How Sales Methods and Platforms Affect Elderly Online Shopping: The Patterns and Causes

With the rapid development of the Internet, online shopping has become the mainstream shopping method for youngsters, but that is not the case for the elderly, a demographic group that takes up a considerable ratio of our whole population. This research integrates a questionnaire survey and one-on-one interviews as qualitative methodology and regression analysis, descriptive analysis, and inferential analysis as quantitative methodology using the statistical analysis software STATA to analyze the extent of sales methods effect on the elderlys shopping decisions, the popularity of different online shopping platforms, and the influential factors of elderly online shopping. The researcher found that, comprehensively, among all sales platforms researched, the most used platforms by the elderly are successively Taobao, Jingdong, TikTok, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili. Among all sales methods researched, the effectiveness of them on elderly online shopping from high to low is sequentially sales promotion, online advertising, public relations, and site promotion.