A behavioral study on the factors influencing selection of restaurants online during COVID-19 using multivariate statistical analysis

Abstract

In e-commerce landscapes, online food ordering and delivery service is emerging as the fastest growing industry. Indian food delivery market size is expected to reach 7.5 to 8 billion US dollars in 2023. With the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, many dine-in restaurants are closed and online food ordering is affected enormously. This study is aimed to capture the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on customers who order food online and analyze the various factors that influence the selection of restaurants online. The role of demographic variables of the respondents on the influencing factors, mode of payment, satisfaction, number of orders, and the most ordered meal is also studied. A self-administered questionnaire is used in this study to collect responses from 403 customers with a past experience of ordering food online. Two major factors emphasising on product and service are obtained as an outcome from Exploratory Factor Analysis that explains 67.72% of the total variance of choosing a restaurant online. Further, the measurement model fit is validated through Structural Equation Modeling. From the validated model, the product factor includes taste, price, discount and offer, the quantity of food, hygiene, and brand name. The service factor includes novelty, location of the restaurant, variety, packaging, nutrition, and promptness of delivery. Due to COVID-19, there is a 70.9% drop in the average frequency of ordering food online during the study period. Among the genders, men place higher food orders per month than women. Dinner is the most ordered meal and breakfast is the least ordered meal among all age categories. Taste is the most influencing factor that influences the customer in selecting a restaurant online, followed by hygiene, the quantity of food, discount and offers.

Analysing customers' reviews and ratings for online food deliveries: A text mining approach

“…Improving delivery ratings will help service providers in increasing customer satisfaction and motivating them to order food in the near future and beyond the pandemic. Considering the present COVID-19 pandemic scenario, food delivery segments must meet consumer expectations in terms of hygiene, safety, taste and delivery time of food products (Mehrolia et al, 2021;Shanmugam et al, 2021). Findings from this study can be extrapolated to other In summary, the main takeaways from this study are as follows:…”

“…The online reviews play an important role when customers plan to purchase an online product or service (Ludwig et al, 2013). The trend of customer ratings and reviews has exceptionally accelerated the phenomenon of information sharing, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic (Alalwan, 2020;Ganapathi & Abu-Shanab, 2020;Shanmugam et al, 2021). The delivery subthemes of hygiene and pricing demonstrated lower delivery ratings.…”

Confirming the Factors that Influence Customer Satisfaction of Fast Food Restaurants

“…A comparative study between fast food and non-fast food restaurants is also encouraged to determine the factors that differentiate these two types of restaurants. Furthermore, the antecedents of behavioural intention to use online food delivery services should also be explored further [30][31][32].…”