PurposeThis study aims to reveal consumers' internal and external motivations to prefer online food shopping. The paper proposes an integrated model including aspirations, capabilities, subjective norms (divided into online resources and offline resources), perceived value and traditionalism to examine their effects on consumers' intention to do online food shopping.Design/methodology/approachA cross–sectional design was used to understand which factors affect consumers' intention to do online food shopping. The data were collected from a total of 400 people via an online survey. The conceptual model was tested using structural equational modeling to understand the relationships between the factors.FindingsThe results suggest that the conceptual framework can be used to have a better understanding of consumers' internal and external motivations to do online food shopping. The study proves that aspirations have a considerable direct effect on and a mediating role between capabilities, subjective norms from online resources, traditionalism and the effect of COVID-19 pandemics and the intention. Also, traditionalism was found to be an antecedent for consumers to prefer online food shopping.Practical implicationsThis study reveals better insights for the sellers, marketers and system providers dealing with supplying food products through online channels. The findings suggest that the stakeholders take into consideration aspirations, capabilities, subjective norms, perceived value and traditionalism to organize their activities in food marketing in the online area.Originality/valueIn this study, aspirations–capabilities framework was adopted and confirmed within consumers' online food shopping domain. Also, it was proved that traditionalism was a driver of individuals' intention to do online shopping for food products.