WILLINGNESS TO USE E-COMMERCE DURING CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IN SAUDI ARABIA

The traditional retail market has been declining in recent years, while e-retailing has grown at an accelerated rate during the COVID-19 pandemic's lockdown era. The main purpose of the research is to look at the effect of the coronavirus outbreak on the shifting trends of electronic commerce (e-commerce) in Saudi Arabia. The authors investigate the impacts of factors derived by COVID-19 had on the e-commerce market. One hundred sixty individuals operating in e-commerce in the private sector in Saudi Arabia completed a self-administered questionnaire, including demographic information and three sections of five scale questions that meet the study's objectives. Most participants were males (66.2%), 56.2 % were aged between 30 and 40 years old, 38.75% had 5-10 years of experience in the private sector, 40.6% worked in companies with more than 500 employees, and 43.0% of them from lives in Riyadh. The weighted average of the 1st section is 3.19 +/- 0.75, indicating that the trend of the establishment of whether lack of alternatives has a positive implication on the intent of using e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic is "Neutral". The weighted average of the 2nd section is 3.43 +/- 1.17, which indicates the trend of determining whether the perceived ease of use has a positive implication on the adoption intent of consumers using e-commerce during a COVID-19 outbreak is "Agree". The weighted average of the 3rd section is 3.29 +/- 0.90, which indicates the trend of exploring the underlying factors that leads to losses for many businesses during the crisis is "Neutral". Furthermore, the highest percentage of participants (56.2%) mentioned that their company was not prepared for another lockdown. The research results could be useful for further analysis of different domains of the e commerce market that developed during the pandemic. They could be utilized for examining opinions about e commerce and whether the public wanted to switch from offline to online mode of marketing.