The relationship between printed book orders, complaints and purchasing behavior of e-commerce customers pre and post covid-19 pandemic periods

E-commerce has been shaping shopping in all business activities with the indispensible power of the internet. Online shopping has become a dominant channel particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, and has highly affected sales in all goods, including book sales. This study aims to explore how book sales through e-commerce have changed in the pre and post pandemic periods by using socio-economic parameters. The data set covers 800.000 sales of a reputable e-commerce site in the 39 provinces of Istanbul in 2019 and 2020. We also consider customer complaint for the same period. We employ Microsoft Excel and Power BI to analyze the data. The provinces of Istanbul were grouped into three socio-economic categories by using cluster analysis method. The behavior changes of customers were examined based on these groups and age and gender groups. The findings show that a significant part of book customers who shop from e-commerce are from the upper socio-economic group. Y generation customers and women have significantly higher shares in e-commerce shopping. The results also reveal that women who have problems in shopping have lower brand loyalty. Another finding is that sales and complaints through e-commerce have increased during the pandemic period. During the post pandemic period, sales in e-commerce has slowed down with the increase in the share of traditional merchandising. The results provide valuable insights to booksellers, and e-commerce companies in restructuring their strategies for the future. Public authorities may also use the results to implement policies in encouraging people from different socio-economic groups to read more books. Keywords: Book sales; Covid-19; Customer relationship; E-commerce; Pandemic.