While the world is trying to cope up with the pain of COVID-19 with no one to spare, in fact even people who are not affected healthwise find that their way of living has changed. We all know that professionals, workers across every industry are going through changes that were never thought of, be it the loss of employment, reduced working hours, or work from home.
No one ever imagined they would have to lock themselves up in their homes, no businesses open, shops closed. People just praying to get over with it.
How eCommerce Kept Small Businesses Afloat During the Pandemic
If you own a business by any chance, it becomes very important to have an effective crisis management strategy moving forward. We all are aware that large businesses are bleeding money and the small ones are just trying to survive through this pandemic.
Many many small businesses started earning revenues even better than their previous business model by selling groceries, healthcare items like sanitizers, soaps, disinfectants, and cleaning supplies, others started routing the online way. Yes, eCommerce has played a pivotal role in keeping small businesses afloat during this unprecedented crisis.
- Even if they are in an area with is witnessing a state-mandated lockdown, business owners are changing the ways of doing business, it has become all the more important to work using digital tools and engage the customer base that is currently staying at home.
- While in large companies the management is managing their teams online to guide and monitor the projects, for example, the software industry or the ITES sector completely follows the works-from-home model.
- Interestingly vendor selling groceries is today listing all the products on their website created during the pandemic and taking orders online, making deliveries to the doorstep.
Examples of Brick and Mortar Business going the eCommerce way.
- Restaurants and dinners while closing the doors to walk-in customers, partnered online home delivery apps.
- Bookshops moved from physically selling books to home delivery through apps, e-books, and even audiobooks. They host virtual events with authors online to engage their customer base.
- People fearing the spread of the pandemic through contact have moved to online payment options from cash or card. Globally the online payment apps have seen a surge by almost 26%.
- Many projects on organic farming have seen a new direction with businesses, optioning to provide fresh and organic food through online channels.
- Facemasks that we saw doctors wearing when we visited the hospitals, who thought it can bring life to new businesses. Today all sorts of creative, witty, and stylish facemasks are being sold online. Don’t mistake their suppliers to be the ones who supply to the health industry. While they are still there, these masks that are sold online come from new small businesses made possible through eCommerce
Some interesting facts about eCommerce during the Pandemic.
- Retails sales globally dipped by 7%, however, online purchases of cloaths went up by 77%
- The online revenue for eCommerce is up by almost 23%
- Homemade item sold through eCommerce has seen sales spiking at almost 146%
- Overall eCommerce sales have grown by almost 18%
- Online payments through the app industry is supposed to grow up to 1 billion users worldwide by the end of 2020.
The reason this being the Perfect Time to go the eCommerce Way:
This is the right time to learn the much-needed eCommerce skills, which will essentially help you sustain and grow your business, knowing the fact that allowing customers to visit you physically is out of the question, you need to reach out to your customers.
Digitally, having a digital footprint now is not just beneficial to keep your money inflow steady but in the long run the scope to increase your customer base is huge. If you have never been into selling online, this can be your long-term blessing that can open up new avenues in the future.
- If you are already selling through an eCommerce platform, you can utilize this time to outdo your current revenues as everyone is sitting at their homes and as discussed above, online shopping is booming currently.
- People are available online either working from home or surfing the internet, it is the correct time to capitalize on the consumer sentiment who now think of buying online rather than venturing out.
- A study done on customer sentiment analysis suggests, consumers today understand the pain small businesses are going through and are in favor of buying from them provided they have the online footprint.