Does COVID-19 promote self-service usage among modern shoppers? An exploration of pandemic-driven behavioural changes in self-collection users

• Main Authors: Wang, Xueqin, Wong, Yiik Diew, Yuen, Kum Fai
• Other Authors: Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences and Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Social sciences::Sociology; Self-service; Last-mile Logistics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152928
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Due to health concerns related to COVID-19, shoppers have learned to minimise social contact by adopting various contactless self-service technologies to fulfil their consumption needs. This study explores shoppers' behavioural changes in relation to self-service, using the special research context of e-commerce self-collection services. By synthesising insights from the health psychology literature, this study proposes an affective-cognitive-social perspective to explain the pandemic-driven behavioural changes of self-collection users. The survey instrument is used for online data collection (n = 500), and a combined (descriptive and quantitative) method is adopted for data analysis. Our results suggest that, although with a relatively weak predictive power, the affective and cognitive appraisals of health risks lead to the reinforced usage of self-collection service. This also applies to the factors of action/coping planning and subjective norm. This study theoretically contributes to the self-service literature and creates managerial implications for retailers and logistics operators.