With Covid-19 dramatically flipping the world upside down, there are some industries that had an unprecedented impact. Among those, eCommerce and the Omni-channel industry is something that has witnessed tremendous growth.
With lockdowns on the rise, the percentage of people who began first shopping online dramatically increased. Constrained consumers who refused to shop online became frequent users of omnichannel products.
With few alternatives during the pandemic, shopping online was the only course of action many people could take. One year later, the efficiency of online commerce led people to not shift to their previous behaviour. This resulted in eCommerce acquiring a decade worth of customers been acquired in a year across the globe.
The categories that had a tremendous impact on this acquisition were the constrained users and work-from-home individuals.
Constrained consumers – whose income had severe depletion in the pandemic found that online shopping was much cheaper than regular brick and mortar shopping.
With work-from-home extending itself as a new lifestyle, online shopping was pushed further as the only form of shopping for these individuals.
Before the pandemic, only 9% of global consumers were shopping online. But as restricted movement forced people to stay indoors this number jumped to a whopping 27%. Out of which 44% claimed they shop atleast once a week and 23% more than once a week.
With the new consumer base, it became interesting to witness new consumer behaviour. Buying behaviour has seen some interesting changes, with constrained spenders, free delivery was more important than faster delivery. New products and services are also been added to the eCommerce category.
Brands trying to scale their eCommerce business should keep these factors in mind while designing their strategies. Discounts vary service on one platform. Local delivery is some of the factors affecting huge eCommerce growth, Make sure you jump on this bandwagon.
The omnichannel behavior is unlikely to reverse and hence companies involved in eCommerce should make a note of these new attributes.
