A 35-Year Bibliometric Study on Online Shopping Trends and Developments Around the COVID-19 Pandemic

The rise of online shopping has significantly altered consumer behaviour and the retail landscape. With the increasing integration of digital platforms into retail, understanding the evolving dynamics of online shopping has become significantly more important. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift in consumer habits, underscoring the need to analyse how online shopping trends and research have evolved over different time periods. This study aims to provide an insight into the field of online shopping studies in the periods before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 2,260 sources worldwide, it aims to map the development of online shopping literature, identify important articles, and examine critical areas of research in these different time periods. With an emphasis on the pandemic context, this study uses Bibliophagy, a tool developed from the Bibliometric package in R, to visualise and comprehend data from the Scopus database from 1987 to 2022. The study recognises certain changes in the consumers’ behaviour and research activities during the pandemic and provides several landmark publications and main streams of research. This overview provides a broad perspective on the topic, discusses various aspects, and identifies current and future trends in online shopping research. Furthermore, the study presents the application of its findings for policy makers and business practitioners pertaining to trust building, strategy optimization and management of sustainable growth of e-commerce. When making these changes, the study also enhance the clarity regarding the importance of the study and its contributions to the field.