'Smart Shopping' with 'Webrooming': Consumer Shopping Behaviour in 'New Normal'

Smart consumers do thoughtful shopping practices by actively searching information relating to products/services with the intention of saving time, money and effort during their purchase process. The tremendous growth in information technology followed by lockdowns in Covid 19 accelerated the use of digital platforms in shopping and this has catapulted consumers' power over the market and modified traditional smart shopping habits. At the same time, after the economic and social paralyse caused by the pandemic, people started to show their inherent urge to go outside for physical shopping. In this backdrop this research is an attempt to know and measure the influence of various factors that are contributing to the consumers' online search for information and corporal visit at the shops for purchasing, known as webrooming behaviour. This research also shed light on the extent to which web roomers believe that webrooming behaviour in the 'new-normal' is impacting their perception about smart shopping. As per the research, webrooming experiences engender the feeling of savings in time, effort, money, utility and empower to do the right purchase. Again, the webrooming behaviour echoed a significant favourable impact on the smart shopping perceptions of consumers. Likewise, it was able to prove that webrooming behaviour in the new normal stimulates smart shopping perception. Above all, irrespective of the demographic variables under study, consumers' smart shopping perception get influenced by their webrooming behaviour. Therefore, in this new normal scenario, retailers must develop efficient strategies that include updated websites and enticing store environments to combat the webrooming behaviour of smart customers.