With a worldwide COVID-19 Pandemic ongoing, we think it’s a perfect time to look at how it has impacted customers’ online shopping behavior and the entire eCommerce industry.
As you might have already noticed that the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly made quite an impact on the eCommerce industry for the past few weeks, especially now that strict social distancing measures have been put in place.
This has not only resulted in local stores being shut down in most countries, but it has also forced consumers to adopt online shopping as an alternative.
In fact, ever since the COVID-19 Pandemic began, eCommerce sales have seen a 52% rise, while the number of online shoppers has also increased by 8.8%.
Amazon, on the other hand, the biggest eCommerce giant also plans to hire 100,000 additional employees and increase existing workers’ pay to fulfill the surging online orders.
Our MageDelight clients have also reported an increase in sales for the essential goods while witnessing a strong decline in demand for luxury items.
Suffice it to say, the COVID-19 Pandemic, while a devastating situation for the entire world, has brought incredible opportunities for the eCommerce industry.
In this post, we’re going to discuss which products are in high demand right now and what steps eCommerce business owners can take to further bank on the new opportunities made available.
Which Products are Witnessing a Rise in Demand?
Ever since the news of COVID-19 spread like wildfire throughout the world and was officially declared a Pandemic by WHO, people immediately started panic buying and stocking up the essential products. Below, we’ve listed some of the most common products that saw a high surge in demand across the world.
Online Grocery
Let’s start with the obvious one. In the last few weeks, online grocery saw a huge spike in search queries around the globe. Since the lockdown has been imposed by the individual governments of different countries around the world, people are continuously panic buying all the essential grocery items in large quantities.
Food Delivery
Apart from grocery, there has also been an almost equal amount of surge in demand for home food delivery across the globe. With more and more people strictly following social distancing practices, food delivery services Zomato, UberEats, Deliveroo, and others are experiencing a highly-increased demand in the past few weeks.
Home Fitness Products
Since the virus is keeping everyone indoors and gyms being closed for an uncertain time period due to the lockdown situation, fitness enthusiasts are purchasing home gym equipment such as fitness trackers, exercise bikes, and other exercise equipment to stay fit during the lockdown.
Gaming Products
Staying indoors is tough for most people, especially when you don’t have any work to distract yourself. It is because of this, many people are now purchasing competitive games online to entertain themselves and fill the void left by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Home Schooling Products
Lastly, due to the coronavirus spread, all schools across the world are closed, which has encouraged many parents to purchase homeschooling products to make sure their kids can get the essential education.
As a result, the homeschooling products are experiencing a huge spike in demand since the COVID-19 declared Pandemic.
While these are just a few products, but as more and more cities keep going under lockdowns, we should expect an even higher surge in demand for necessary essentials around the world.
And in this article, we’re going to teach you how you can steer your eCommerce business during this COVID-19 Pandemic and come out strong.
How eCommerce Businesses Can Make the Most Out of COVID-19 Pandemic?
The COVID-19 Pandemic has turned the global economy upside down in just a few weeks and many industries are deeply damaged because of it.
However, eCommerce is one of the few industries that is seeing incredible growth. If you’re an eCommerce business owner, you might already be aware of it and even enjoying the high surge in demand.
But, we’re here to tell you that even though you might already be seeing an increase in your eCommerce sales, you are still losing out on a lot of opportunities. These opportunities, if you take appropriate action, can be easily grabbed.
And below, we’ve shared 5 easy strategies that you can implement in your eCommerce business right away to get the most out of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
1 – Double-Down on Organic Visibility Efforts
Organic search, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, is the best channel to attract more customers and boost your online sales.
People are searching for products online more now than they ever did before, and this is clearly a great opportunity to grab by increasing your efforts to gain more organic visibility.
Google, in fact, might also be tweaking their search algorithms to ensure people get the most possible accurate results.
Therefore, right now is the best time for you to make every possible effort to increase your organic visibility on Google to gain maximum benefits from COVID-19 Pandemic.
2 – Put in Safety Measures to Win Customers’ Trust
As more and more people are becoming aware of how infectious COVID-19 is, many of them are being concerned about the safety of receiving their online orders.
According to Medical Experts, the coronavirus can live on surfaces between 3 hours to 3 days depending on the type of material. This has raised many questions from online shoppers whether it is safe to shop for essential items online or not.
This is where you need to take strict actions and impose certain safety measures, assure your customers, and win their trust.
For starters, you can begin by letting your customers know about your new policy of reduced face-to-face interactions when your staff physically delivers their orders.
In addition, you can also put COVID-19 banners in certain places on your web store to make sure customers are aware of the new hygiene measures your business is following to ensure their safety.
Here’s an example:
Apart from this, you can also implement new contactless delivery methods to reassure your customers about not needing to worry about their safety.
3 – Look After Your Existing Customers
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many brands around the world are looking after their existing customers by offering free additional services for their loyalty.
From banks removing extra fees and online streaming services offering an extended time period on their customers’ current package to restaurants offering takeaways, more and more businesses are implementing new ways to support their customers during these difficult times.
Similar to these brands and businesses, you should also think about offering additional services in your power to look after your loyal customers.
Here are a couple of ideas you can consider:
- You can offer additional discounts or free delivery for your customers in the worst affected areas.
- You can support your customers facing financial difficulties by extending their invoice payment dates to help them manage their finances more easily during the COVID-19 Outbreak.
- You can also simply prioritize the stock of essential items for your existing and loyal customers first over the new customers who are most likely looking for single product purchases.
- If you don’t want to take such measures, you can at least allow your existing customers to see the available stock in real-time or let them check if you can deliver their order to their location using the Magento 2 Delivery Availability Checker tool on your online store.
Now, there are just a few ideas, but depending on your eCommerce business and the products you sell, you can easily come up with some of your own.
And before you move forward, make sure that you keep all your existing customers up to date about your service availability with a personalized message on your online store.
4 – Expand to New Regions & Markets
If you’re currently operating in just your home country, now is a perfect time to expand your business to new markets & regions.
In simple words, you can roll out your web store to new regions and markets to ensure that adequate revenue is coming in by reaching to new customers.
Besides this, you can also consider launching web stores to markets where you just have a physical presence, but no web presence. Doing so will allow your existing customers in such regions to continue to shop from you, especially when all your physical stores are being closed due to the lockdown.
5 – Streamline Your Return Process
Because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, you might be experiencing fluctuations in demand for certain products in your eCommerce business.
In addition, you might also see that some of your customers are trying to make back some of their spendings, especially those who are suffering financially.
Such return requests are, in fact, likely to rise in the upcoming days, and therefore you must streamline your return process to make it stress-free for your customers.
You can easily do this by allowing your customers to directly submit a return request via your web store and track its progress in real-time.
All you’ll need to do is integrate the RMA Magento 2 Extension into your online store, and you can easily configure it without much hassle.
Of course, you can tailor the terms to suit your business directly from the extension, and it will still ultimately help to boost your customers’ loyalty towards your online store.
Final Thoughts…
So, these are some of the best ways eCommerce businesses can make the most out of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Now, we completely understand that there is no one-size-fits-all, so you can definitely consider making certain tweaks depending on your industry and target audience.
But the bottom is the same for all of us. The eCommerce industry will continue to face uncertainty, so it’s crucial to accept the uncertain, shifting behavior of customers and try our best to serve them as best as you can.
