E-Commerce During COVID in Spain: One “Click” Does Not Fit All

The share of e-commerce in total credit-card spending boomed during Covid in Spain.In particular, women, youth, and urban consumers used e-commerce proportionally more during the pandemic, especially for services.Using a unique proprietary dataset on credit card transactions, we test conjectures about consumers' behavior (based on fear, hoarding, or learning) during Covid.Overall, e-commerce share reverted to its pre-Covid trend as the pandemic waned.However, some consumers with lower pre-Covid ecommerce usage tend to permanently use more e-commerce, supporting the conjecture of "learning by locking" for these individuals.