Coronavirus has seen e-commerce sales skyrocket. Across the globe, as physical stores close and people deal with different levels of lockdown, consumers have turned to e-commerce in droves. In the UK, e-commerce sales were up 22% year on year, according to IMRG, with other markets experiencing similar growth.
The lockdown and the move towards working from home saw the following categories benefit the most from online sales:
– Groceries, food and drink
– Home and garden
– IT equipment for working from home
– Fitness equipment for home
However, given the economic concerns that surround Covid 19, consumers have dramatically reduced their spending on non-essential items, with clothing and jewellery sales down; for example, during the Italian lockdown, online sales of Italian fashion dropped 40% year on year.
Adjusting to Coronavirus
Here are some of the approaches that different brands have taken to adjust to the new e-commerce environment:
1. Using the lockdown to implement technologies to strengthen e-commerce. Companies like Alibaba and JD.com used lockdown time in China to accelerate the rollout of smart technologies, including drone delivery and driverless cars, which would enhance ecommerce.
2. Introducing restrictions to control the surge in demand for essentials. Tesco placed limits on all online orders to 80 items or fewer, while Carrefour controlled how many people could shop on its websites at one time by installing a virtual queuing system.
3. Increasing warehouse capacity. Amazon took this approach by hiring an additional 100,000 workers, limiting warehouse intake to medical supplies and household staples and postponing Prime Day from July to August.
4. Providing box sets of essentials. Aldi moved to online sales for the first time to provide £24.99 boxes containing essential items, such as food staples, hand wash and toilet paper for vulnerable and isolating customers. Other retailers, including Morrisons and Marks & Spencer have also taken this approach.
Now what?
As Luca Montaldo of CEO Consult points out, when the current Coronavirus crisis is over, we will not return to the “before” but will be operating in a new e-commerce environment shaped by both consumer behaviour and the operational needs experienced during Coronavirus. Prior to Covid 19, Italy and Spain had the lowest proportion of e-commerce sales in Europe—Italy with 4% and Spain with 5% of total retail revenues online (Centre for Retail Research). Other countries had a higher proportion of online revenue, with France at 10%, the UK 20% and China 36%. However, no matter what the rate of online sales was pre-Covid 19, it has clearly increased substantially, particularly with online groceries. While online shopping may possibly slow down sometime in the future, it is unlikely to ever go back to pre-crisis rates.
While different brands have adjusted in different ways to optimise their profits in the new Coronavirus e-commerce environment, all e-retailers can benefit by understanding exactly where their product fits in this new environment. Once this is clear, product content can be optimised to ensure it is discoverable by consumers ready to buy. Now is the time to clarify your brand and increase brand awareness by ensuring your SEO is as good as it can be.
