C HAPTER -1
I NTRODUCTION
Introduction
Online shopping is one of the fastest-growing marketplaces in Bangladesh. But during the covid- 19, when other sectors are stable, only online shopping has gained a greater positive response. Thus, for online shopping, customers’ behavior is influenced by various factors including fare price, product quality, and durability, trust & security, etc. The study aims to identify the factors that influence the customers’ online shopping behavior during the Covid- 19 in Bangladesh under the effect of control variables. The results indicate that of the eight dimensions, features and quality, fair price, performance and durability, trust and reliability, security, E-service quality, ease of use, and time are positively and significantly affect customers' online buying behavior during the Covid-19 in Bangladesh. Concerning the influence of these factors on customers, the study finds that features and quality, performance and durability, trust and reliability, e-service quality, ease of use and time factors influence the customers’ online buying behavior during the pandemic in Bangladesh. Online shopping companies must focus on these factors to get a higher response from people in Bangladesh.
Research Methodology
This paper is primarily based on a survey that investigated the different aspects of COVID-19 impact on Facebook based outlets businesses and policy responses. It focused on 84 Facebook shop pages countries in Bangladesh In addition, the list of Facebook based outlets stakeholders from previous Readies was also used. Companies selling at least part of their goods and services online. Where relevant these two types of businesses responded to separate sets of questions, tailored to the specific type of business. The questionnaire was tested early November 2021 by a selected group of representatives of the target groups.
Based on their feedback, the questionnaire was revised before dissemination started in early.
In parallel, Focal Points were asked through a short questionnaire to inform about government measures related to Facebook based outlets for COVID-19 crisis recovery plans.
Objective of the study
To determine is Facebook based outlets business profit increased or decreased
To determine is Facebook based outlets assets increased or decreased
To determine is Facebook based outlets financial position increased or decreased
Significant of the study
Social media platforms like Facebook have quickly become more popular as well more utilized by private users and business organizations. Consumer marketing and brand
management on the other hand are connected with much more complexibility in this global, quickly growing technology-world. Besides that, both topics are connected more and more together. Facebook marketing is one of these so called “hot topics” and the interests for researchers regarding this field have never been bigger before.
Hypothesis
Assuming a null hypothesis that is following:
H0: There is no impact on Facebook based outlets during covid-19 pandemic.
C HAPTER -2
L ITERATURE R EVIEW
In today’s 21th century, technologies are becoming a much bigger importance. In people'severyday life lots of things are controlled with the help of technologies (Alalwan, Rana,Algharabat and Tarhini, 2016).
Information and data transfer is processed faster and smartphones, laptops or tablets replace telephones, computers or books (Zhu and Chen,2015). According to this development social media became a big importance in the last 10 years. Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are taking an essential part of our lives and they are adopted by the majority of the society (Alalwan et. al., 2016).Furthermore people have never been using social media that much than today. The overall mindset towards social media is mostly positive and people are enjoying it. Social media users are sharing their thoughts, spreading facts, liking posts and create their own virtual user account (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins and Wirtz, 2013).
Worldwide there are more than 1.5 million brand pages and the number is still growing every day (Jeanjean, 2012). Every second social media user is following a brand (Van Belleghem, Eenhuizen and Vers, 2011). Because of these facts it is not wondering that companies and organizations using social media platforms to attract new users who can be potential customers (Luarn, Lin and Chiu, 2015). The communication effect of Facebook brand pages with a wide range of users is a chance for organisations and a big possibility to become more popular and successful. For managers of all kind of companies this is a big challenge (Vries,Gensler and Leeflang, 2012). With help of social media and technology market dynamics are changing. They can threaten competitive positions of companies and influence their sales increase. (Alalwan et. al., 2016).
Comparing with the old traditional marketing-type social media marketing can reach much more potential customers within different user channels (smartphone, laptop, and iPad). Also they have more interaction with the customer. Customers are becoming more and more a value creator and not only a receiver (Berthon, Pitt, Plangger and Shapiro, 2012). Customers with big influences attain to power to the best offer they want regarding needs and wants (Alalwanet. al., 2016).
Furthermore Facebook can strengthen relationships with customers and followers depending on the different cultures (Minton et. al., 2012).
Although there is an overall importance or need for the use of Facebook the following statistics underline that there are big cultural differences within users. For example in 2011 people in Russia (10 hours per month) used social media twice as much as people in the United States (5,2 hours). Today the numbers are much higher because of smartphone or tablets. (Minton et. al., 2012).
In the last years the numbers of rewires about the topic Facebook and marketing were still increasing. Thus it is not wondering that there are so many review articles existing. From all social media platforms Facebook is the most popular one (Meiselwitz, 2016). The following review concentrates only on Facebook and marketing. In this case Facebook is representative for social media. Due to the point that Facebook is a big field, the literature review can’t implement all things in detail.
As already mentioned above every day there are more than one billion people using Facebook (allfacebook, 2016). For firms this is a great chance to cheaply spread marketing news over the world (allfacebook, 2016).
Nowadays marketers need to take these new chances of these evolving technologies like Facebook to create engagement with the customers (Schultz andPeltier, 2013). The content of brands on Facebook rose by 35% from 2014 to 2015 but the content engagement decreased by approximately 17% over the same time (TrackMaven’s, 2016).
Today 9 of 10 US companies with more than 100 employees have a social media presence using for marketing issues. For many companies, social media is still a relatively new marketing area and there are still existing many gaps in knowledge how to handle things (Barger and Labrecque, 2013). It is not easy for them to coordinate their efforts, because it is such a fragmented medium (King et al., 2014; Straker et al., 2015).
The study below shows an analysis of the 30 biggest Facebook brand pages and their posting behavior in the first half of 2016. As it is shown the average brand on Facebook is posting approximately 1.2 times per day. Big corporations like Disney and Amazon with a Facebook-keen audience are posting more than three times as much as the average per day.
Furthermore every kind of organization, association and team can post information or display advertisements. There are not only companies with the purpose to market products or services to increase the turnover. Social or donation organizations, sport clubs, universities or at least private persons organizing parties use the opportunity of Facebook to reach a wide range of users (Rawee, 2016). Every brand page can create endless events and invite whoever they want. Often people underestimate the effect of this kind of marketing because it is free (Rawee, 2016). Private persons can sell clothes, electronic devices or event tickets.
Advertising banners on Facebook are often personalized. Everybody leaves one’s marks on the internet (Welt, 2014). Advertising firms are collecting these personal data to sell it to brands which want to advertise on Facebook. The classical way how websites identify users are so-called cookies (Welt, 2014). Small text files the websites save on the computer to recognize the user (Welt, 2014). A quite new technology to identify the user is “browserfingerprinting”(Welt, 2014). The information from both ways of identification can be merged to create a detailed profile of the
user with preferences and aversions of every kind of consumption goods.
This data is valuable for companies and is used for commercials on Facebook very often.
For firms must be considered that there are many different factors that influence the
Consumers’ attitude towards a company, brand or product. (Huang et al., 2013) For example consumers are liking more brands that are seen as
“warm”, often non-profit organizations (Bern Ritter et al., 2016). Marketers should also have in mind, that redesigned products generate more online discussion than new products and that high ratings often lead to lower ratings in the future (Feng and Papatla, 2012; Hu and Li, 2011). More reviews are made when the quality of a product is very high or very low (Chen at al., 2011).
In the beginning it is very important for Facebook users that the content on social media
Entertains them (Shao and Ross, 2015). For consumers who are already familiar with
Facebook entertainment is not that important anymore. They are following the firm or brand on Facebook for the latest information of their products.
If marketers are trying to catch their followers on Facebook, it is also related to the character of the consumer. Extraversion and openness to experiences are leading to engagement of consumers (Kabadayi and Price, 2014).
Another interesting point is that consumers share more often content with others when they got it from other consumers and not from brands itself (Chen and Berger, 2016).
The sharing of firm, brand and product content on Facebook can be seen as a mixture
Between brand-promotion and self-promotion (Smith et al., 2012).
Online shopping means electronic commerce allowing the seller to purchase goods or services directly from the Internet. Internet-based business model Click and Order replaced the traditional Brick and Mortar business model. More people use the web to shop for a range of items, from house to shoes to airplane tickets. Now customers have many opportunities to select their goods and services when shopping online.
C HAPTER -3
D ATA A NALYSIS
Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
The business age 83 1.00 3.00 1.8434 .99366
Do have business before pandemic
83 1.00 2.00 1.0843 .27958
Business online or offline 83 1.00 2.00 1.6988 .46157
sales revenue or increase decrease
83 1.00 2.00 1.2410 .43027
Do you have Own Delivery System
83 1.00 2.00 1.7831 .41462
Profit position increase or decrease during Covid-19
83 1.00 2.00 1.2410 .43027
Total Asset of the company increase
83 1.00 2.00 1.3614 .48334
Number of outlets increase or decrease
83 1.00 2.00 1.9398 .23938
The total number of worker 83 1.00 2.00 1.4940 .50300
Maintained cost increase or decrease
83 1.00 2.00 1.1928 .39687
Valid N (list wise) 83
Statistics
The business age
Do have business before
pandamic
Business online or offline
Own Delivery System
sales revunue increase decrease
N Valid 83 83 83 83 83
Missing 0 0 0 0 0
Mean 1.8434 1.0843 1.6988 1.7831 1.2410
Median 1.0000 1.0000 2.0000 2.0000 1.0000
Mode 1.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 1.00
Std. Deviation .99366 .27958 .46157 .41462 .43027
Variance .987 .078 .213 .172 .185
Sum 153.00 90.00 141.00 148.00 103.00
Profit position increase or
decrease
Total Asset of the company
increase
The total number of worker
Number of outlates increase
or decrease
Maintance cost increase or
decrease
N Valid 83 83 83 83 83
Missing 0 0 0 0 0
Mean 1.2410 1.3614 1.4940 1.9398 1.1928
Median 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 2.0000 1.0000
Mode 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00
Std. Deviation .43027 .48334 .50300 .23938 .39687
Variance .185 .234 .253 .057 .158
Sum 103.00 113.00 124.00 161.00 99.00
Frequency Table
The business age
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid 1 year –2 year 48 57.8 57.8 57.8
More than 5 years 35 42.2 42.2 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
Do have business before pandemic
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
No 7 8.4 8.4 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
Business online or offline
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid Yes 25 30.1 30.1 30.1
No 58 69.9 69.9 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
Own Delivery System
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid Yes 18 21.7 21.7 21.7
No 65 78.3 78.3 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
sales revenue increase decrease
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid Yes 63 75.9 75.9 75.9
No 20 24.1 24.1 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
Profit position increase or decrease
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid Yes 63 75.9 75.9 75.9
No 20 24.1 24.1 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
Total Asset of the company increase
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid Yes 53 63.9 63.9 63.9
No 30 36.1 36.1 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
The total number of worker
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid Yes 42 50.6 50.6 50.6
No 41 49.4 49.4 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
Number of outlates increase or decrease
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid Yes 5 6.0 6.0 6.0
No 78 94.0 94.0 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
Maintance cost increase or decrease
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid Yes 67 80.7 80.7 80.7
No 16 19.3 19.3 100.0
Total 83 100.0 100.0
Hypothesis Testing
H0: There is no impact on Facebook based outlets during covid-19 pandemic.
Chi-Square Tests
Value df
Asymptotic Significance (2-
sided)
Exact Sig. (2- sided)
Exact Sig. (1- sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 15.983a 1 .000
Continuity Correctionb 13.488 1 .000
Likelihood Ratio 14.024 1 .000
Fisher's Exact Test .000 .000
Linear-by-Linear Association 15.790 1 .000
N of Valid Cases 83
a. 1 cells (25.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 3.86.
b. Computed only for a 2x2 table
Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected.
Result:
We have chosen 100 of Facebook based outlets 83 outlets participate in our survey. 57.8% business is 1 to 2 years old and 42.2% more than 5 years old. 91.6% of the respondent business before pandemic. Only 30.1%
have business outside Facebook page. 21.7% Page has own delivery system and 78.3% use other delivery company to deliver their products.
75.9% Sales Revenue increased during covid-19 75.9% profit position increased and 63.9% total asset increased. 50.6% respondent increase their worker 6% respondent increased their outlets during corona situation. And also 80.7% reported that their maintained cost increased.
C HAPTER -4
F INDINGS
During the pandemic, online consumption habits in Bangladesh have changed significantly, with a greater proportion of internet users buying essential products, such as food and beverages, cosmetics and medicines.
Increases in online shopping during COVID-19 differ between countries, with the strongest rise noted in China and Turkey and the weakest in Switzerland and Germany, where more people were already engaging in e-commerce.
The survey found that women and people with tertiary education increased their online purchases more than others. People aged 25 to 44 reported a stronger increase compared with younger ones. In the case of Bangladesh, the increase was highest among the most vulnerable population and women.
Also, according to survey responses, small merchants in China were most equipped to sell their products online and those in Bangladesh were least prepared.
“Companies that put Facebook based outlets at the heart of their business strategies are prepared for the post-COVID-19 era. “There is an enormous opportunity for industries that are still more used to physical shopping, such as fast-moving consumer goods and pharmaceuticals.”
“In the post-COVID-19 world, the unparalleled growth of Facebook based outlets will disrupt national and international retail frameworks.
According to the survey, the most used communication platforms are WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, all owned by Facebook.
However, Zoom and Microsoft Teams have benefitted the most from increases in the use of video calling applications in workplaces.
In Bangladesh, the top communication platforms are WeChat, Ding Talk and Ten cent Conference, the survey shows. The COVID-19 crisis has affected the cost structure and the workforce size of many businesses surveyed. Approximately two thirds of all respondent businesses saw their costs increase at the same time, 80 per cent of respondents reported expanding in their workforce. Impact on business turnover and employment are likely to be severe for the majority of the surveyed businesses. The survey illustrates that challenges faced during the pandemic are deeply rooted in preexisting bottlenecks. These are situated within key policy areas which support inclusive Facebook based outlets development as identified by the trade for all initiative. The main challenges that respondents have faced are three-fold: Half the respondents refer to high broadband costs as a challenge. Even more importantly, logistics and trade facilitation are frequently cited, with more than 60 per cent having experienced disrupted supply chains due to lockdowns, business closures and closed borders. Additionally, for more than 50 per cent operations had been limited by logistical problems arising from restrictions to movement. Close to half of the respondents complained that the government did not priorities the e-commerce sector sufficiently. 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. Among the respondents, income level from10, 000 BDT to 20,000 BDT is the lowest number (18%) and income level from 61,000 BDT to 80,000 BDT is the highest number (49%) involve online purchasing. It
has been observed that to maintain social distance, people have to avoid the crowded market place and they preferred online shopping rather than offline. An important finding is also observed from the below table. It is shown that most of the respondents are habituate with online purchase regularly and occasionally. Very few, only 5 people in our survey have no buying experience from online. During Covid-19, people mostly depend on online purchasing. Their demand varies from regular time. The following table and graph explain the purchasing items from online during this situation. Most of the respondents depend on online for their food items and medical necessities. However, due to lockdown and other restrictions, the demand for ticket or hotel booking is reduced. The above picture states that before pandemic people preferred to buy travel ticket and hotel booking through online and food items purchase also highest for each situation. In the issue of the benefits of online purchases, nowadays the most important factor is social distaining. In the study, about 42%
agrees with the advantage of social distance and choose online for their shopping. In the content of online purchasing satisfaction, almost 51% are satisfied with their shopping experiences which indicates a technological upward trending to digitalization.
C HAPTER -5 C ONCLUSION
This paper has shed new light on the impact that Facebook based outlets companies and third-party online marketplaces have experienced during the pandemic. In a time of profound uncertainty, it is difficult to make predictions about the magnitude of changes that this crisis will unfold.
What can be inferred is that different levels of readiness of Facebook based outlets ecosystems and varying degrees in the implementation of reforms needed to improve the Facebook based outlets Sector will significantly influence the trajectory of the impact over the long term. The paper has also highlighted policy responses and recommended concrete actions for the way forward. It is also supporting the development of digital skills for women economic empowerment through Masterclasses led by regional eTrade for Women advocates. In addition, UNCTAD is working to sensitize and mobilize governments, private sector and development partners on the need to FastTrack implementation of the recommendations outlined in the eTrady action matrix in their respective countries. A recent review carried out by UNCTAD of 18 countries, that have benefitted from an eTrade Ready, has shown that countries are moving ahead with implementation of the recommendations of their eTrade Readiness Assessments, but still half-way to fully integrate e- commerce support efforts in different policy areas into their national development plans.38 UNCTAD is working with a wide Range of partners, including UN Resident Coordinators, to ensure that Facebook based outlets is mainstreamed into national development plans and development partners’ development cooperation frameworks. The recommendations issued in this paper further underline the urgent need to accelerate the
implementation of recommendations outlined in eTrade Readies’ action matrixes. The eTrade for all partnership can count on the commitment of 32 partners, 39 with relevant expertise and resources in the seven policy areas that holistically contribute to make Facebook based outlets development sustainable and inclusive. In view of the huge needs for action and the scarcity of resources, it is essential to work collectively and reap synergies along the priorities that developing countries and LDCs have spelled out. Smart partnerships are important in order to enable a faster and better recovery and to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis. Spreading of the internet, online payment methods, and overall ICT structure determine and drive the online business more rapidly.
At present, the penetration rate of the internet and the coverage area of Bangladesh is higher than previously. Despite the various difficulties of online shopping, the factors like price, quality, security, reliability, time- saving, energysaving, traffic ignorance, etc. are the most prime factors that lead the customers for choosing online shopping. However, Covid-19 adds the essential term ‘social distance” that diverse a large number of customers to enhance their intention on online shopping and peoplehave no alternative but online for their basic and daily requirements. A vast number of consumers now depend on online as well as the digital economy and in that sense, it turns the pandemic obstacle into an Opportunity to expose us as more digitalize. The study reveals the consumer behavior of online shoppers in Bangladesh and it helps the decision-makers and techno entrepreneurs to synchronize their existing policies and put more emphasis on preparing new policies to explore and enhance the digital trends in Bangladesh. This is surely a good sign for the industry in the long run. However, if the pandemic continues for a
Longer period, then a large number of smaller ecommerce firms will drop out of the race and that might create a major problem,” (Chief Executive Officer of AjkerDeal.com, Fahim Mashroo. 2020).
References
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Websites:
https://ecommerce-platforms.com/
https://facebook.com http://www.bbs.gov.bd/
https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/
Books:
Digital Business and E-Commerce Management By dave Chaffey Business Statistics (S.P Gupta - M.P Gupta)
Tools & Software:
Adobe Acrobat Reader (2021) Microsoft Word (2016) Microsoft Excel (2016)
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS V25)
