E-COMMERCE AMIDST COVID-19 OR HOW COVID-19 HAS CHANGED THE E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY

 News on CNBC stated that E-tailing platforms have seen a 15-20 percent hike in gross merchandise value in the first 15 days of March compared to February, and a massive 50 percent growth in GMV in categories such as grocery and other essential goods

E-commerce is a platform for buying and selling goods, products or services through internet, many companies are using e-commerce to reach the customers worldwide and increase their sale

Though the industry was popular in India, there were still majority that considered traditional buying and selling over e-commerce till the pandemic occurred. COVID-19 is a novel infectious disease that is spread primarily through contact with an infected person (when they cough or sneeze) or when a person touches a surface that has the virus on it, it has been declared as a pandemic as most of the Asian countries are highly affected and many lives have ended due to COVID-19, as the situation of lockdown all over the world occurred e-commerce experienced changes.

Advantages of E-commerce

• It helps sellers and buyers to meet at one place and exchange goods and services irrespective of the city, state or country they belong.
• The customer gets a wide range of choices and price of products than can get in market places.
• The company chained with ecommerce has benefit of earning more profit as the cost of various middlemen is cut to minimum.
• The exchange is hassle free and simple, the goods are delivered at home and the customer can pay through internet without any hard cash involvement.
• There is no time limit as the websites are open 24*7 and a customer can easily place order, whenever and wherever he wants.

Disadvantages of E-commerce

• The cost of starting an e-commerce website is high and time taking.
• The risk of failure is high in the earlier stages and only the ones who are strong enough to stand in these stages grow later, many companies have miserably failed and earned huge loss.
• The security of the customer details is also a big disadvantage, despite of many security and anti-theft techniques there is still a high risk of security breach that the customers are open to, like debit card or credit card theft, identity theft and so on.
• E-commerce lacks human interaction for customers, especially who prefer face-to-face connection with the seller.

Examples of E-commerce :

• Amazon
• Flipkart
• Netflix
• Paytm
• Quikr
• OLX

The situation due to COVID 19 is rapidly changing. The amount of people finding safe to gather in a single place has reduced from thousands, to hundred, to ten. Restaurants, movie theaters and gyms in many cities are shutting down. Meanwhile many office workers are facing new challenges of working from home. In this crucial stage people have finally understood the need of up gradation of not only working but also of buying and selling, in simple words up gradation of living, which in return is having huge effect on the modern market as well as on the traditional market.

As the cities are going under lockdown, non- essential businesses are being ordered to shut temporarily and customers are generally avoiding public places. Brands are adapting and are getting flexible to meet changing needs.

Positive effects of COVID-19 on E-commerce

• As work-from-home and social distancing became imperative because of the coronavirus, people world over, are taking to E-commerce sites to buy their regular supplies. People are scared to go out and buy things as the disease can spread through touch, they are comfortable buying through internet as it has minimal human contact.

• In March 2020, global retail websites showed traffic of 14.3 billion visits, signifying a high growth of e-commerce during the lockdown of 2020. Studies show that in the US, as many as 29% of surveyed shoppers state that they will never go back to traditional shopping again and in the UK, 43% of consumers state that they expect to keep on shopping the same way even after the lockdown gets over.

• Sudden increase in the demand of e-commerce industry has been noted as the people are taking security over traditional and experience buying.

• Earlier only essential goods were available by the industry as per government restrictions but now even the entertainment , electronic, luxury and other goods are available in the websites.

• A huge strike of subscription of various telecom and entertainment facilities can be seen in the past few months, like Netflix, Amazon prime etc.

• As the government imposed temporary shut to non-essentials goods retail shops, people were forced to buy goods online.

• The ecommerce sites was visited not only by the regular customers but also by the new ones as well, For example most customers might never have used E-commerce sites to buy hand sanitizers and gloves but because of the shortage of hand sanitizers and gloves in physical retail stores now, many were forced to order the same from online sites.

• The sale of essentials goods increased to a very high level in the early days of pandemic as people started panic buying and even the offline shops went out of stock which forced people to buy essentials goods online.

• Not only the buyers staying at home even the sellers are now attracted to sell online, Example - Berger paints is launching its website in which people can visualize the colors and designs on their walls and order online, no hardcopy of prospectus and loads of books to search, all the designs just a click away .

• Even the small retailers like kiranas are taking up ecommerce to sell directly to the nearby societies as people are requested to stay at home and the sale of non-essentials goods is suffering a downfall.

• The easy and safest way to increase sell of all category goods without breaking rules set by the government is ecommerce, and that is what is increasing its demand in the country in this pandemic time.

• People are searching for job opportunities as well, as many are losing job, ecommerce is helping the employer and job seeker to connect through various platforms like freelancer.com, quikr jobs, fivver and many more.

• People are likely at very low risk of spread of coronavirus from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures by the E-commerce sites, that is also a reason of trust for many buyers.

Adverse effects of Covid-19 on E-commerce

• Huge Companies are battered by the closure of factories and the stoppage of production by the continuous extension of lockdown, that can be reason that the consumer sentiment is turning pessimistic
• Production and supply of goods have taken downfall by the fear of a spread of coronavirus. Distribution channels are busy in supplying the essentials goods and the governments have restricted movements, the geographical range for all products are restricted to Red, Orange and Green zone differently. Hotspot regions with the highest number of positive cases and with a high risk of the disease were categorized as Red zones, which were also the most posh areas and the metro cities which demanded the non essential goods the highest, if been a normal scenario.
• Coronavirus as totally got consumers mind, they are only involved in its update, news that it hardly has time for anything else. In this time of crisis, people are more focused on survival and are taking more care of their family.
• The highly contagious nature of the disease has filled fear in the hearts of people. They are avoiding meeting other people, and are also avoiding coming into contact with any outside objects that may carry the infection into their family. Online deliveries come in contact with many hands and the fear that the chain may itself be infected has adversely affected. This is one of the major reasons why people are ordering only essential goods.
• Consumers are focused on getting the essentials items, which has dramatically brought down the demand for other products; most of the people have started giving priorities only to necessities.

Conclusion

Millions of online customers are changing their way of buying at the same time to opt for more time saving and convenient puts a considerable strain on e-commerce and online retailers today. How they choose to react in the upcoming time will define the future of e-commerce.

Many are choosing to remove the friction that stands in the way of turning occasional customers into the most loyal customers, and they are starting with securing online identities and protecting accounts from theft control. Once state by state lockdown orders are lifted, e-commerce sales may stabilize at a lower growth rate than they are today. Yet, the behavioral changes are already in motion to completely change the retailing landscape and commerce overall for the upcoming years.