Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed Customer Behavior Regarding E-commerce? A Virtual Optical Store Case Study Based on Kano Methodology

The context of the four pandemic years has produced major changes in both customer and business behaviour. Companies have thus begun to adapt their way of running businesses, entering the virtual market, becoming a necessity. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all areas of activity, especially that of optical stores. The pandemic has also brought changes among consumers, not just businesses. They increasingly prefer to purchase products or services through online stores. Online commerce provides them with access to a much wider variety of products and services than in physical stores. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the functionalities of a platform, more precisely of a virtual optic store, which offers customers the same experience as in physical stores, at home. In this direction, 12 platform functionalities were developed, including two that are less commonly found on profile e-shops, namely, virtual eye exam and virtual try-on. The two functionalities mentioned previously, along with the others, will be analyzed using the Kano methodology, and then customer requirements will be translated into design attributes and analyzed based on the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) tool. Based on these analyses, the most important quality attributes that participants consider relevant in their interaction with a virtual optical store will be determined.