Has Covid-19 permanently changed online purchasing behavior?

This study examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected online purchasing behavior using data from a major online shopping platform in Japan. We focus on the effect of two measures of the pandemic, i.e., the number of positive COVID-19 cases and state declarations of emergency to mitigate the pandemic. We find that both measures promoted online purchases at the beginning of the pandemic, but in later periods, their effect faded. In addition, online purchases returned to normal after states of emergency ended, and the overall time trend in online purchases excluding the effects of the two measures was stable during the first two years of the pandemic. These results suggest that the effect of the pandemic on online purchasing behavior is temporary and will not persist after the pandemic.