Effects Of Covid-19 On E-commerce
“Does Covid act as a Game Changer in E-commerce Business”
Ecommerce helps the business by reducing its cost and also allows young entrepreneurs to set up their start-ups with a minimum amount of capital and relatively lesser investment. In short, E-commerce lowers the upfront costs.
In 2019, a sudden change occurred when the world’s economy faced the infectious pandemic of coronavirus (COVID-19) that impacted the E-Commerce business too.
When the international economy again started to grow after this infectious pandemic, this e-commerce market has played a great role in it. Statistical data shows that worldwide online sales are expected to grow to $4.8 trillion by 2021. Customers are less willing to purchase through physical markets, and therefore, they are looking forward to the E-commerce market for better and reliable opportunities.
However, Covid-19 impacted different industries in various ways such as the grocery and subscription services business was enhanced. Cosmetics and beauty products were also sold on a large scale through the online platform, Health and safety products sales were also increased during the pandemic period, according to Nielsen health products like hand sanitizers and medical masks sales were increased by 300%. According to OECD Non-Retailers and grocery, sales were increased by 16%.
Various Online Sellers faced a decrease in sales
Not all E-commerce businesses were boosted during the covid some of them were affected negatively and decelerated, as the entire world was under lockdown which results in difficulties in delivering and shipping the goods. Sales of luxury brands and goods faced a downfall in sales, Fashion and Apparel sales also decreased during the lockdown period. Research by OECD shows that Food services and retail sales in 2020 were decreased 7.7% as compared to the same time frame in 2019.
Since selling online due to the pandemic was a new experience for many retailers and the change was hard to digest, therefore they faced several hurdles and obstacles in the selling process. The retailers also faced tough competition through E-commerce sales as E-commerce is highly competitive.
Obstacles Customer Faces through E-commerce purchase
For the customers, besides being convenient E-commerce also causes some difficulties such as its impossible to place orders during a site crash, customers can’t try or experience the actual product before buying, delivering and the shipment process can be lengthy or delayed.
However, it’s not that easy to work online as it seems, since online platforms can be threatening for those businesses whose primary focus is to keep their private information secret. When you are operating online, you and your business are exposed to the online crimes happening globally. Moreover, providing your clients a safe and secure platform to trade and make online payments is crucial as well. No customer would be willing to make payments through online websites until and unless the server is protected enough from hackers and internet thefts. These secure servers might be too costly for a new start-up which have planned to grow with minimum investment.
Conclusion
Concluding, Besides all this Covid also enhanced the E-commerce business and created new possibilities for the customers as well as for the retailers. As far as the cons are considered so they can be resolved by making many effective systems, such as the websites should be reliable and should be highly encrypted, Delivering process should be improved by making it much faster and earlier, High-quality images and detailed product description should be uploaded on the sites for better customer satisfaction.
-By AbdulAhad Dawoodi
References
https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/covid-19-ecommerce/
http://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/e-commerce-in-the-time-of-covid-19-3a2b78e8/
