The Popularity of Online Shopping is increasing during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Online Study in Khulna City of Bangladesh

The growing trend of online shopping has taken over the popularity of traditional shopping among its consumers In recent decade. In the world of digitization it has eased the difficulties of retailing and paved a modern approach to trade online. In this paper, we aim to investigate the reason of the increase of popularity of online shopping among the consumers of a selected region, especially during this pandemic period. The present study has been conducted among the consumers of Khulna City. Convenience sampling method has been used to select the sample. The primary data was collected from 111 respondents by means of a self-constructed questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using Excel and SPSS software. There are many reasons for increasing of online sales. However, due to time and resource constraints, this paper considers some influential factors such as Facebook, website design, reviews and Covid-19. 72.1% of respondents would like to start up an online shopping service because they can run that with their study, job or other businesses. Almost 97.3% respondents think that online business is the demand of time because it is less risky and they can stay home through this. Of these, 63.1% respondents have increased online shopping than before and 13.5% have been involved in online shopping for the very first time by the influence of Covid-19. This study has been conducted by online which may not be generalized. It is an established fact that online shopping has become crucial for every business hub. But the pandemic has accelerated the shift towards a more digital world and triggered changes in online shopping behaviors that are likely to have lasting effects