Determinants of Online Shopping Behavior

This paper investigates two areas of e-commerce adoption. First, we study how the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy measures shaped online grocery shopping adoption in Switzerland. Second, we analyze the role of close family ties in accelerating e-commerce diffusion. Using a comprehensive dataset of householdlevel transactions at the nation’s largest retailer matched to administrative registers, we document a substantial increase in online expenditures. This shift is heterogeneous: younger and larger households, as well as those with limited local store access, are particularly responsive. Moreover, using a stringency index, we find that stricter mitigation policies intensify online usage. We also highlight strong intergenerational peer effects: within multi-generational families, when one generation adopts online shopping, the other is one to two times more likely to adopt as well. Our findings highlight both the policy sensitivity of digital market penetration and the social dynamics that accelerate technology diffusion in retail.