Did Covid-19 influence adoption of e-commerce among elderly citizens The role of social presence, self-efficacy and trust

The 2020 lockdown amidst the Covid-19 pandemic has so far been the biggest lockdown in recorded world history. During this phase many of the elderly citizens had reduced their frequency of visiting marketplaces and some of them had shifted their buying behaviour from offline marketplaces to online apps with the intention of minimising the risk of getting infected. Although this has been supported by literature there are many studies that state lack of trust to be the primary reason for avoiding online shopping. This study has focused on the influence of social presence and Internet self-efficacy of elderly citizens in building trust with the apps. We have also empirically shown that trust acts as a mediator the relationships between social presence and purchase intention and between self-efficacy and purchase intention amongst elderly citizens.