be replacing out-of-home purchasing, which tends to be less healthy, and may be beneficial for the population diet. Households made fewer HFSS purchases when shopping online compared to in-store, which may be due to differences in the shopping environment or experience, such as fewer promotions and advertisements when shopping online or not having to transport and carry purchases home. As higher-income households used OGDS more frequently, the implications of this sociodemographic pattern on dietary inequalities must be explored.

Risk-taking in consumers' online purchases of health supplements and natural products: a grounded theory approach.

BACKGROUND: Health supplements and natural products are widely used by the general public to support physical function and prevent disease. Additionally, with the advent of e-commerce, these products have become easily accessible to the general public. Although several theoretical models have been used to explain the use of health supplements and natural products, empirical evidence on how consumers make decisions to purchase online health supplements and natural products remains limited. METHODS: In this study, a grounded theory approach was used to develop a substantive theoretical model with the aim of investigating the decision-making process of consumers when purchasing health supplements and natural products online. Malaysian adult consumers who had purchased these products via the Internet were either purposively or theoretically sampled. A total of 18 virtual in-depth interviews (IDIs) were conducted to elicit participants' experiences and priorities in relation to this activity. All the IDIs were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were analysed using open coding, focus coding and theoretical coding. The analytical interpretations and theoretical concepts were recorded in research memos. RESULTS: Consumers' decisions to purchase a health supplement or natural product over the Internet are based on a series of assessments regarding the perceived benefits and risks of this activity, which may be related to the product or the process. In the online marketplace, consumers attempt to choose products, online sellers, sales platforms and/or purchase mechanisms with lower perceived risk, which ultimately enhances their confidence in five elements related to the purchase: (1) product effectiveness, (2) product safety, (3) purchase convenience, (4) fair purchase and (5) online security. Consumers take an acceptable level of risk to purchase these products online, and this acceptable level is unique to each individual and is based on their perception of having control over the potential consequences if the worst-case scenario occurs. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, a substantive theoretical model is developed to demonstrate how consumers decide to purchase online health supplements and natural products by accepting an acceptable level of risk associated with the product or process. The emerging model is potentially transferable to other populations in similar contexts.

Intention to purchase halal health supplement online: Lessons learned from the health crisis.

Consuming health supplements is essential to strengthen the immune systems and protect against illness, especially during health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the increasing number of Muslim populations worldwide and the necessity of online applications during health crises, this research aims to study the consumer's purchase intention of halal health supplement products online by examining variables influencing consumer's purchase intention. The Theory of Planned Behaviour has been applied as an underlying theory for this study, including religiosity and COVID-19 as an extension to the theory. 214 respondents participated in this study by completing the survey questionnaire via an online platform. Analysis was performed using SmartPLS4. The findings illustrate that perceived benefit is the most important indicator for Indonesian respondents, while attitude, subjective norms, and the COVID-19 pandemic are the factors that contribute to purchase intention among Malaysian respondents. The study enhances current literature, specifically in the context of halal health supplement products. Additionally, investigating the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of halal health supplements with a unique set of variables leads to a new path of study. Examining consumer behavior such as perceived benefit, attitude, subjective norms, and the COVID-19 pandemic that influence online purchase intention will provide consumer insights to marketers involved in halal health supplement products. The perspective on consumer beliefs gives directions for strategy development to businesses.

Searching for online information on the fit of children's footwear during the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of Google Trends data.

BACKGROUND: Selecting footwear with appropriate fit in children is challenging due the changes with foot size and dimensions which occur throughout childhood. Access to appropriate footwear is important but recent challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in closure of retail stores for prolonged periods where parents/carers could not physically purchase footwear for their children and the footwear industry suffered disruption to their supply chain, and falls in retail sales. Simultaneously increased use of social media platforms for health information seeking throughout the pandemic have been documented. This likely would have included parents/carers seeking information online to support footwear purchases for their children. The primary aim of this work was to explore how searches for online fitting information for children changed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown periods. A secondary aim was to identify how searches were influenced by footwear style. METHODS:  We employed Google Trends to obtain search engine traffic related to footwear fitting information for children. We collected data spanning the three years pre, during and post the main national lockdown for three eight-week windows: (1) first eight weeks of the U.K. national lockdown; (2) the first eight weeks of the calendaryear; (3) the eight weeks leading up to children going back-to-school for the new academic year in the U.K. The search terms reflected parents/carers searching for footwear fit information relating to children and were grouped by style of footwear: children, infants, babies and toddlers as well as school shoes. RESULTS: We identified increased searching for footwear fit information for children during the pandemic, which reduced following post pandemic in all except the searches which related to school shoes. We saw reductions in searching related to fit of school shoes as schools closed indefinitely and an increase in online searches with the pandemic. This was also maintained post-pandemic despite shops reopening, suggesting that some of these changes in information reflect new consumer behaviours which may continue. CONCLUSIONS:  Increased searches for online resources regarding footwear fit highlights the importance of ensuring high quality accessible online information on footwear fit is available to support those buying footwear for their children.

A new approach to econometric modeling in digitized consumer behavior.

Given how identifying motivational factors of online purchasing is critical to the success of online retailers, research on the antecedents of online customer experience (cognitive and affective experiential states) has attracted widespread attention. In this study, we conducted an extensive survey to identify major behavioral changes in the online buyer, and based on the age of the respondents we synthesized the findings into an econometric model to explain the impact of cultural, social, personal, and psychological traits on online purchasing. Our survey identified a myriad of motivational factors that influence online buyers' psychological perceptions and the impact of those factors has been reported. The proposed econometric model would help online retailers to better understand the motivational factors behind online customers' purchasing decisions. It also serves to inform the academic community of recent trends in this stream of research and shed light on future research.

Browsing or buying: A serial mediation analysis of consumer's online purchase intentions in times of COVID-19 pandemic.

The role of digitization and globalization have changed consumers' online buying behaviors, specifically in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This seriously influences the online retail industry in developing countries that are already struggling to move toward digital trading through e-business. Pakistan being a developing country is no exception, and it is, therefore, pertinent to examine factors that contribute to digital trading. Employing theories of reasoned action and the technology acceptance model, this study aims to investigate how personal innovativeness and perceived usefulness impact consumers' online purchase intentions through a serial mediational model. The data were collected through an online survey from 410 respondents. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed model. This study showed significant results for the direct effect of personal innovativeness and perceived usefulness on online purchase intentions as well as the indirect serial effect via internet browsing and attitude toward online purchasing. The study results have some important practical implications for selling firms, especially in the times of COVID-19. The study suggests that online retailers should be more responsive to the aforementioned factors to facilitate consumers to spend more time browsing, which influences consumers' interest and intention to make online purchases. As the social distancing and lockdown approaches were implemented in Pakistan and other parts of the world, the trend toward online purchases has increased. Due to this shift in the overall purchasing behavior of consumers and the potential for strong growth in e-commerce, organizations need to consider the post-COVID situation to expand their business in an online platform for addressing the future pandemic crisis.

The impact of website quality on customer satisfaction and eWOM in online purchase intention: The moderating role of gender in risk-taking.

Recently, social media marketing has become one of the most significant growth channels for many businesses. However, many companies are still unclear about using social media marketing to their advantage, particularly in an e-commerce environment. In this background, this study examines the effect of website quality, consumer satisfaction, and eWOM on online purchase intention. An online survey was conducted with 789 online Chinese shoppers from four cities-Harbin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the hypotheses. The findings show that each variable had a high impact on eWOM with website quality (information quality, system quality, and service quality), which in turn positively increased consumer online purchase intentions in China's e-commerce business. Additionally, findings show a significant gender gap in online shopping behavior. This novel research provides several managerial guidelines that support managers in improving their business performance in the e-commerce industry. This research also highlighted some limitations.

Corrigendum: Research on Improving Online Purchase Intention of Poverty-Alleviation Agricultural Products in China: From the Perspective of Institution-Based Trust.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.900328.].

Research on Improving Online Purchase Intention of Poverty-Alleviation Agricultural Products in China: From the Perspective of Institution-Based Trust.

Poverty alleviation by consumption is a powerful way to help the poor people get rid of poverty, which plays a significant role in China's rural revitalization. However, the achievement of poverty alleviation by consumption mostly depends on government procurement, and the enthusiasm of customers to participate is low, facing the severe challenge of poor sustainability. Helping the poor is the most common motivation for customers to buy poverty-alleviation agricultural products (PAAP). However, as the negative events of poverty alleviation such as "tragic marketing" constantly appear in news reports, customers' trust in sellers has been seriously damaged. The psychological protection system for fear of being cheated hinders customers' purchase intention. Therefore, we believed that trust is an important factor in enhancing customers' purchase intention of PAAP. Customers buy PAAP mainly through online channels, and institution-based trust is the most important way to generate trust in online channels. Thus, this study investigated the institutional mechanisms that affect customers' trust in the sellers of PAAP and discussed the influence of trust on the online purchase intention of PAAP. Data were obtained through a questionnaire survey and tested empirically. The results showed that the effectiveness of the user feedback mechanism, platform supervision mechanism, product traceability mechanism, and product certification mechanism can enhance customers' purchase intention by enhancing their trust. Individual trust tendency positively regulated the relationship between the effectiveness of institutional mechanisms and consumer trust. The conclusion can not only provide new theoretical guidance for the practice of poverty alleviation by consumption in China but also offer new ideas for the poverty alleviation undertakings in other countries.

Critical Conditions Identification for Online Purchase Intention of Fruits: A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis.

With the development of Internet technology, e-commerce platforms have emerged one after another, and the competition of the fruit e-commerce market is increasingly intensified. How to boost customer demand by improving their purchase intention has become a key issue. The study identified the critical conditions leading to high purchase intention of fruits through fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The empirical analysis was conducted based on an online questionnaire of 344 Internet users. The results reveal that high purchase intention comes from high fruit quality, high fruit price concessions and supply service, and low perceived risk (peripheral conditions). In addition, high purchase intention can also be realized from high fruit quality, high fruit price concessions, high supply service, and high website information quality (peripheral conditions). This study provides more nuanced thinking of how to improve online purchase intention of fruits.

Exploring Chinese Consumers' Online Purchase Intentions toward Certified Food Products during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly increased consumers' demands for online groceries, as well as healthy, safe, and better-quality food products. In China, certified food products are commonly perceived as safe and good-quality products. Therefore, this study investigated potential factors that influenced Chinese consumers' online shopping intentions toward certified food during the COVID-19 crisis. An integrated model was proposed by combining the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) with the impact of COVID-19 (IOC). The empirical results of structural equation modelling analysis with 491 usable responses revealed that the proposed model showed a good model fit and satisfactory explanatory power (R2 = 53%) regarding consumers' certified online food shopping intentions during the pandemic. The path analysis demonstrated that attitude, perceived behavioural control, perceived usefulness (PU), and IOC significantly affected consumers' online purchase intentions of certified food. PU and perceived ease of use (PEOU) were important drivers of attitudes, and PEOU significantly influenced PU. Moreover, the IOC was significantly related to most factors, except subjective norms. These findings can be useful for detecting changes in consumer behaviour, and providing suitable strategic implications for stakeholders in the Chinese certified food sector during the current and post-pandemic eras.

Prevalence of Antibiotic Purchase Online and Associated Factors Among Chinese Residents: A Nationwide Community Survey of 2019.

Introduction: Online sales of antibiotics have increased public access to these medicines. This study aimed to analyze the online antibiotic purchase behavior of the Chinese residents and identify its associated factors. Methods: We conducted a nationwide cross-sectional online survey among Chinese community residents from January 20 to February 28, 2019. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on their sociodemographic characteristics, health-related variables, and the online antibiotic purchase behavior in the past 3 months. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses were used. The statistical analyses were performed using SAS version 9.4 (SAS Institute Inc.). Results: A total of 101,120 respondents were included in the analysis. The weighted prevalence of antibiotic purchase online was 3.71% (95% CI, 3.53-3.88%). Residents who purchased antibiotics online were more likely to be older (age≥65 years), be a male, live in rural areas, have a higher education level, report an excellent economic status, suffer from chronic diseases, and search for health information on the internet. Conclusion: Numerous residents had purchased antibiotics online in the past 3 months throughout China. We should pay more attention to this behavior. There is a need to strengthen regulation of antibiotic sales online and improve public education on antibiotic purchase online. More comprehensive information on antibiotic purchase online as well as the advantages and disadvantages of online sales of antibiotics should be investigated in the future studies.

A retentive consumer behavior assessment model of the online purchase decision-making process.

Nowadays, most shoppers use e-business online platforms. However, consumer behaviors need to be studied in terms of satisfaction and the intention to purchase and re-purchase according to the online shopping process because online shopping platforms still have influenced their usage behaviors. This work proposes a retentive consumer behavior assessment model of the online shopping platforms through integration of Technology Acceptance Model and Online Purchase Decision-Making Process with two input factors: Trust and Quality. A questionnaire designed according to all factors from the proposed conceptual model is used to collect data from a sample group. The participants of this study are 384 respondents who have experienced using online shopping platforms. The data is used to analyze causal relationships through the use of structural equation modeling. The results showed that the proposed model can be explained for the relationship with consistent E-Business platforms affecting purchase and continue to purchase (re-purchase or recommend) behaviors of online trading users, and it also can be used to assess purchasing behaviors and repeating purchases of online consumers through 3 types of E-businesses: E-commerce, M-commerce, and S-commerce. The benefit of this study will help online shopping businesses to strategize the development of designed platforms for consumers' needs.

Battling for Consumer's Positive Purchase Intention: A Comparative Study Between Two Psychological Techniques to Achieve Success and Sustainability for Digital Entrepreneurships.

This research focuses on students' online purchase intentions in Pakistan toward different products available for sale on numerous e-business websites. This study's main objective is to determine which methodology is better to enhance customer online purchase intention. It also aims to discover how to improve perceived benefits and lower perceived risks associated with any available online product and entrepreneurship. AMOS 24 has been used to deal with the mediation in study design with bootstrap methodology. The study was conducted on 250 students from different educational institutes in Pakistan using a simple random sampling technique. A finding of this study suggests that both methods positively impact online purchase intention of consumers and sustainable digital economy. But social media advertisement is more effective through enhancing the perceived benefits of products. In contrast, product content factors are more effective at lowering the perceived risks associated with available online products.

The Impact of Social Crowding on Consumers' Online Mobile Shopping: Evidence from Behavior and ERPs.

PURPOSE: Social crowding refers to the extent of social presence and proximity to others. A large number of studies have explored the effect of social crowding on consumers' feelings and behaviours in real shopping scenes, whereas few studies have examined the potential marketing effect of social crowding on online mobile consumption behaviour despite mobile commerce's increasing popularity in recent years. The current intends to explore the effect of social crowding on online mobile purchase and its underlying neural basis. METHODS: The current study employed a questionnaire survey and an implicit panic buying experiment, in which the participants were asked to press the button as soon as possible to buy the showed product. A 2-level social crowding (low vs high) × 2-level feedback of panic buying (success vs fail) design was employed to test the negative impact of social crowding on consumers' online mobile purchase intention by using electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings. RESULTS: Behaviorally, participants showed higher purchase intention in low social crowding environment compared with the high crowding condition. The event-related potentials (ERPs) results indicated that consumers had a higher affective/motivational evaluation (reflected in a smaller feedback-related negativity (FRN) amplitude) regarding the successful rather than the failing feedback in the low social crowding condition. However, this difference was not detected in the high social crowding condition. Meanwhile, more attentional resources (reflected in a greater P300 amplitude) were directed toward processing the feedback outcomes in the low rather than the high social crowding condition. CONCLUSION: The current study provided neurophysiological response that social crowding negatively influences consumers' online purchase intention. Some implications for theory and practice were also discussed.

Synergistic Effect Between Online Broadcast Media and Interactive Media on Purchase Intention.

It is becoming increasingly important for marketers to use online broadcast media and interactive media simultaneously. In this paper, three studies were conducted to explain the mechanism inherent in a synergistic effect. We ran Study 1 to test the synergistic effect of online broadcast media and interactive media on purchase behavior. We conducted Study 2 (synergistic vs. non-synergistic groups) to test the differences between the groups. Study 2 was a 2 (interference vs. no interference terms) × 2 (synergistic vs. non-synergistic groups) experiment to test whether the interaction between online broadcast media and interactive media is a necessary condition for the synergistic effect. Finally, Study 3 was conducted to test the difference in the level of information processing between online broadcast media and interactive media as a necessary condition for the synergistic effect. We designed a 2 (questioning vs. not questioning) × 2 (synergistic vs. non-synergistic groups) experiment to examine the difference between the groups. The results show that online broadcast media and interactive media have a synergistic effect on consumer purchase intention and memory. Study 1 shows that participants in the synergistic group had a higher purchase intention than participants in the non-synergistic group. Study 2 revealed a significant cognition interaction effect on product memory between online broadcast media and interactive media. Finally, in Study 3, the difference in the information processing level between broadcast media and interactive media had a significant synergistic effect on product memory.

Purchase intention and purchase behavior online: A cross-cultural approach.

This article aims to explore the key factors on e-commerce adoption from elements of social psychology, such as attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, ease of use and perceived usefulness, introducing the study of non-traditional elements like buying impulse, compatibility, and self-efficacy in online stores, contrasting relationships in a cross-cultural environment. The proposed model is tested from quantitative research with a sample of 584 online consumers in Colombia and Spain. The following statistical analyses were conducted: CFA, structural equations, measurement instrument invariance, and multi-group analysis with EQS 6.3 software. The study reveals that self-efficacy in online stores is a key factor in adopting electronic commerce above the cultures studied. Also, there is significant evidence that proves the moderating effect of national culture on several relationships of the model proposed. Results highlight the importance of national culture to understand impulsive buying behavior. The article presents several considerations toward the main elements to generate online purchase intention among consumers in an emerging country and finds substantial differences with consumers in a developed country. Practical implications are made for companies to adopt online channels and expand internationally.

Online Purchase Intention of Fruits: Antecedents in an Integrated Model Based on Technology Acceptance Model and Perceived Risk Theory.

Over recent years, online purchase platforms of fruits are increasingly emerged to advance the e-commerce development and improve quality of human life. Unfortunately, we empirically observed that a lot of enterprises selling fruits online have suffered from bankruptcy due to a lot of complicated factors, such as inefficient logistics, low acceptance of online platforms, and financial risks. One of the root causes responsible for such an unanticipated phenomenon is related to the purchase intention, which motivates us to investigate what are the dominant factors affecting the online purchase intention of fruits. The results can be of great significance to the development of fruit e-commerce enterprises in online marketing. Based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and perceived risk theory (PRT), this research developed an integrated theoretical model to explore the influential factors underlying consumers' intention to purchase fruits online. A web-based survey of 344 consumers with ages below 30 was used to test the hypotheses in our theoretical model. Through sample collection with questionnaires, a structural equation model is developed to compute the coupling relationship between influential factors and purchase intention. The results reveal that fruit quality and price are dominantly affecting the willingness of consumers to purchase fruit. Surprisingly, we found that e-commerce platforms, information quality, and perceived risk are less significant. Finally, some specific suggestions are recommended for fruit e-commerce enterprises in devising effective marketing strategies.

Suicidal asphyxiation by carbon monoxide within a polythene bag.

Suicide by inhalation of carbon monoxide is not uncommon and usually involves car exhausts or burning charcoal or defective boilers. We report a case of a 25-year-old man, who committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide gas inside a polythene bag in a bathroom. The open carbon monoxide cylinder found inside the polythene bag was purchased online by the deceased a few days earlier. He had stated that the gas would be used for his experiment on the environment. A suicide note recovered from his trouser pocket revealed his intention for a painless death.