The Coronavirus covid-19 breakout has been terrible and perhaps the driving even in about a decade. The solitary impact it has had on the personal lives of people and the losses experienced are beyond measurement. It has set us all in introspection that besides everything mankind has ever achieved, lies a fact, that we are only but humans.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought economies around the world to a standstill and multiple economic breakdowns have been observed with their GDPs spiraling downwards every day. But, despite these negatives, one industry that has stayed afloat and also sustained the impacts of Covid-19 is the eCommerce industry.
Not only has it acted as a straw for the drowning man to brands and retailers, but it has also helped people around the world to keep receiving the essentials and commodities in a hassle-free manner.
In this article, we try to analyze the ways in which Coronavirus has changed the face of shopping on the whole, including the brick and mortar stores and online sales.
What unfolded in the eCommerce industry since Covid-19
If you study the online shopping behavior of customers over the past few years, there has already been quite a significant crowd diverted already who would prefer shopping online as opposed to shopping in stores. Yet, it was definitely not as huge that retail sales would be impacted in physical stores.
This is the story before March 2020 when the Coronavirus had just made its way into most countries and was in its infancy stage atleast in the Asia-Pacific region. It wasn’t up to April 2020 that it was realized how worse it was going to hit as it was panned global.
By the time June 2020 arrived, the virus was in full throttle locking people down for days and months together who were scared for their lives and would only leave the house for essential commodities.
Social distancing, wearing a mask all the time, using sanitizers has become the “new normal” as most would define it. Words like quarantine that would seem fairly difficult for a kid to remember are spoken easily. There is no denying the fact that the effect of this pandemic is a long-term one.
But, what is more important is that it has made way for businesses to adopt new ways to conduct their operations and opened doors full and wide for online transactions. Except for the production and manufacturing units in businesses, most have managed to work remotely and contribute their bit to keep the wheels of the economy running.
Now that it is established the eCommerce industry has endured the situation and is perhaps the only industry expected to shine and rise, we try to delve into what’s going on in it.
The Dynamics of the eCommerce Industry as Coronavirus Fades
It might be a little too soon to announce anything regarding the complete extinguishing of the Covid-19 virus. But, from the look of it either it will fade away or our science might make a way to the creation of a Coronavirus vaccine.
Well, either way, the importance of eCommerce websites and online shopping is definitely expected to rise. Year over year, the consumers’ spending via eCommerce websites has spiked. Even during a global pandemic, it did not hit rock bottom. There was only a pause, but no stop observed in the area.
As soon as everything resumed, eCommerce websites had in fact even more workload with the massive amount of orders they had to fulfill as a huge, dramatic shift was observed of consumers from physical stores to the online stores.
In the following segment, we evaluate and enlist the various product categories that went up or down due to Covid-19 impact based on the orders received by some major eCommerce websites.
Product-wise Consumer Behavior:
| Trending Upwards | Trending downwards |
| Arts and Entertainment | Car Rentals |
| Online food delivery (Groceries, Beverages) | Luggage and Bags |
| Business and Industrial (Hardware and Software equipment: work from home), Consumer electronics | Tourism & Hospitality |
| Animal and Pet Supplies | Ceremonial Commodities |
| Pharmacy, Health, and Beauty | Luxury |
| Clothes, Apparel, and Accessories | |
| Gardening & DIY | |
| Stationery |
While this is the average behavior of what occurred in various parts of the world, it is definitely subjected to differ in various geography depending on the impact or intensity of Coronavirus in the particular country/geography.
What the Future awaits for eCommerce Websites?
Well, the parting note on the topic of the future of eCommerce websites is that it is exceptionally bright. All things seem good and for stakeholders and business men looking to make an entry online, now is the time for you to shine.
Consumers planning to make online shopping as their primary course of action are asserted. Therefore, if you do not have an online presence, it will likely cause you more harm than you can comprehend. As there are already giants like Amazon and Flipkart in the market, they have reaped the benefits of the situation by obviously providing good services to their customers.
So, get ready to embrace the new normal and invest in a well-designed, functional, and interactive eCommerce website for your business.
Narola Infotech is an experienced Shopify eCommerce development company In USA, India. We expertise and have 14+ years of experience in website development.