How Shopping was Transformed from Offline to Online Space - A Case Study within the Slovak Republic

Abstract

The prognosis and determination of consumer behavior is not an easy process. As part of the development of consumer behavior as the last member of the B2C market in the distribution channel, one can observe the gradual decline of brick-and-mortar stores and the rise of online shopping for several decades, especially the enormous growth of online shopping over the last two years caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it should be noted that many retailers offer their products simultaneously in brick-and-mortar stores and also through the e-shop. The main purpose of the article is to determine the dependence of spent funds on the basis of individual criteria. The primary data were obtained by conducting a questionnaire survey, in which we determined the amount of spent funds for traditional and online retail shopping. Data were analyzed using the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, followed by an analysis of the dependencies of the variables using the Kruskal-Wallis’s test and one-way ANOVA. The results show that, apart from gender, the other factors examined do not affect the amount of spent money. Due to the absence of published academic literature and empirical findings concerning the behavior of retail trade format selection in the Slovak market, this study may serve as a starting point for future studies in this area of interest. The survey is also relevant for retailers in terms of format development and reorientation of marketing strategies.