Online consumer behaviour: Opportunities and challenges for the elderly

Abstract

Humans are living longer than ever before, and people above 65 are the fastest growing age group in the world. However, while technological progress, the proliferation of the internet and business innovation – among other factors – have inspired other age groups to increasingly adopt e-commerce, this has not been the case for elderly people, particularly those in Russia. This paper is a literature review examining the existing literature on the challenges elderly people face in buying and selling goods and services online. It connects existing data on the consumption patterns in Russia with the leading theories on consumer behaviour, and narrows it down to contemporary research on the elderly. Among other factors, this paper found that Russian elderly consumers and small entrepreneurs continue to prefer brick-and-mortar companies to e-commerce. Difficulty with verifying a product’s quality, problems with navigating complex websites, a fear of making financial transactions online, and a fear of receiving counterfeit products are some of the main factors contributing to this. Furthermore, this paper also found that companies currently fail to target elderly customers compared to other market segments, thereby failing to make their online platforms responsive to the specific needs of the elderly. However, there remains a significant gap in existing literature on the consumer behaviour of elderly people in e-commerce. And research specific to Russian elderly entrepreneurs remains limited. Moreover, leading theories on consumer behaviour are also less relevant to elderly consumers in a digital age. This presents additional opportunities for further research. The current COVID-19 pandemic which has disproportionately affected older people has placed a greater urgency on this research. Therefore, the outcome will be relevant to policy makers and political leaders worried about reducing the fatality rate of the pandemic while boosting economic growth, and for businesses trying to innovate web-platforms to increase turnover. It will also be a crucial contribution to the existing literature on elderly consumer and entrepreneurial behaviour.