How COVID Positively Impacted E-Commerce and Driven People Online
24th Mar, 2021
Considering the last two decades, the COVID-19 pandemic has been the biggest event ever, the impacts of which, can be felt across all major and minor industries in the world. We are all familiar with how things fell apart due to the setback COVID-19 caused to the supply-demand chain. But there’s one industry that did not feel the burn - eCommerce. Even if it did, the burn only made it stronger. Let’s check some numbers here.
- The YoY revenue for U.S. online retailers was up by 68% in the month of April back in 2020. The same was 49% in January that year.
- A staggering 146% growth was witnessed across all online retail orders and a 129% YoY growth in eCommerce (U.S. and Canada combined).
- The conversion rates were on fire with a whopping increase of 8.8%, the kind of rate you generally observe during Cyber Mondays and other sales.
But how did COVID-19 manage to do that? How did it manage business owners to take their business online? How did it drive the consumers to the internet? In this post, we are going to discuss exactly that. So, let’s get started.
Stay-At-Home Orders and eCommerce’s Magic
We are going to put it straight: stay-at-home orders were torturous. You could not go about your life like you used to. Limitations and restrictions drove our lives and made the pandemic intensely painful. But, at the same time, it saved millions of lives.
People were stuck in their homes but had to keep things moving to survive. The demand for groceries, clothing, and entertainment never really dropped down. It’s just that there was no supply left. To meet their needs, people had to change their consumer behaviour and replace physical stores with online stores.
The fear of getting sick too brought them online. A study conducted by Morning Consult reported that 24% of the consumers don’t find it comfortable to shop outside. All this created an ideal market condition for eCommerce to prosper. People were drawn towards online websites, mobile applications, and a relatively fast shopping experience.
Frictionless Online Shopping and Improved User Experience
And eCommerce businesses did not leave a stone unturned when it came to getting their new customers hooked. They eliminated any friction their customers experienced by leveraging personalisation.
They gave the consumers the ability to customise their shopping experience and get more out of the time they spent online. eCommerce businesses came up with more content, offers, discounts, promotions, and coupled all that with tighter security. Most importantly, they handed over all the decision-making to the consumers.
COVID-19 also fueled door-to-door delivery services. Now marketed as a ‘no-contact delivery service’, it has helped eCommerce businesses hit the ground running with their ideas. Today, when it has been over a year since the pandemic struck, eCommerce businesses are still working on improving customer experience with the help of technologies like AI and machine learning. eCommerce business is truly in its prime - don’t let anyone make you think otherwise.
Want to Take Your eCommerce Store to Next Level?
The eCommerce business model is growing rapidly, and this is the best time to get into it. If you happen to have an eCommerce store that you want to improve or want to build a new one, we can help you in ways that will increase your chances of generating higher revenue. Want to jump on the eCommerce bandwagon? Connect with us today!