The media and consumer research groups have been keeping the Millennials in spotlight for many years now; perhaps it is time to turn some of the attention on Gen Z, which began its foray into mainstream consumption. This exploratory study examines the shopping orientation of Gen Z online shoppers using the generational cohort theory (GCT) as a framework and provides insights to e-retailers to understand how this generation approaches the online shopping. The penetration of Internet and accelerated growth of online shopping have enthused the e-retailers to offer a wide range of goods at greater efficiency than the traditional players. By cluster analysis (K-means) of nine online shopping orientation factors (two were eliminated prior due to low factor loading scores), four segments were identified: (a) ‘Economic-quality seekers’, (b) ‘Convenience shoppers’, (c) ‘Deal hunting-convenience seekers’ and (d) ‘Brand and quality conscious shoppers’, and the study profiled each segment based on the demographic data through chi-square analysis. Finally, implications for online retailers and marketing practitioners are enumerated towards the end of the article.

PurposeYoung consumers are recognized as an important and lucrative segment for the businesses across the globe. While initial steps have been taken to understand them, majority of the existing works consider both Millennials and Generation Z as a single and homogeneous market segment. The purpose of this study is to explore the consumer decision-making styles which are prevalent among Indian Millennials and Generation Z e-shoppers, and how significantly they differ from one another on each of those decision-making attributes.Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory study used the generational cohort theory (GCT) as a framework. The psychographic statements (Questionnaire items) employed were adopted from several past researches on store orientation and catalog orientation, and they were rephrased to suit to the context of Indian online shopping. The principal components factor analysis with promax rotation has been used to unearth the underlying decision-styles among 503 survey participants. Subsequently, the ANOVA model was run to examine the mean differences between the cohorts.FindingsThe factor analysis has revealed that frugality (Price), convenience (Home) and social desirableness are the most dominant shopping orientations (decision-styles) that prevail among Indian (Millennials and Generation Z) online shoppers though in varying degrees. The probing of ANOVA results suggested that, though both the cohorts favor e-shopping, Generation Z are more enthusiastic about online shopping than their Millennial counterparts do.Practical implicationsThough Generation Z and Millennials share few characteristics between them, they exhibit different consumer behaviors. Marketers need to customize their value offerings and marketing communications that resonate well with each generational cohort.Originality/valueAlmost all the existing research works that have been conducted so far on generational cohorts are from Western and European countries and one could confidently say that those findings cannot be applied for the developing nations such as India which is a complex and diverse country in terms of its language, custom, religion and practices with troublesome pasts. Moreover, this is the first empirical work to be conducted to unearth the generational differences that exist between Generation Z and Millennials to the best of authors' knowledge.

The year 2020 will go down in world history as a time of great struggle. The Covid-19 pandemic has put a screeching halt to economic activities and movement of people across the globe. The difficulties associated with detecting and isolating asymptotic carriers, who are otherwise unaware that they are infected, undoubtedly facilitate the spread of virus in manifold. This article focuses on the speculations the pandemic caused on the future of globalization. The current movements, which were triggered by Covid-19, have given legitimate reasons to mistrust globalization. Many countries around the globe began to realize their over-dependence on other countries and struggle to meet their local customer needs now. Many are emphasizing the grave dangers associated with over-dependence on global value chains especially those controlled by China, leading to criticizing globalization. And the national leaders too followed suit to propagate protectionism and self-reliance. Globalization has given way to recent frustrations and concerns which cannot be quietened by reminding the benefits it brought. And crying for de-globalization is also not going to solve the issues the humanity faces. Isolation is a strategy that works only to stop the spread of a pandemic, but collectivism can help in counter and emerge from it stronger. The 2001 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan had rightly said once that ‘arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity’. Collective actions of the countries only can meet global challenges such as climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation and cyber-attacks. No single nation on its own can make itself secure and self-reliant. Nobody can predict the next crisis. But the most reliable and efficient insurance by far is to build strong international exchange cooperation to safeguard the humanity.

The aim of this study is to consolidate the state of mobile commerce consumer research from 2001 to 2022. Based on a systematic literature review employing a bibliometric technique, this study not only reports the significant contributions of authors and their affiliations but also discusses the evolution of m-commerce research over the last two decades. Examination of annual production trends revealed that publications were on the rise all along; the year 2022 clocked the highest number of publications (53 documents), which further reinforces that the research on this domain is in its blooming season. China is the most contributing country in terms of the number of publications and citations received, followed by the USA. The author Keng-Boon Ooi has been the most productive researcher; his studies continue to be the foundation on which m-commerce consumer research continues to thrive. The analysis of scientific mapping revealed that, although many studies were carried out on mobile commerce adoption intention, the focus of the researchers lately shifted towards studying continuous use intention (since 2018). Further, it was observed that the base theory, the Technology Acceptance Model, which has been widely used for determining antecedents of technology adoption intention, is losing its significance and is being overtly replaced by the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. While the topics “trust, loyalty, satisfaction, mobile banking, UTAUT, continuance intention, perceived enjoyment, and COVID-19” were identified as mother (engine) themes, the keywords “privacy, self-efficacy, social influence, TAM, attitude, and intention to use” became diminishing themes. The following topics have been identified as emerging themes: “Mobile social commerce, Mobile payment, Mobile marketing, Omnichannel, Fintech, and Live streaming commerce”. This study provides useful insights to potential researchers.

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