Innovations in the Management of E-Commerce Entities Operating on the Slovak Market – Analysis of Customer Interactions during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This paper deals with the issue of innovation in e-commerce, specifically with the application of innovative methods of evaluating customer interactions in the environment of the virtual social network Facebook. The first part presents the results of desk research on the issue of the utilization of virtual social media Facebook in e-commerce in order to approach the knowledge base of the analysed issues. The aim of the second part of the study presented in the paper was to describe and evaluate the activities of customer groups of the five largest e-commerce entities operating in the Slovak virtual market. The data needed for the analysis were collected during the state of emergency declared in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. From the point of view of findings, the initial trends in the customers interactions were declining online activity over the weekend and an increase in online activity at the beginning of the working week. In general, it can be stated that data were analysed in a highly non-standard market situation. With respect to the social media e-communication of selected e-commerce entities, it was possible to outline specific patterns of consumer behaviour. As a result, it was possible to create a qualitative knowledge base for further research into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on national and international economies, for both economics and management sciences.

Innovations in the Management of E-Commerce: Analysis of Customer Interactions during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…At this point, we come directly to the essence of our research efforts over the last fifteen months [10][11][12]43]. We perceive the optimization of processes related to the effective timing of marketing activities of business entities in the context of our research into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on e-consumer behavior as key, as the constraints related to the attempts to slow down the pandemic in 2020 (in the form of sudden closure of economies) have caused significant changes in traditional patterns of consumer behavior.…”

“…As already mentioned in the introduction, these questions were partially addressed in previous studies [10][11][12]43], and certain limitations were identified that need to be removed. Seasonality and geographical specificity are the determinants that need to be considered when creating an empirical model of the pandemic effects on e-consumer behavior.…”

“…The dominant part of interactions shifted to the working day, where different markets showed changes predominantly in the order of more active days within the working week. To confront the initial findings with the feedback from the academic community, the results were presented to the professional public through presentations at international scientific conferences [10,11].…”

“…A considerable part of our research efforts focused on the description of the fundamental parameters of changes and circumstances during the previous fifteen months. From the point of view of scientific research, we focused on the studies by [10][11][12] on the development of an empirical knowledge base for the description of basic changes in the consumer behavior of Central Europeans.…”