With a turnover of USD 2 billion in 2021, Hungary is the 53rd largest e-commerce market, ahead of Kenya and behind Qatar. The Hungarian e-commerce market grew by 23 percent in 2021, contributing to a global growth rate of 29 percent. E-commerce sales are continuing to rise. Between 2010 and 2021, Hungary’s share of online shoppers increased considerably (Fekete-Farkas et al. 2021). By 2021, over 71% of consumers would have done their shopping online. By 2025, the number of e-commerce users in Hungary is predicted to increase by 9% to 6 million (Statista 2022). Emag.hu is the largest player in the Hungarian e-commerce market. In 2021, the store brought in USD 253 million in revenue. Alza.hu has a revenue of USD 114 million, whereas tesco.hu has a revenue of USD 106 million. The top three stores in Hungary collectively account for 25% of all online income. As people purchase things using their mobile phones, smartphone apps have become a significant platform for them (Bruwer et al. 2021). According to similarweb.com, the top food and drink apps in Hungary in 2021 were Foodpanda, Wolt, Cookpad, McDonald’s, and BURGER KING. There were some forecasts for the internet retail market in Iran for the years 2022–2025. By the end of 2022, e-commerce revenue is predicted to exceed USD 16,058 million. According to a Shoponlina.com analysis, revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of 28.86 percent from 2022 to 2025, resulting in a market volume of USD 34,361 million by 2025.

In recent years, Iran has seen an increasing trend in the sphere of e-commerce. Iran has the second-largest online purchasing sector among the top ten emerging economies, according to a UNCTAD assessment from 2019. According to the survey, Iran is ranked 42nd out of 152 nations in terms of e-commerce, up seven places from the previous year. Furthermore, according to recent reports from the Iranian Electronic Payments Corporation (Shaparak), electronic financial transactions in the country totaled nearly USD 23 billion in 2022, up roughly 25% from 2021 figures. More than 87 percent of these transactions included Iranian consumers purchasing products and services directly. Furthermore, according to a survey by the International Telecommunication Union, the number of smartphone users in Iran has increased dramatically in recent years. The most recent figure for 2020 is 127.62 million members, an increase of 8% over 2019. Iran is currently rated 12th out of 144 nations in this category. Fidilo, Snappfood, Jimomarket, Digikala, Delino are the top e-commerce businesses in Iran.

The most popular online food or grocery applications in Iran are Mrtaster, Rayhoon, and Chilivery. Because people are becoming more reliant on mobile technology, retailers and manufacturers must grasp the function of mobile devices in purchasing as well as consumer attitudes toward app adoption in the retail setting (Llorens and Hernández 2021). Several grocery stores have attempted to obtain a competitive advantage through online grocery retailing by attracting customers eager to buy food online (Kureshi and Thomas 2019). Customers can use retailer apps to acquire product information, compare products, buy, share information on social networks, redeem coupons, and locate stores, among other things (Flacandji and Vlad 2022). Customers enjoy some of these apps more than others. Retailers are investing a tremendous amount of money into mobile shopping to capitalize on its growing popularity (Bruwer et al. 2021). Several grocery stores have attempted to obtain a competitive advantage through online grocery retailing by attracting clients who were willing to purchase groceries online. From a business standpoint, online media offers various advantages as a distribution channel, including better accessibility, greater ease, and time savings (Kureshi and Thomas 2019).

A review of past studies shows that several researchers have investigated the factors influencing the acceptance of online apps by consumers in online grocery retailing (de Magalhães 2021; Fagerstrøm et al. 2020; Driediger and Bhatiasevi 2019; Hallikainen et al. 2022). Additionally, other industries (Andati et al. 2022) have been paying attention. In online retail, various apps have been provided by retail business owners in different countries, and there is fierce competition between them to gain more market share.

In today’s highly competitive environment, business managers are forced to move towards entrepreneurship and use strategies to differentiate their business models. Entrepreneurship is the process of launching a new venture or recombining the existing production model (Yi et al. 2022). In this direction, making special and user-friendly changes in grocery apps is considered one of the entrepreneurial and necessary actions. Therefore, businesses should focus on the most popular grocery apps in different countries and examine their unique features. Based on past studies, many variables can affect consumers’ acceptance and willingness to use grocery apps. However, it is obvious that the most important factors affecting the choice of consumers have a higher priority, and these factors can be identified in the most popular grocery apps.

Recent breakthroughs in the field of IS, as well as the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies, have opened up new possibilities for electronic commerce (Maia et al. 2018). Online shopping is getting more popular, with sales increasing year after year (Dharmesti et al. 2019; Horst et al. 2021). People have begun to shop more online, a tendency that began before the pandemic and has subsequently accelerated (Baarsma and Groenewegen 2021; Ebrahimi et al. 2021a). More consumers are turning to e-commerce to meet their grocery needs as a result of the pandemic, and this trend is projected to continue beyond the pandemic (Altay et al. 2022). From exposure to attitude to purchase intention, mobile grocery shopping behavior is a consumer’s decision-making process (Kim 2021). In past research, the behavior of online consumers in accepting and using mobile applications has been investigated. For example, Pandey et al. (2021) emphasized the importance of convenience, aggressive discounts, app service quality, fulfillment, and multiple payment options. They have been confirmed as key factors in the adoption of food delivery apps. Additionally, the results of the research of Tandon et al. (2021) have shown that the attitude of consumers directly affects the desire to buy through food delivery apps. Andati et al. (2022) has also introduced farmers’ entrepreneurial orientation as a factor with different effects on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) adoption. Additionally, they showed that other important factors in the adoption of CSA are gender, land size, trust in extension officers, household income, and farm characteristics. Hsu and Tang (2020) have also examined the key factors affecting mobile app stickiness.

Consumer behavior in online grocery buying has been studied in the past. The research in (Bruwer et al. 2021) analyzed the important aspects that influence grocery shopping adoption. Similarly, (Sreeram et al. 2017) employed an integrated model to investigate online grocery purchase intent and (Segovia et al. 2021) explored if the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic affected customer preferences for grocery shopping. According to the findings of (Kim 2021), South Korean consumers have positive sentiments toward mobile grocery shopping and other people’s opinions may affect their decision to utilize the services. The research in (Chakraborty 2019) investigated Indian shoppers’ attitudes toward grocery shopping apps, finding that attitude, perceived behavioral control, perceived usefulness, and perceived simplicity of use all have a positive and significant impact on intention. Subjective norms, on the other hand, do not affect intention. Additionally, (Chakraborty et al. 2022) looked at the underlying elements that influence a consumer’s behavioral intention (BI) to use and accept grocery apps and (Singh et al. 2021) analyzed the antecedents of customer happiness and patronage intentions in the setting of e-grocery retailing via mobile applications.

The results of research that is handled by Fagerstrøm et al. (2020), showed that Internet of Things (IoT) services such as updated expiry date, aggregated national customer experience index, and personalized offers based on the product in the basket are among the important factors that increase the likelihood of purchasing in retail and increases grocery shopping. Meanwgile, Hallikainen et al. (2022) also emphasized the importance of personalized price promotions as an effective online marketing tool to facilitate consumer decision-making in online retail. Driediger and Bhatiasevi (2019) in Thailand have also shown that the factors of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, intention to use, subjective norm, and perceived enjoyment have a significant effect on the acceptance of online grocery shopping. Furthermore, de Magalhães (2021) has also examined the importance of factors that influence the final consumer’s decision in online grocery shopping.

Likewise, Rinaldi et al. (2022) also showed that online delivery services can increase the availability and promotion of many unhealthy products. The review of the literature shows that past research has investigated the factors affecting the behavior of online consumers in the field of online apps in the retail industry as well as other industries, but there has been few past studies on the identification and comparison of the most popular online apps, especially grocery apps, which are of interest.

In this research, the existing research gap has been considered by examining the most popular grocery apps in the two countries of Iran and Hungary.

Modifications in technology, and hence consumer habits, have increased online purchasing (Garcia et al. 2020). In growing regions, social media marketing, startups, and various web tools are increasingly important (Bouzari et al. 2021). In the midst of the new normal brought on by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), mobile grocery shopping apps have become a lifeline for many consumers who have chosen to shop safer (Bruwer et al. 2021). Due to imposed social distancing norms and limits on physical movement, online food, and grocery applications, as well as local grocery businesses, were sought (Menon et al. 2022). Grocery delivery services provide clients with immediate delivery of groceries and other commodities via an app that allows users to order and pay for things using secure payment methods from the comfort of their own homes (Altay et al. 2022).

The rise of e-commerce (based on new media and online platforms) and, in particular, the introduction of online stores by traditional brick-and-mortar merchants (i.e., omnichannel retailing) has been one of the most disruptive advances in the area of marketing in recent decades (Ilyuk 2018; Khajeheian and Ebrahimi 2021). Because of their capacity to create a unique and satisfying user experience and help marketers win the war on the small-screen share, mobile applications are quickly becoming the most powerful digital marketing tools (Mondal and Chakrabarti 2021). Online grocery shopping, often known as online grocery shopping, is a type of e-commerce that allows private individuals and corporations to purchase groceries and other household necessities from a variety of firms (Driediger and Bhatiasevi 2019). The term “mobile grocery shopping applications” refers to a system of mobile applications (Al Amin et al. 2022).

Grocery apps, with their simple registration process, product listings, rapid shopping lists, real-time order tracking, and a variety of filters, meet the needs of customers, ensuring a pleasant shopping experience (Chakraborty et al. 2022). Customers can order a variety of grocery items and have them delivered to their homes (Al Amin et al. 2022). Consumer views in the context of e-grocery retailing using mobile applications have been studied previously (Chakraborty 2019; Kim 2021).

Two of the most widely utilized AI approaches are machine learning and deep learning. These models are used by individuals, organizations, and government agencies to anticipate and learn from data (Ebrahimi et al. 2022b, 2022d; Pallathadka et al. 2021) Virtual assistance solutions are powered by machine learning, which combines numerous deep learning models to give appropriate context and analyze spoken speech. We can now live happier, healthier, and more productive lives thanks to machine learning (Jagtap et al. 2022).

Data are often consumed and processed by machine learning algorithms to learn relevant patterns about individuals, corporate processes, transactions, events, etc. (Sarker 2021). E-commerce companies began to plan to develop intelligent customer care teams and to achieve the effect of customer service and user communication by using machine learning algorithms to replicate people’s thinking. The popularity of deep learning technology has accelerated the development of intelligent customer support teams in e-commerce (Zhou 2020). In e-commerce enterprises, machine learning (ML) is critical for fraud detection, prevention, and mitigation. Microsoft, LinkedIn, and eBay are well-known examples (Tax et al. 2021).