Post by Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics

How did the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated policy measures affect Swiss e-commerce? To answer this question, Frédéric Kluser and Maximilian v. Ehrlich employ data on 22 million household consumption baskets recorded through the loyalty program of a major retailer (Migros) in 2019 and 2020. This allows them to study online grocery shopping adoption in great detail. The authors find that younger, larger, and richer households, as well as those with worse access to physical retailers, were more active e-commerce users. Additionally, online shopping activity boomed when lockdown measures were more stringent. Finally, the authors report important peer effects: individuals’ online shopping activity is significantly affected by shopping habits of neighbours and close family members. Physical social networks also shape the transmission of activity online. Want to learn more? The published paper is fully open-access: https://lnkd.in/dVYTSPCU Marius Brülhart Daniel Kaufmann Aline Bütikofer Conny Wunsch Stefan Buehler