E-commerce marketplaces have been on the surge around the world since the mid-1990s with the launch of titans we know today like Amazon, Alibaba, e-bay and more. By extending a wide selection and absolute convenience to customers, they’ve been able to scale up through change and optimization on the go.
E-commerce has had a major influence on customers. It has already remodeled the way modern consumers shop. In America, more than 95% of people with internet access have made a purchase online at some point in their lives and 80% have made a purchase online in the past month before COVID-19 was in peak.
Nowadays more than half of the Americans now prefer to shop online rather than in-store. Millennials are the most generous demographic of online shoppers in online shopping activities.
The Impact of COVID-19 on E-commerce
The circumstances are swiftly changing. The number of people considered safe to stay in a single place has decreased tremendously. Restaurants, textile stores, theaters, and gyms in many major cities are shut. Meanwhile, many office workers are facing new technical and non-technical challenges of working remotely full time.
Typically, people are coming to terms with the facts of our interconnected world and how hard it is to briefly separate those connections to others. To say that we are living in unusual times feels like an oversimplification.
One of the answers we’ve observed to how people are approaching this period of isolation and ambiguity is in huge overnight changes to their shopping habits. From shopping from physical stores to online shopping, people are shaping what they’re buying, when, and how.
As more cities are going under lock-downs and a lot are already quarantined, nonessential markets are being ordered to close, and customers are generally withdrawing public places. Limiting shopping for all but the basic essentials is becoming a new normal. Brands are having to modify and be adaptable to meet changing requirements.
This blog is meant to provide information so that you can make the best arrangements for your brand during this COVID-19 times.
Is It Safe To Order Online During COVID-19?
As it displays more and more clear just how infectious COVID-19 is, some shoppers have asked questions about the safety of taking their online orders. Specialists are discovering that the virus can live on exteriors from three hours to up to three days, depending on the material. Though it is not yet time to conclude such studies.
Shipping conditions and delayed transitions make a tough environment for the COVID-19 virus to remain on the packages for days, so it’s not likely you’ll be endangered through the package itself.
The CDC reveals that there is likely a very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient heats. The CDC’s statement points to packages that have been in shipment for at least several days and did not come into contact with any sources of infection after packaging. The World Health Organization discusses the matter as well, by saying that it is safe to permit packages from areas with reported COVID-19 cases.
E-commerce Industry After COVID-19
While it is a single option for many retailers, e-Commerce is going through its own restrictions under the pressure of the COVID-19 crisis. And as those boundaries become apparent, some approaches to drive them are also coming forward.
The most worrying news about those limitations comes as retailers get a grasp on how and why e-Commerce orders have fastened since stores started closing when the coronavirus started to spread. Those surveys have changed, and have not drawn between basic and insignificant retail.
There is an apparent loss of brick-and-mortar outlets, due to out-of-stock consumables shipped from China. While consumers are spending on essentials supply chain issues are haunting essential retail, for both brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce businesses.
The Positive Effect On E-commerce Post COVID-19
Different sections across e-commerce are easing the anxiety people are having during this pandemic times by bringing help both virtually as well as to your doorstep. These crucial times are beginning to fore the expedited approval of online services and perhaps creating a long term behavioral change in the way people shop, utilize media, health, get taught, or generally get things executed.
More than 80% of the people who are responding ages 60 and older said they were likely to withdraw shopping centers and malls. That’s not unexpected given that COVID-19 has hit older people the hardest, but it may have an unintended result on their shopping practices.
Since older people are the ones for whom the virus has been most deadly, they may be particularly likely to change their behavior. This could anticipate more choosing e-commerce, an area where they have been ignored. They may rethink this if they feel going to crowded. Younger people are already in online shopping in the last decade. This behavioral change is going to add more customers to the e-commerce business.
E-commerce activity, particularly related to health and grocery, is booming worldwide especially in urban places. Online shoppers are also ready to convert on products that they require with longer delivery windows in order to bypass going to stores, where inventory may be limited anyway.
That’s determining to be an advantage and a challenge to digital retailers.
History shows us that these kinds of epidemics and pandemic have given birth to today’s online giants. Alibaba and JD.com, both grew tremendously through the SARS disaster in 2002 and 2003.
In order to avoid going to brick and mortar stores where there is a higher risk of infection and likely lack of inventory on the shelves, customers are moving to online retail with more extended delivery windows. All these matters are going to be an encouragement to new ventures who were waiting for the right time to start the online business.
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