Track: Graduate Student Paper Competition

Abstract

 This paper studies how online shopping and e-commerce in general were affected during COVID-19 pandemic in three countries which are China, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Also, the paper will compare between the data in 2019 as a pre-pandemic situation and in 2020 as the peak incidence of COVID-19. This is approached by collecting data from several websites and articles by Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus. The data on how online shopping was affected due to COVID-19 pandemic was collected from 28 international databases and online resources using Google Scholar website to write the literature review. The paper will utilize two main software for data visualizations method and data analytics which are Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Power BI. Microsoft Power BI was selected as a data visualization tool since it helps to collaborate in intuitive ways and has ability to produce a variety of visualizations in different types such as bar-graph and pie-charts which are simple and clear. As a result of COVID-19, online sales in China, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom have increased. In China, it increased from $1,232.6 to $1,414.3 billion, while in the United States increased from $598.0 to $791.7 billion, and in the United Kingdom increased from $89.0 to $130.6. In addition, e-commerce has increased in the three countries. In China, the e-commerce increased to $2297.0 billion, in the United States increased to $795.0 billion, and in the United Kingdom increased to $180.0 billion.

Biographies

Maryam Mohdsaeed Abdulla is a Qatari engineer. She is a chemical engineer by degree and a petroleum engineer by profession. While studying at Texas A&M University, she was sponsored by Maersk Oil where she got her summer internship. During the internship and rotating in different departments, the love of leadership had spiked. She graduated from Texas A&M University in chemical engineering in 2016 with a GPA of 3.42, while having a plan of leadership career at the back of her mind. Right after graduating, she worked at Occidental Petroleum at a petroleum engineer for three years. After that, she moved to work for QatarEnergy, where she got recognized for being a hard worker, and hence received awards. Her two top projects at QatarEnergy are reinjecting flared gas into the reservoir and a campaign of acid stimulation in sandstone reservoir. Currently, she is pursuing her graduate studies as Engineering Management Masters Student in the college of engineering at Qatar University. This degree will help her in shifting from the technical career to the managerial path, where she aims to be a leader in the oil and gas industry. Outside the working environment, she is enthusiastic in physical fitness, traveling, reading, and learning new languages.

Zahra Al-Ansari is a graduate student at Qatar University in the discipline of Engineering Management. She has chosen to pursue this degree specifically since it involves two fields which are engineering and management. This choice was done to further broaden her perspective in the engineering sector as well as the management sector by gaining more knowledge in both fields simultaneously. She has received her undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University at Qatar in Electrical Engineering. Al-Ansari likes learning new concepts and ideas that help her expand her knowledge no matter what the type of knowledge is. She is very curious and likes to be faced with tough challenges. She aspires to become a future leader and manage an onset of people in order to accomplish some of the achievements that she believes are going to positively reflect on her country, Qatar. She is currently working in the Heavy Maintenance department as a Production Planning Engineer in the multiple award-winning airline, which is Qatar Airways. Her job requires an employee to have and nourish skills which are heavily related to the degree that she is pursuing which include: planning, scheduling, conducting meetings with multiple stakeholders, managing and directing a large number of people to complete the projects that are carried successfully and in a timely manner. By acquiring this degree all of the skills that she desires to master are going to be greatly enhanced as the focus of the program that she has enrolled in is on these specific skills.

Reem Baraka grew up in Qatar where she completed all her education. She speaks two languages which are Arabic and English. Additionally, she is learning Turkish and French. She successfully graduated high school in 2014, and the grade she got allowed her to get accepted in her desired major which was chemical engineering at Qatar University. While she was taking her undergraduate courses, she learned various technical skills that are relevant to experimental lab tasks, problem-solving skills based on engineering methodology, and used many engineering software such as Aspen Tech and MATLAB. She graduated as a chemical engineer in 2020. While she was working on her senior project, she discovered that she has an interest in solving technical problems and project optimization, which made her decide to apply for the Master's Degree in Engineering management. She started this program in 2021 at Qatar University and expecting to obtain her degree in the first half of 2023. Although she didn’t obtain the degree yet, she has learned many new concepts and software that combine her prior knowledge of chemical engineering alongside the new skills in business and management techniques. She will complete her learning journey by getting a Ph.D. abroad in the same field. Because she is passionate about learning and researching, she aims to become an instructor at Qatar University. Her number one task once she becomes an instructor is to teach student that studying is a continuous process which doesn't end at a certain age.

Fatima Al-Muslamani is an engineer from Qatar. She has been studying in Qatar University since 2014. She got her bachelor degree from Architectural program. What she is interested in the most, is that architecture gives the opportunity to learn and be creative. The main reason of choosing to study Masters in Engineering Management is to think outside the box and to change the traditionally building designs to more modern and organic ones. On the other hand, she likes the construction side of the buildings. Architects usually assigned as project managers, as the team depends on them on how the overall construction process will go, sometimes they are the ones who need to be in contact with civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers. This is what she is aspiring it. Moreover, to achieve this goal, she is studying masters in Engineering Management at Qatar University as well. After Graduating, she is welling to be an engineering manager and works in a government to know more about the opportunities and challenges in this sector. Also, to obtain sufficient experience that qualifies her to designs and constructs the buildings herself, to establish an office for construction. Furthermore, perusing graduate degree will help in advancing the development of the state of Qatar.